Every year, the ACLU of RI lobbies on hundreds of bills during Rhode Island's annual Legislative Session. Below are some of the bills we have tracked and testified on before the General Assembly. For more info on advocating for the issues you care about, check out our Advocacy 101 Guide. To see how your Reps and Senators voted on various bills over the past few years, visit our Legislative Scorecards page.
We opposed this bill that purported to prohibit the production and possession of so-called child pornography.
We opposed this bill which would have created a crime of “menacing,” which would make criminal a wide variety of hyperbolic comments regularly expressed by people in the heat of the moment.
We strongly supported this legislation which would have further protected literature with “educational and governmental” value, as well as materials in a “bona fide school, museum, or public library.”
We opposed legislation that would have made it a felony for teachers, coaches, or any other person in a “position of authority” to fail to report child abuse or neglect.
Though we appreciated the intentions behind this legislation, which would have eliminated the statute of limitations for filing civil suits alleging sexual abuse, we opposed the bill.
While wealthier individuals who can post bail are permitted to go home while awaiting their hearings, those without immediate cash flow are forced to stay in jail until their case is heard, creating a...