General Assembly
On last night’s Matt Allen Show, Matt and I talked about expectations for the forthcoming budget, speeding tickets, and things on the blog. Stream by clicking here, or download it.
Here’s your warm-act for the presentation of the budget. Note that at the time of this post, there are no committee meetings scheduled for Thursday afternoon. 13. H6104/H6222: Changes in regulations regarding distributed generation of electricity from renewable sources. (Senate Environment and Agriculture, June 15) 12. Traffic law changes, including making seat-belt violations a primary…
My situation may be unique (although I doubt it), but one of the consequences of Rhode Island’s political and economic structure is that it is so darn difficult just to get by and raise a family that little time remains to keep a consistently watchful eye on local political corruption. Such has been the case…
Redistricting must occur, I suppose, and a process must obviously be in place to handle it, but Rhode Island’s proposed process doesn’t even have much of a pretense of different voices and token opposition: House Bill 6096, which now goes to the House floor, places the state’s once-each-decade redistricting process in the hands of an…
12. H5133: Repeals the prohibition against “classified” state employees from running for state office. (House Labor, June 7) 11. S0858: All agencies, authorities, commissions, boards, municipalities, political subdivisions, and other public units of the state would be able to contribute funds to a pool that the General Treasurer would invest for them. Introduced at the…
…and here’s a few more with impacts that are less-than-clear. H5939/H6104/H6222: Lots of technical changes to regulations over “distributed generatation capacity and resources” of electric utilities. (House Environment and Natural Resources, June 7) H6076/S0790: From the official description: “This act would transfer many of the powers, duties and responsibilities from the [and] change the state…
A few people that I have talked to about the proposed I-195 redevelopment commission law tell me that evading Ethics Committee jurisdiction is not as easy as I had originally thought it was. The question of whether appointed commissioners would be subject to Ethics Commission jurisdiction over “state or municipal appointed officials“, despite the proposed…
The Providence Journal editorial board highlights a piece of legislation that, while unlikely to become law, illustrates the potential consequences of consolidation for the sake of efficiency and ease: … Sen. John Tassoni (D.-Smithfield) — a member of the state’s AFL-CIO executive board, former business agent for the state’s largest public-employees union, AFSCME Council 94,…
The very large bill on developing the land freed-up by the relocation of Interstate 195 in Providence will be heard by the Senate Committee on Housing and Municipal Government today. Since the amended 59-page bill replacing a 26-page original was released on a pre-long weekend Friday and isn’t linked at the GA website yet, let’s…
The responses have begun to trickle in to my inquiry about the support that Sen. Louis DiPalma (D, Little Compton, Tiverton, Portsmouth, Middletown, Newport) has expressed for Senate Majority Leader Dominique Ruggerio’s hiring of a union pal’s son at a very high salary. So far, I’ve sent (or attempted to send) variations of the following…
