10. H5760: Allows all Rhode Island school departments to accept “donations, gifts and grants of money, equipment, supplies, materials and services, conditional or otherwise, from any state, the federal government, or any governmental entity or agency; or from any person, firm, association, foundation or corporation”. (H House, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 13) Right now, only Coventry and Woonsocket are allowed by the law to accept outside contributions. Rhode Island can be weird sometimes.
9. H5064 is a Constitutional amendment that increases representatives’ terms to 4 years, with a term-limit of 3 consecutive terms for any one individual; H5105 is a Constitutional amendment increasing the terms of both Senators and representatives to 4 years, with a limit of 3 consecutive terms for any one individual. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 12)
8. H5495: Constitutional amendment requiring a top-2 runoff election if no candidate for Governor receives a majority in the general election. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 12)
7. H5525: Gives the Public Utilities Commission the authority to regulate “the display of objectionable content”. (H Corporations; Wed, Mar 13)
6. Following Tim White’s WPRI-TV story on double time and a half for correctional officers during snow emergencies, it is worth noting that the Department of Corrections budget will be heard by the House Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 12.
5. H5575: Joins Rhode Island to an interstate compact where the RI legislature would disregard the choice for President made by Rhode Island voters and allocate RI’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 12)
4. S0029/S0282: Mandates state use of “data verification and provider screening technology solutions” and “state-of-the-art predictive modeling and analytics technologies in a pre-payment position within the healthcare claim workflow” to reduce Medicaid, RIte Care and RIte Share fraud and waste. (S Health and Human Services; Thu, Mar 14)
3C. H5040: Allows mail ballots to be used in a general election, without any explanation being provided. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 13)
3B.H5683/H5565: Proposals to allow in-person early voting in elections for several weeks before the “traditional” election day (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 13)
3A. H5672: Excludes mail ballots from an election recount unless evidence of irregularities is shown first, and prohibits review of in-person ballots from being reviewed for voter intent. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 13) Submitted at the request of the Board of Elections and prime sponsored by William San Bento, who “won” an election where four different ballot counts produced results of 543-540, 543-543, 545-543 and 544-543. San Bento’s response to this appears to be to limit recounts.
2. H5492: Constitutional amendment applying the code of ethics to the state legislature. (H Judiciary; Tue, Mar 12)
1. H5778: Eliminates the straight-party option from Rhode Island election ballots. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 13)