Legislation

This bill would have greatly expanded a tax credit for businesses that make donations to "scholarship organizations" that funnel money to private and parochial schools for tuition purposes.

Rather than addressing the problems that have forced people to engage in panhandling in the first place, this proposal instead aimed to punish them for their poverty by making it illegal for a person in a car to pass anything to a person outside the vehicle while in an "active lane of travel."

This legislation would have clarified that an existing statute that exempts "a book or writing" from sales tax when sold by the author covers both fiction and nonfiction writings.

This misnomered legislation from the Attorney General makes it a crime to electronically transmit nude or sexually explicit images without the person’s consent, regardless of the sender’s intent.

This much talked-about bill aimed to “require Internet service providers to provide digital blocking of sexual content and patently offensive material . . . and allow consumers to deactivate digital block upon payment of a twenty dollar ($20.00) fee.”

This legislation would have prohibited state-purchased or funded Internet service providers (ISPs) from halting, slowing, or otherwise tampering with the transfer of data, thus ensuring fair and equal access to all Internet content.

This spring, the ACLU testified in support of important legislation which would recognize the importance of encouraging student journalism and guaranteeing to students certain basic rights to freedom of the press.

During March, the ACLU testified on a bill which amends current state law designed to protect the religious freedom of Rhode Islanders by restricting autopsies when it would contravene the decedent’s religious beliefs.

The ACLU testified on two bills which were clearly aimed at panhandling, although they would also have a much broader impact on the exercise of First Amendment rights generally.