Coming up in Committee: Seventeen Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, May 20 – May 22

3. S2657: “The information contained in a portable electronic device shall not be subject to search by a law enforcement officer incident to a lawful custodial arrest except pursuant to a warrant”. (S Judiciary; Tue, May 20) The same bill was vetoed by Governor Chafee two years ago and, according to the Wall Street Journal, Governor Jerry Brown recently vetoed a similar bill in California, telling “the legislature not to require warrants for cellphone searches, saying the issue belongs in the courts”. We’ll see what happens in RI this session.

4. S2985: Allows “a health care facility licensed as an organized ambulatory care facility” to operate at multiple locations without having to seek an individual license for each site. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, May 20)

5. S2208: Extends full state school-housing facilities support (which I believe means state aid to assist with capital construction costs) from district-sponsored charter schools to any Rhode Island charter school, e.g. Mayoral academies. (S Finance; Thu, May 22)

6. S3014: Adds “the real property of any person having debts secured by casino-issued lines of credit” to the list of property “exempt from attachment on any warrant of distress or on any other writ”. (S Finance; Thu, May 22)

7. S2072: If the annual gross receipts of a Rhode Island C-Corp or LLC are less than $500, the corporation gets an automatic tax-refund in the amount of the difference between its gross receipts and the $500 corporate minimum tax it would have to pay… (S Finance; Tue, May 20) …i.e. changes the corporate minimum tax from a tax that certain corporations owe to the government just for existing, to requirement that certain corporations pay the government the first $500 they make each year in the form of corporate income tax.

8. H8201: Limits out-of-pocket expenditures for prescription drugs covered by health insurance plans to $100 per 30 day supply. Also, adds new regulations on “step-therapy” protocols from insurer.s (H Corporations; Tue, May 20)

9. S2871: Exempts the Comprehensive Community Action Program from real and personal property taxes. (S Finance; Tue, May 20) A bill that would have exempted all “community action program agencies and any predecessor named” was held for further study by the House in April. This bill applies only to a single agency, designated specifically by its name.

10A. S2997: Changes the “Rhode Island Human Resources Investment Council” into the “Governor’s Workforce Board Rhode Island”, and gives the new board lots of new responsibilities like developing a biennial “strategic statewide employment and training plan”, “conven[ing] an advisory group to assist in the development of this comprehensive inventory and analysis that consists of stakeholders and organizations with specific knowledge and expertise in the area of workforce development”, etc. Also, S2998 is a single section of s2997, focusing on the “state career pathways system”, changing its purpose from “increasing the skill level of Rhode Island workers in alignment with industry needs” to “to develop[ing] and expand[ing] career pathways that enable individuals to secure employment within a specific industry or occupational sector, and to advance over time to successively higher levels of education and employment in that sector”. (S Labor; Wed, May 21But it’s difficult to understand why a legislative body that doesn’t believe it’s possible to create a government education system that can teach students well enough to pass a basic test on the subjects they are supposed to be learning would expect government to be effective at managing the training and careers of individuals, once they’ve left the school system.

10B. S2949: “Examine[s] implementation of up to two model sites over a one-year period” to help “re-imagine the approach to career and technical education statewide in Rhode Island”. Also, S2947 “encourages every district to provide professional development opportunities for school counselors that focus on best practices in collaborating with business, industry, and other community organizations to create internships and apprenticeships for secondary students”. (S Education; Wed, May 21) Looking north to Massachusetts provides strong evidence that creating a better vocational education system in RI is not a problem of designing a never-before-seen approach; it is a problem of finding the political will to replace the existing system with something known to work.

11. H8130: Repeals a law, the would probably be declared unconstitutional if challenged, prohibiting campaign literature “designed or tending to injure or defeat any candidate for nomination or election to any public office, by criticizing the candidate’s personal character or political action, or designed or tending to aid, injure, or defeat any question submitted to the voters, unless there appears upon the circular, flier, or poster in a conspicuous place the name of the author and either the names of the chairperson and secretary, or of two officers, of the political or other organization issuing the poster, flier, or circular, or of some voter who is responsible for it, with the voter’s name and residence, and the street and numbers, if any”. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 20)

12. S2502: Eliminates the 2015 sunset date on the “Health Care Services Utilization Review Act” (H Corporations; Tue, May 20) This a permanent “fix” to a law that has been extended at least once before.

13. S2207: Exempts commercial use of fuel oil, propane, and natural gas from the state sales tax. (S Finance; Tue, May 20)

14. S2194: Appropriates $5 per each non-institutionalized person age 65 and over to municipalities, that provide “an equal amount of cash or in-kind resources for senior programs”, for use in a “community senior services grant program”. (S Finance; Thu, May 22)

15. S2516: Prohibits optometrist contracts with insurers, hospitals or HMOs from requiring “that an optometrist provide services or materials to its subscribers at a fee set by the insurer or vision plan unless the insurer or vision plan compensates the optometrist for the provision of such services or materials to the patient”. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, May 20)

16. Pin-pricking Rhode Island with the needle: S2229 allows the town of Richmond to set a maximum $10 fee to operate a business there; S2749 turns the one-time $5 fee for operating a business in Smithfield into an annual fee. (S Housing and Municipal Government; Tue, May 20) This bill is this week’s winner of “The Rhode Island Senate has Time for This but Not the Master Lever?” award.

17. H8200: Creates new “renewable energy professional” and “solar thermal professional” certificates within the body of Rhode Island contracting law. (H Corporations; Tue, May 20)

Significant, But Required to Happen in One Form or Another: H8060: Places the question of whether a state constitutional convention should be held on the 2014 election ballot. If the legislature doesn’t pass a bill that does this, then the Secretary of State will place the question on the ballot, according to  Article XIV of the state constitution (unless, of course, a financial ratings agency issues an advisory that Article XIV doesn’t really count). H8061 creates a preparatory commission “to assemble information on constitutional questions for the electors”, as per Section 2 article XIV of the state constitution. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 20)

Ranking Indeterminate: S2325: “On or before December 31, 2014, the office of management and budget shall develop an implementation plan for a centralized hearing agency which will standardize the state’s administrative hearing process, reduce confusion, improve efficiency by dedicating qualified state personnel to administrative hearing duties only, and increase trust and transparency in the state hearing process. (S Finance; Tue, May 20)

S2726: Changes to the law covering workers wages they are owed, including extending the definition of employee (at least in this section of the law) to independent contractors. (S Labor; Wed, May 21)

Inobvious Priorities: H7600 >> Excludes “the property of any agency or public body” from the Rhode Island Museum Property Act.

Local Impact: Bristol 2, North Providence 2, Tiverton.

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