1. H2059: Prohibits standardized testing from being used as a graduation requirement from Rhode Island high schools until after July 1, 2017. (S Education; Wed, May 7) On April 3, the Senate passed a standardized testing bill which assumed testing would be a future graduation requirement. The vote was 6-0, but included two ex-officio votes from the Senate President and Majority Leader, with only four of the regular committee members present. Now a ban on testing is receiving a hearing, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet that more Senate Education committee members will be present this time. What’s going on inside the backrooms of the RI Senate that led to this odd sequence of events?

2. S2030: Requires employers with 200 or more employees to apply to participate in E-verify by January 1, 2015, and all employers to apply to participate in E-verify by January 1, 2016. Employers are required to keep applying every 60 days, until they are accepted. (S Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

3. Gary Sasse and John Simmons will appear before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, May 8, to give testimony under the heading of “Analysis and discussion of determining the payment or non-repayment of moral obligation bonds relating to 38 Studios and the consequences of such choices”.

4. H7437: Writes into law in-state tuition at RI public colleges and universities for students, including illegal aliens (but not non-immigrant aliens) who graduated from a Rhode Island high school that they spent three years at, including illegal aliens who have applied for citizenship, provided that the Federal government has provides a pathway to citizenship as part of an amnesty law. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

5. S2335: Eliminates tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge, replacing the anticipated revenue with a multi-part formula requiring that fixed percentages of the total state budget be annually appropriated to a “transportation infrastructure fund” and adding a temporary 5% surcharge to motor vehicle fees to help initially seed the infrastructure fund. Also, if a Federal internet sales tax is adopted, instead of the RI sales tax dropping from 7% to 6.5%, as is specified in current law, the sales tax would only drop to 6.625%, with the 0.125% difference going to the infrastructure fund. Also, creates a study commission to look at eliminating the gas tax. (S Finance; Tue, May 6) This is on the “for consideration” part of the calendar, which means this bill (or an amended version thereof) is likely to be voted on, i.e. this could be the major transportation funding reform considered by the RI General Assembly in this session.

6. H7776: State bailout of the Central Falls pension system. The Central Falls fiscal restoration plan, created by the receiver and approved by the bankruptcy court, reduced a number of pensions to 55% of their original value. However (as referenced in a budget article passed into law in 2012) the settlement also contained a “transition plan” so that the “combined reduced pension payments and Transition Payments” to Central Falls retirees would “not aggregate to less than seventy-five percent (75%) of their pre-bankruptcy pension payments” through fiscal year 2016. This bill sets the minimum pension reduction to 75.6% in 2016, and raises it to 100% over a 20-year period. Where will the extra money come from, you ask? According to this bill…

The state is liable to the retirement system for the cost of funding a retirement system for the existing retirees of the city of Central Falls who are members of the system under this section and chapter. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

7. H7436: Limits receivers and budget commissions “to dealing with financial matters” and prohibits them from enacting local ordinances or charter changes. (H Finance; Thu, May 8)

8. H7941: Prohibits direct cash welfare assistance provided on electronic benefit transfer cards from being used for “the purchase of alcoholic beverages, lottery tickets or tobacco products”, and prohibits individuals and store owners from accepting payments. H7372 adds to those provisions that the “Rhode Island department of human services…shall apply to the federal government to be granted delegated authority for all [food-stamp program] investigations and enforcement actions that involve the organized fraudulent use and/or trafficking of SNAP benefits by retail establishments and/or business owners”. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

9. S2822: Anti-patent trolling bill (S Judiciary; Tue, May 6) The short description provided here does not mean that this bill is not a good idea.

10. H7433: Extends 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. (H Finance; Tue, May 6)

11. H8098/S2417: Proposed state constitutional amendment (to be submitted to the voters for ratification) to have the Governor and Lieutenant Governor run together as a single ticket in general elections. (H Judiciary; Wed, May 7 & S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, May 7)

12. H8035: Prohibits retirees serving a life prison sentence from collecting a public pension during their “period of incarceration”. (H Judiciary; Wed, May 7)

13. H7287: Restores the car-tax exemption to $6,000 for fiscally distressed communities. (H Finance; Wed, May 7) From the way this bill is written, it is not clear that the state reimbursement intended to make make up for the revenue not collected is restored along with the exemption. According to an April Projo article, the state’s distressed communities are currently West Warwick, Central Falls, Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Providence, and Cranston (which will come off the fiscally distressed list beginning in in FY2016)

14. Two of the bills from the set of last week’s House bills extending childcare subsidies will receive a Senate hearing this week; S2499, extending a temporary program for providing short term state childcare assistance for people in job training that was to have expired on January 1, 2015 for an additional six months until June 30, 2015 (S Finance; Thu, May 8) and S2486, eliminating the $10,000 liquid asset test for eligibility for state childcare assistance. (S Finance; Tue, May 6)

15. S2346: Creates a position of Inspector General, to be filled “by a majority vote of the governor, the attorney general and the general treasurer for a five (5) year term to begin July 1 and end June 30, five (5) years later” and “charged with the purpose of preventing and detecting fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in the expenditure of public funds, whether federal, state, or local, and relating to any and all state programs and operations as well as the procurement of any supplies, services, or construction, by agencies, bureaus, divisions, sections, departments, offices, commissions, institutions and activities of the state of Rhode Island, including those districts, authorities, or political subdivisions created by the general assembly, the governor, and any court, including any city and town within the state of Rhode Island”. (S Finance; Thu, May 8)

16A. H7746: As best as I can determine, this bill is supposed to freeze the phase-in of the new state education aid “funding formula” at its 2014 level (FY2015 will be year 4 of a 10-year phase in for districts that are losing money). (H Finance; Tue, May 6) It seems that this bill would then cause a sudden shock in the “funding formula” transition after 2017, but the Rhode Island way has always been to make present problems into bigger future problems, and let somebody from the future be the one to worry about them.

16B. H7240: Restores the 2% bonus to regionalized districts in the state education-aid “funding formula”. (H Finance; Tue, May 6)

16C. H7747: Requires the state to pay 100% of the costs for students placed “by the state in a group residence”. (H Finance; Tue, May 6)

17. H8053: Defines four elements that must be satisfied, in order to establish “criminal intent” with respect to laws that do not have their own expressed specific criminal intent requirements. (H Judiciary; Wed, May 7) The fourth of the four requirements is that a person act “with either specific intent to violate the law or with knowledge that the person’s conduct is unlawful”. Doesn’t this run counter to centuries of legal tradition, where ignorance of the law is not an excuse?

18. S2874: Seven pages of regulations on naturopathic physicians. (S Health & Human Services; Tue, May 6) This provision in this bill where the secretary of state appoints two naturopathic physicians “to serve as advisors to [the director of the RI department health] in matters relating to naturopathic physicians” comes near to being a separation of powers of violation, though doesn’t necessarily cross the line.  Since the positions appear to be truly advisory in nature, and no formal board is formed that exercises executive authority (thanks to John Marion from Common Cause RI for pointing the second criteria out to me), these appointments skirt around Aricle IX Section 5 of the state constitution. However, having the Secretary of State make appointments for the department of health violates the spirit of the separation of powers, where non-gubernatorial general officers are given limited appointment power for their own departments.

To jump to the end of the story, there is no reason to assume the Secretary of State has better resources available to help him make a decision about naturopathic advisors than the Governor does.  To really jump to the end of the story, Lincoln Chafee won’t be the governor of Rhode Island forever; designing systems that assume that the Governor constantly needs to be worked around on any matter involving details is not the best way to set things up for the future of Rhode Island.

19. S2878: Prohibits health insurers from limiting a healthcare provider to a more limited scope of activities than allowed by the provider’s license; this section of the law is in addition to changes in the regulation of “certified registered nurse anesthetists” (S Health & Human Services; Tue, May 6)

20. H8027: If marijuana, or a first-offense for shoplifting (or anything else in RI) gets decriminalized, convictions on a person’s record for the decriminalized acts are immediately expunged. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

21. H7434: New reporting requirements for historic tax credit projects. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

22. H8133: Minimum manning for parking lots. (H Municipal Government; Thu, May 8)

23. H7745: Exempts “the purchase or use of tangible personal property or services that is critical or necessary to the receiving, initiating, amplifying, processing, transmitting, retransmitting, switching, or monitoring of switching of telecommunications, cable television, or internet access service” from the state sales tax. (H Finance; Thu, May 8) Would this go as far as excluding television sets, i.e. tangible personal property that receives cable television, from the sales tax?  Is it intended to?

24. H8115: Requires any “advanced mobile communications device that is sold in Rhode Island on or after January 1, 2015” to have a (metaphorical) kill-switch than can “render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in the possession of the rightful owner”. (H Corporations; Tue, May 6)

25. H7999: Authorizes law enforcement officers to provide verbal warnings to motorists who are smoking in a vehicle “containing a child who is restrained or required to be restrained” under current safety law. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

26. S2266: “Farmers…who are protecting their crops, vegetables or fruit trees need not obtain deer tags or a hunting license to shoot deer”. (S Environment and Agriculture; Wed, May 7)

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 to do this, then the Secretary of State will place the question, under the authority of the State constitution. 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; Wed, May 7)

Ranking Indeterminate: S2477: Caps property taxes on low-income housing (defined as properties with covenants “restricting either or both the rents that may be charged or the incomes of the occupants”) at “8% of of the property’s previous year’s gross scheduled rental income”, with local governments allowed to set a lower rate. This would replace a current law that applies the 8% limit only to properties that had “been issued an occupancy permit on or after January 1, 1995”. (S Finance; Tue, May 6)

H7120: Creates a department of agriculture within the department of environment management (without a cabinet-level or other high ranking administrator of agriculture). (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

H7740: Restores the “domestic production deduction” for Rhode Island businesses, which had very recently been repealed. (H Finance; Thu, May 8)

Inobvious Priorities: S2732 >> Does the Senate have time to consider the “Museum Property Act” , but not the Master Lever? S2326 >> Does the Senate have time to consider extra landing fees for cruise ships in Newport, but not the Master Lever? S2267 >> Charges the Director of Environmental Management with “identifying critical areas for improving service to customers doing business with the department” (why this isn’t assumed to be part of any department’s practice is the inobvious part); H8112 >> Mandatory public posting of dry-cleaning rates.

Local Impact: Bristol, Exeter, Smithfield.

And then circle back to the top of the list and ask if Senate committees have the time to consider high-school testing multiple times, but the Master Lever only once?