1. S0593: Eliminates the up-to six month prison sentence for instances of disorderly conduct — including for “obstruct[ing] a highway…to which the public or a substantial group of the public has access or any other place ordinarily used for the passage of persons, vehicles, or conveyances” — unless the case involves domestic violence. (S Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17)

2. H5589: Phases in a requirement that employers apply to participate in e-verify, with the last wave of employers,those with less than 50 employees, required to apply no later than January 1, 2017. (H Labor; Thu, Mar 19)

3. S0650: Imposes an additional $46 fee for a marriage license, $44 of which is to be administrated by the Rhode Island Coalition against Domestic Violence to fund domestic violence prevention programs. (S Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17) The Department of Justice reports that “intimate partner violence” rates for married women are significantly lower than are the rates for never married or divorced/widowed women, yet a group of RI legislators think it’s a good idea to make couples who are taking basic steps towards responsible commitment pay for the bad acts of everyone. This bill creates the impression that Rhode Island’s dour progressives really don’t like marriage very much.

4. H5503: “All recipients of general public assistance shall provide a minimum of twenty (20) hours of community service per month while receiving benefits unless the recipient is employed and working twenty (20) hours during such month”. (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 18)

5. H5817: Makes it a crime “to knowingly install, conceal or otherwise place an electronic tracking device in or on a motor vehicle without the consent of the operator and all occupants of the vehicle for the purpose of monitoring or following the operator occupant or occupants of the vehicle” and adds this crime to the definition of domestic violence. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17)

6. H5776: Requires courses in musical performing arts at middle schools and high schools “managed and controlled by the state”. (H Finance; Wed, Mar 18)

7. H5770: Makes it illegal to distribute indecent material that was created “without the consent of the person or all persons depicted in the visual image”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17)

8. H5337: Gives the Rhode Island Student Loan Authority the power to purchase its own bonds and notes, “if the authority determines that such purchases will stabilize or make the market for the authority’s bonds more efficient”. (H Finance; Tue, Mar 17) Can anyone concisely explain how a governmental agency buying its own bonds will have a legitimate, positively beneficial, economic/fiscal effect?

9. S0398: Drivers charged a second time within six months for not having automobile insurance “shall be presumed to have knowledge that the vehicle did not have the required financial security” — but the good news is that the presumption is rebuttable! (S Commerce; Tue, Mar 17) You might be able to come up with a few technical reasons why there’s no legal or constitutional problem with this bill, but it veers awfully close, if not fully into, the realm of being guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

10. H5341: “Employees who are covered by employer-sponsored disability insurance programs may elect to be exempt from” RI’s temporary disability insurance program. (H Finance; Wed, Mar 18)

11. H5641: Requires that “all fees collected for the lease of tidal lands for any renewable energy project with a project cost exceeding five million dollars shall be deposited into” the state’s “local agriculture and seafood small grants and technical assistance fund”. (H Finance; Wed, Mar 18)

12. H5364: Raises the minimum wage for employees who receive tips to the same minimum wage as other workers by 2010. (H Labor; Thu, Mar 19)

13. H5638: Requires a “financial institution or business entity” that purchases a residential property through foreclosure to post a bond worth 25% of the assessed value of the property, with the municipality where the property is located, that the municipality can use for upkeep, if the property falls below standards specified by the “the Rhode Island housing maintenance and occupancy code”. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 18)

14. H5531: “Allows accessory family dwelling units” (if possible, with “no additional exterior entrances”) to be built alongside owner-occupied single family residences, for family members “who are sixty-two years of age or older”. (Presently, this is allowed only for family members with disabilities). (H Municipal Government; Thu, Mar 19) This bills comes awfully close, if not being fully into, the regime of picking and choosing who basic laws will apply to.  

15. Annual raft of bills concerning the expungement of criminal records, for example, S0064 allows current rules for expungement of a criminal record that apply to an offender with only a single offense to apply to offenders with up to 3 misdemeanors or felonies; S0261 provides for expungement of up to six misdemeanors, provide no felonies have occurred, etc. Other expungement related bills are S0432, S0506, S0515, S0671 and S0682. (S Judicary; Tue, Mar 17)

16A. H5326/H5164: Creates a position of “Inspector General” for Rhode Island, ” with the purpose of preventing and detecting fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in the expenditure of public funds”, to be selected by a majority vote of the Governor, Attorney General and General Treasurer. (H Finance; Tue, Mar 17)

16B. H5308: Grants subpoena power to the “legislative oversight commission” (14 members; 4 from the House, 3 from the Senate, 4 from the General public, the Director of Administration, the House Fiscal advisor, and the Auditor General, charged with “conduct[ing] evaluations and reviews of statutes, statutory entities, and associated rules and regulation”). (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17)

17. H5540: Restores Middletown’s and Portsmouth’s state education aid to its pre-“funding formula” levels. (H Finance; Tue, Mar 17)

18. H5077: Charges the RI Board of Education with establishing “state-wide goals that are school specific for increasing the number of graduates who 10 earn certificates and degrees at both two and four year post-secondary public institutions of higher education” and requires the Board to develop and make available data on “college access and completion data…that includes data on students’ educational experiences and outcomes from early childhood through higher education in Rhode Island public institutions of higher education and into the workforce”. The bill then lists four specific metrics related to post-secondary enrollment, and also includes a reporting requirement on “excess credits” defined as “credits which the student earned and which were not required for the degree or certificate”. (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 18)

19. H5220: Rewriting of the law concerning the responsibilities that “municipal agencies, state agencies or persons” have to protect personal data. (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 17)

20. H5429: Before any party could sue over a “condominium dispute”, they would be required to “petition the department of business regulation for arbitration” (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 17)

21. H5636: Allows landlords to ask for an amount equivalent to a security deposit, and first and last month’s rent upon renting an apartment, though apportioned as first month’s rent and a security deposit equal to two months rent. Also, H5635 allows reasonable cleaning and trash removal expenses to be deducted from a security deposit (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 18)

22. H5646: Requires municipal governments and fire districts to submit “to the budget office” the names of “any person, privatization contractor, or vendor who performed legal, medical, accounting, engineering, or any other professional, technical or consultant service[s]” and information on how much they were paid. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17) But shouldn’t the state government get better at presenting municipal (and especially fire-district) information in a timely and consistent manner, before going to the next level of granularity?.

23. H5798: Removes the ban in current law against building a hotel at Twin River casino site. (H Finance; Tue, Mar 17)

24. H5672: The now-annual wood-stove regulation bill which, among other things, a) prohibits the burning of any wood other than “clean wood” and b) prohibits (after 2016) the sale or rental of property containing a non-certified wood stove whose chimney is closer than 50 feet to the lot line, or 200 feet from a residential dwelling of a neighbor. (H Environment and Natural Resources; Thu, Mar 19)

25. Bans on indoor use use of e-cigarettes (H5690), formaldehyde in children’s products (H5691), certain products containing synthetic microbeads (H5692), food containers containing bisphenol A (H5693), and residential upholstered bedding or furniture containing high concentrations of certain hazardous-designated flame retardant chemicals (H5694). (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 18)

26. H5292: Gives the state of Rhode Island “exclusive legal authority” for the regulation of unmanned aerial drones (perhaps while a study commission on aerial drones does its study commission thing). (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 17)

27. S0606: Creates a “governmental responsiveness, expediency and efficiency team program”, aka the GREET program, “to place qualified [private-sector] executives on a voluntary basis without state renumeration in state agencies”. (S Commerce; Thu, Mar 19)

28. A pair of private appropriations bills, therefore requiring a 2/3 vote for approval: $750,000 to the Polaris Manufacturing Extension Partnership (H5542) and $500,000 for the JASON Project and STEM programs and resources (H5551) (H Finance; Wed, Mar 18)

29. H5244/H5658: Changes to state law allowing “social gaming” (e.g. office pools) and “Las Vegas nights”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 17)

Ranking indeterminate: The House Judiciary Agenda for Wednesday, March 18 contains a series of changes to real estate law concerning specific situations, including H5769 wich regulates “mortgage trigger leads”; H5612 which defines a number of “minor defects” which would not invalidate the recording of a deed and H5615 which allows owners of a free-standing condominium unit to extend their unit beyond the existing footprint.

Inobvious Priorities: S0477 >> Requires a “certified food safety manager” to be on the premises of any food-establishment that “prepare[s] potentially hazardous foods”; H5820 >> Adds “inspectors of the public utilities commission and division of motor carriers” to the list of RI “peace officers” with the power to make arrests; H5660 >> Prohibits the sale of rhinoceros horns and other forms of ivory; H5587 >> Requires labeling of genetically modified milk.

Local Impact: Barrington, Central Falls, East Greenwich, Glocester, Middletown, Pawtucket, Smithfield.