Legislation

Though we strongly supported the goal of ensuring more eligible voters are added to the voter rolls, we opposed legislation which would have allowed the DMV to make determinations about a person’s citizenship for purposes of automatically registering them to vote.

We strongly supported a bill which will ensure that information on school-based arrests or SRO-related incidents on school campuses, including the number of SROs employed by a school, is made publicly available.

We strongly supported a piece of legislation which would have expanded the definition of race under our state anti-discrimination laws to include “traits historically associated with race,” importantly including hair texture and protective hairstyles.

At a meeting of a state legislative commission designed to examine the impact of the criminalization of sex work, we testified in favor of decriminalization of these offenses and provided a number of other policy recommendations on the topic.

This importance piece of anti-discrimination legislation would have amended the state Fair Employment Practices Act to prohibit an employer from requiring that an employee enter a non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreement as a condition of employment.

We supported this legislation which would have generally prohibited employers from using credit history as a component of the hiring process, noting that it could place unnecessary barriers to individual’s seeking employment.

We urged rejection of the sections of this bill which put in place criminal records checks that could broadly disqualify justice-involved individuals seeking to become Medicaid personal care attendants or high-risk providers.

This legislation would have importantly ensured that all residents under the age of 19 – regardless of immigration status – would qualify for comprehensive health care through the state’s RIte Track program.

We supported this resolution which would have expressed state solidarity in the campaign for D.C. statehood, noting that it is in line with basic tenets of civil rights, equity, and democratic representation.