1. S0598: Establishes a legal regime for physician assisted suicide in Rhode Island. (S Judiciary; Thu, May 28)

2. H5074: Minimum wage increase; likely to be amended at the committee session. (H Labor; Thu, May 28)

3. S0318: Prohibits medical health insurance premium rates from varying based on gender (excluding policies for “hospital confinement indemnity”, “disability income”, “accident only”, “long-term care”, “medicare supplement”, “limited benefit health”, “specified diseased indemnity”, “sickness of bodily injury or death by accident or both” and “other limited benefit policies”. (S Health and Human Services; Thu, May 28)

4. H6180: Establishes criteria for making and deciding legal claims of job discrimination on the basis of sex. (H Labor; Thu, May 28)

5. S0301: “Any for-profit or nonprofit entity providing, by contract, mental health services, healthcare services or similar services to the State of Rhode Island regarding developmentally disabled, the elderly or youth shall provide a list of the line item accounting of the ten (10) highest paid administrative/director/CEO salaries, costs, benefits, and any and all forms of compensation provided to those individuals in the organization with the contract. Other sources of funding, including fundraising, endowments, trusts, memorial giving and/or any and all activities that fund the agency shall be included in the disclosure”. (S Finance; Thu, May 28)

6. 3 changes to RI election procedures; H5951: changes the time that ballots must be preserved after an election, from “the first day of September in the second year after the ballots were cast” to “twenty-two months”; H5952: removes the affidavit procedure currently required, before a person whose name is not on the voter list at their polling place can cast a “provisional ballot” in an RI election; and H5950: eliminates the double-envelope requirement for RI mail ballots. (S Judiciary; Thu, May 28)

7. H6146: Extends the definition of “building” in the state’s abandoned property law to include buildings or structures whose use is entirely commercial. (Under existing law, a structure must have at least one floor that’s residential to be considered a “building”). (S Judiciary; RR & H Municipal Government; Thu, May 28)

8. S0555: Allows “developmental disability agencies…to self-insure health care provided to their employees, and their dependents and their retirees and their dependents and to create and establish a fund for this purpose”. (S Health and Human Services; Thu, May 28) From the text, it’s not immediately clear whether this bill is closing a loophole or defining an exception, but it does raise an interesting question of why a specific type of employer needs its own health insurance section of the law.

Ranking Indeterminate: S0704: Repeal of the The Rhode Island Renewable Energy Coordinating Board. (H Environment and Natural Resources; Thu, May 28)

Local Impact: Charlestown, Newport, Smithfield, Warwick, West Warwick.