Legislation

We strongly supported a bill which would have prohibited the questioning of a juvenile suspected of criminal activity without a parent or legal guardian present.

We opposed legislation which lowers the age which would define an “elder” from 65 to 60 years old for the purposes of the criminal offense of “exploiting an elder."

We supported a repeal of this law which requires all voters in RI to present photo ID at the polls on Election Day, noting that it presents an unnecessary barrier to eligible voters who may not have ready access to a photo ID.

The ACLU once again supported legislation to permanently rectify a disparity in voter representation and require all incarcerated individuals to be counted, for voting purposes only, at their last known address.

Following 2020’s extraordinary voter turnout after the implementation of early in-person voting and less burdensome mail ballot procedures, we supported comprehensive legislation which would codify some of these voting processes for all future elections.

With artificial intelligence rapidly becoming ubiquitous in governmental decision-making, we supported legislation which would have examined the way that AI is used in our state.

While we supported provisions of this bill which would have extended the temporary authority for entities subject to the Open Meetings Act to hold remote meetings in light of the Covid pandemic, we expressed objection to two details.

We supported this proposed constitutional amendment which would remove the state Constitution’s onerous requirement that bars individuals from voting in an election, except for President, unless they have registered to vote at least 30 days in advance, one of the longest time periods in the country.

We opposed this legislation which would have carved out a new crime for the making of threats of mass violence and false reports of threats to any education or religious institution, or any social, civic, or fraternal associations.