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The year got off to a positive start when, on his first day in office, Governor Chafee signed an executive order lifting a requirement that state agencies and business contractors use the deeply flawed federal E-Verify program to check the immigration status of workers.

Abortion also tangled up a bill that sought to establish licensing procedures for the profession of genetic counselor.

The ACLU testified before the House and Senate Judiciary committees in opposition to legislation that would have dramatically limited the ability of prisoners to accrue “good time” days that shorten their sentence.

Governor Lincoln Chafee has signed into law an ACLU bill that will close a loophole in a long-standing state law designed to protect consumers’ privacy and help reduce the problem of identity theft.  The new law bars most merchants from demanding any part of a customer’s social security number in order to complete a sale.

The Rhode Island ACLU, along with nine other organizations, submitted written testimony today to the Secretary of State’s Office, urging significant revisions to proposed rules dealing with procedures for the issuance of voter ID cards to people who do not have the requisite photo identification required to vote on Election Day under a new state law.  The testimony pointed out that the proposed rules do not adequately address the specific needs of some of the groups that will be most in need of voter ID cards, including the elderly, people with disabilities, the poor and the transient.