1A. S2511: Mandates that all Rhode Islanders “obtain and maintain creditable coverage pursuant to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act enacted by the Congress of the United States”. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Apr 15) There doesn’t appear to be an exemption for (Federal) executive-branch waivers in this bill.

1B. S2533: Creates a panel operated under the leadership of the healthcare commissioner (“referred to herein this chapter as ‘the authority'”) charged with creating a plan for making “HealthSourceRI the sole hub for securing insurance or health services coverage for all Rhode Island residents”, aggregating all medical funding for health insurance and/or health care services through HealthSourceRI, establishing “global spending targets” for the provision of healthcare, and developing a plan to pay for it all that includes a payroll tax. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Apr 15)

2. H7285: Repeals the section of the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans, i.e. “pay-day” loans, also repealing the provisions in the law that allow check-cashing businesses to automatically operate as pay-day lenders. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16) According to the official description, this is a complete repeal of pay-day lending.

3. H7944: Adds fire districts to the “fiscal stabilization law”, the law that allows the state to displace the elected local governments of financially distressed communities and supersede them with budget commissions and receivers. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15) The Senate version will be heard on the floor on the same day; it looks like a budget commission, at least, for Central Coventry is coming soon.  I’ll have a post explaining how Central Coventry got here, and what it means for tomorrow. 

4. H7067: Prohibits building schools anywhere in Rhode Island on the sites of former mines, but really intended to prevent construction of the new Blackstone Prep elementary school. This bill is listed under the “scheduled for consideration” portion of the agenda, which means it is very likely to be voted on, though it’s possible that an amended version will be introduced (as happened with the no-standardized testing bill several weeks ago). If this bill doesn’t pass, primary sponsor James McLauglin gets a second shot at stopping the Blackstone Prep school from opening with H7752 which prevents any new school from being opened within 200 feet of a business holding a class B, C, D or I liquor license. (H Education and Welfare; Wed, Apr 16)

5. On Tuesday, April 15 the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear this year’s raft of gun-control bills. Here’s a link to the entire agenda, plus there are two gun-related bills from an earlier hearing that day, S2719 and S2720. The two most important bills in this set are:

• S2814: Reduces the right-bear arms in Rhode Island, to a government-granted privilege, by changing the “shall issue” process by which municipalities grant concealed carry firearms permits to a “may issue” criteria, based on the local governing authority’s decision than an applicant has shown “good reason to fear an injury to his or her person or property” or another “proper showing of need”. Especially given the Ninth Circuit’s ruling on a similar California Law, this bill is of questionable Constitutionality.
• S2774: Provides for information related to mental-health related involuntarily commitments to be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) database used for conducting firearms purchase background checks. The records sent to database will be from cases where there has been a demonstration of “clear and convincing evidence that the subject of the hearing is in need of care and treatment in a facility, and…continued unsupervised presence in the community would, by reason of mental disability, create a likelihood of serious harm”.

6. On Wednesday, April 16, the House Judiciary Committee will hear a bumper crop of marijuana bills…

• H7765: Transfers court jurisdiction over cases of “possession of one ounce or less of marijuana by a person who is under the age of eighteen years” from the traffic tribunal to family court.
• H7861: Decriminalizes all instances of possession of more than an ounce of marijuana (currently, a 3rd violation in 18 months is a misdemeanor)
• H7981 and H7862: The annual tweaks to medical marijuana rules.
• H7611: Prevents medical marijuana “compassion centers” from advertising “in print, broadcast, or by paid in-person solicitation of customers”
• H7610: Requires that medical marijuana cardholders obtain a “cultivation certificate” from the state in order to grow their own.
• H7506: A full-on marijuana legalization regime, with a 10% sales tax “imposed on all retail sales of marijuana” (not including compassion centers).

7. H7188: Imposes an additional $46 fee for a marriage license, $44 of which is to be provided to the Rhode Island Coalition against Domestic Violence to fund domestic violence prevention programs. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 15) 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 bunch 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 really creates an impression that our state’s dour progressives don’t like marriage very much.

8. H7212: Requires teachers at Mayoral academies to participate in the state retirement system. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 17)

9. H7182: Gives school districts scheduled to receive more aid than they are currently receiving, at the completion of the seven-year phase in of the new state education aid “funding formula”, their final total beginning immediately in FY2015 (FY2015 will be year 4 of 7). This bill also allows districts that are spending more than the state average per-pupil the option of diverting the accelerated funding provided under this chapter away from education, in order to subsidize other municipal costs. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 17)

10. H8006: Extends the grandfather clause in the judicial nomination process, allowing the governor to fill a judicial opening with any candidate who has been selected for that opening in the past 5 years, rather than a candidate chosen specifically for that opening (positions of presiding justice, chief justice, or chief judge openings excepted). (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 15)

11. H7809: Tiered estate tax, where the first dollar is paid on an estate over $2M; H7807: Changes the definition of the estate tax to “a sum equal to the maximum credit for state death taxes allowed by 26 U.S.C. 2011, as it was in effect as of January 1, 2001; provided, however, that a credit shall be allowed against any tax so determined in the amount of $99,600.” (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15)

12. H7323: “The [Rhode Island Student Loan Authority] shall…have the power out of any funds available to purchase bonds and notes of the authority if the authority determines that such purchases will stabilize or make the market for the authority’s bonds more efficient”. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 17) Bills saying a state authority can buy its own bonds, in order to stabilize them and make them more efficient, make me nervous.

13. H7982: Makes it an unlawful employment practice “to refuse to reasonably accommodate an employee’s or prospective employee’s condition related to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition”. (S Labor; Wed, Apr 16 & H Labor; Thu, Apr 17)

14. S2488/H7781: Repeals the law giving “any person, who has served as a member of the general assembly, as a general officer, and as a justice of the supreme court, the superior court, the family court, or the district court, whose combined service as a member of the general assembly, a justice, and a general officer is twenty (20) years or more and who has retired, resigned, or completed such service” a pension “upon reaching the age of sixty-two (62) years…equal to three-fourths (3/4) of the highest annual salary that the person was receiving during such service”. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16 & S Finance; Tue, Apr 15)

15. H7208: Requires fiscal notes on legislation to be provided to committees 3 days prior to an applicable bill being heard. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

16. S2281: Creates a “Joint Committee of the Repealer” within the legislature, to recommend laws and regulations to be repealed. (S Judiciary; Tue, Apr 15)

17. H7417: Restores COLAs to state pensioners, on the following scale: Salary less than $30K, 3%; salary between $30K and $60K, 1.5%; Salary between $60K and $90K, 1%; Salary greater than $90K, 0%. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

18. H7554: Allows the Auditor General to conduct investigations year-round, achieving this through the somewhat unusual mechanism of tacking this power onto the listing of powers of the Joint Committee on Legislative Services. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

19. H7121: Creates an Inspector General position for Rhode Island, to be selected by a majority vote of the Governor, Attorney General, and General Treasurer. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

20. H7804: Assesses a $50-per-semester “public transportation fee…on students attending a Rhode Island institution of public higher education” which would entitle students to unlimited use of Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority services. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 17)

21. H7679: A bill that creates a new bureaucracy, to enforce 17 findings relating to the “protection of homeless”.  A very significant aspect of this bill is that it blatantly violates the separation of powers provision in the state constitution, creating a nine-member panel that has the authority to make administrative rules that carry the force of law that is appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives — under separation of powers, the practice of the legislature creating its own executive departments is supposed to have ended. This bill is also problematic because it directly gives seats on a body that has the power to make administrative rules that carry the force of law to private organizations. (H Education and Welfare; Wed, Apr 16)

22A. S2442: Mandates that RI water suppliers directly manage funds they receive for water quality protection, instead of remitting them to the Rhode Island Clean Water Finance Agency. S2313 looks suspiciously similar. (S Environment and Agriculture; Wed, Apr 16)

22B. On Wednesday, April 16, the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee will hear four reappointments to the Rhode Island Clean Water Finance Agency Board; James Hagerty, Joshua Celeste, Lisa Ferrara and Scott D. Lajoie. If reconfirmed, these appointments will have a considerable role in deciding how the “municipal road and bridge revolving fund” under control of the CWFA is administered. (S Environment and Agriculture; Wed, Apr 16)

23. H7090: Reduces the corporate income tax by 0.25% by the “the aggregate amount of new employment of the eligible company and its eligible subsidiaries for such taxable year” up to a maximum reduction of 6% “for the applicable income tax rate” or 3% “for the applicable personal income tax rate”. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15)

24. S2532: Changes the definition of “small-employer” for healthcare matters from a ceiling of 50 to 100 employees. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Apr 15)

25. H7035: Mandates that half of a budget surplus occurring in any fiscal year be distributed to the general fund, and half be distributed to the cities and towns for the limited purposes of paying off “(i) Unfunded liabilities, (ii) Bond indebtedness, or (iii) Pension obligations”. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

26. H7885: A state maintenance of effort requirement with regards to its contribution the pension system, “until such time as the fund ratio meets or exceeds eighty percent”. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

27. H7728: Requires that a zero-based budgeting system, where appropriations requests are “based upon a justification by each department head of the budget of the department from a zero base”, be implemented across all state departments by FY2018. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16)

28. H7368: Places a moratorium on “approvals for new healthcare equipment or new institutional health services prior to July 1, 2015″, with what appear to be exceptions for “domestic medical tourism” and “currently licensed multi-practice physician ambulatory surgery center[s]”. (H Education and Welfare; Wed, Apr 16)

29. S2086 allows local inclusionary zoning ordinances to include “off-site construction or rehabilitation, donation of land suitable for development of the required affordable units, and/or the payment of a fee-in-lieu of the construction or provision of affordable housing units”. S2550 limits local inclusionary zoning ordinances to the status of being “a voluntary option for the applicant as part of the proposed development”, and gives municipalities the option of allowing builders to pay “a fee-in-lieu of the construction or provision of affordable housing” instead. (S Housing and Municipal Government; Tue, Apr 15)

30. H7143: Repeals the minimum corporate tax, purportedly for “any corporation that has been out of business for more than twelve (12) consecutive months” BUT because it leaves the minimum franchise tax untouched, this bill has no impact on any corporation’s tax liability. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15)

Ranking Indeterminate: Establishes a “Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification” within state government and chaired by the Director of Labor and Training, to “foster voluntary compliance with the law by educating business owners and employees about applicable requirements; conduct joint, targeted investigations and enforcement actions against violators; protect the health, safety and benefit rights of workers; and restore competitive equality for law-abiding businesses”. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16) Apparently, this bill’s sponsors do not think this is going to survive as Budget Article 14

H7740: Restores the “domestic production deduction” for Rhode Island businesses, that was very recently repealed. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15)

H7120/S2137: Creates a department of agriculture within the department of environment management, and without a cabinet-level or other high ranking administrator of agriculture. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16 & S Environment and Agriculture; Wed, Apr 16)

Inobvious Priorities: S2889: >> Allows Providence arson investigators to carry firearms statewide; H7192: >> Regulation of circus elephants; H7961 >> What exactly is a “suburban vehicle”?

Local Impact: Barrington, Providence, Tiverton, West Warwick, Woonsocket at the moment (Landmark Hospital).