Coming up in Committee: Thirteen Sets of Bills Scheduled to be Heard by the RI General Assembly, March 27 - March 29

Local Impact: Bristol, Coventry 2 , Pawtucket 2 3, Providence, Warwick (at least that's where I suspect, based on the sponsors), Westerly, West Greenwich 2.

13. S2752: Opens the William M. Davies vocational technical school and the Metropolitan Career and Technical School to all students in Rhode Island, on a permanent basis (S Education; Wed, Mar 28)

12. H7260: Requires vehicles owned by any corporation, association, etc. authorized to do business in Rhode Island and used on RI highways for 30 days or more to be registered in RI (H Corporations; wed, Mar 28).

11. H7411: Prohibits credit-rating from being used in the determination of an individual's automobile insurance rate (H Corporations; wed, Mar 28).

10. H7055: Changes election rules from requiring that "substantially not more than nineteen hundred voters shall be served by the same polling place", to requiring that "voting districts" shall be limited to 4,000 voters (S Judiciary, Thu, Mar 29). There's also a 3,000 voter limit that's been proposed in this session.

9. H7760: "No application for any license or employment from any public agency or private employer shall be denied by reason of the applicant's having been previously convicted of one or more criminal offenses", with some exceptions. Also, H7864 prohibits disqualifying someone for employment "solely because of a BCI report" (H Labor; Wed, Mar 28).

8. Tax credit for the installation of alternative fuel dispensers (S2125) and an excise tax exemption for plug-in electric vehicles (S2123) (S Finance; Thu, Mar 29).

7.  Either decriminalization (S2253), or legalization of the "constructive" use (S2367), of a little bit of marijuana (S Judiciary; Tue, Mar 27).

6. H7797: Creates a process for reviewing and retiring health insurance mandates (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 27).

5. H7769: Reduces benefits paid to municipal disability pensioners, if the total of disability benefits plus other income would exceed the original base salary of the pensioner (H Municipal Government; Thursday, March 29).

4. S2695: Process for authorizing a full casino at Newport Grand, including a statewide constitutional amendment ballot question and a local referendum in Newport (S Special Legislation and Veterans Affairs; Wed, Mar 28).

3. H7863: Changes public school teacher tenure qualification from having been a party to "three annual contracts within five successive school years" to receiving "three consecutive ratings of effective or higher under the district evaluation system" (H Labor; Thu, Mar 29).

2. New layers of bureaucracy added to every level of health care delivery. H7621 creates a binding arbitration process for "any hospital or health care insurer participating in negotiation of a hospital/insurer contract" and if I am reading the bill correctly, I think that only one party has to declare an impasse for the matter to go to arbitration; H7687 institutes a requirement that all healthcare plan participants in Rhode Island designate a primary care provider; H7790 instructs the state health insurance commissioner to phase out the use of fee-for-service medicine in Rhode Island and H7784 creates a workgroup "for the purpose of coordinating the development of processes, guidelines, and standards to streamline health care administration that are to be adopted by payors and providers of health care services operating in the state” (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 27).

1B. H7315: Writes into the law the provisions of the 2008 executive order on illegal immigration (since repealed by Governor Chafee) requiring RI executive branch agencies and contractors to use E-verify, relevant state agencies to notify victims of identity theft, the State Police to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Corrections and the state parole board to work towards deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes (H Labor; Tue, Mar 27).

1A. H7927: Requires all employers in Rhode Island (employing 3 or more persons) to participate in E-verify by 2014 (H Labor; Tue, Mar 27).