Rhode Island
Election-related wins and losses from the 2024 legislative session • Rhode Island Current
For seven years, a four-letter mistake has haunted Common Cause Executive Director John Marion.
In drafting legislation to require a post-election review verifying accuracy and security of primary and general election results, Marion wrote “statewide” rather than “state.” In doing so, Marion inadvertently let legislative races skirt this audit requirement, which applied to other local, state and federal races. The bill passed, mistake included, much to Marion’s dismay.
At last, Marion can at last rest his troubled mind, with updated legislation approved by the Rhode Island General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Dan McKee in June that adds state legislative races to what is known as a risk-limiting audit.
The new law is one of a half-dozen elections and voting-related bills to clear the Rhode Island State House this year. Most of the approved changes offer slight improvements rather than sweeping reforms, but that doesn’t mean they are unimportant, Marion said.
“Just because there wasn’t a signature success doesn’t mean we didn’t advance election administration and voting rights,” he said. “There’s good hygiene that needs to take place sometimes.”
Even more so when it rides the coattails of scandal.
Among the new laws is one born out of the signature scandal that enveloped Sabina Matos’ congressional campaign last year. In addition to a criminal investigation and charges against the pair of campaign consultants alleged to be responsible for the fake signatures, the scandal laid bare problems with the signature review process.
The law cuts through the confusion by requiring local election workers to notify state officials when they spot potentially fraudulent signatures, setting off a process by which the state elections board then notifies other municipalities and, potentially, reviews the suspicious signatures itself.
Marion lauded the legislature for taking swift action.
“Too often, we see scandals occur and people say there should be some reform to address the scandal but there’s never a reform,” he said. “It’s good they did it now, before this faded from memory.”
Voting by mail enhanced
Also fresh on lawmakers’ minds is the sweeping 2022 Let RI Vote Act, which dramatically expanded voter access including the option of no-excuse mail ballots.
“This is our first presidential election since the Let RI Vote Act, so we’re still trying to determine if these changes need to be tweaked or expanded upon,” said Miguel Nunez, executive director for the Rhode Island Board of Elections.
Lawmakers this year agreed to state elections board-generated proposals to open mail drop boxes earlier and tack on three more days for local boards of canvassers to accept mail ballot applications.
As mail ballots grow in popularity among local voters, so have numbers of just-missed-the-deadline applicants, whose mailed forms arrive a day or two late, said Nick Lima, elections director for the city of Cranston. Not only do late applicants miss a chance to mail their ballots, but the late submissions still require local election workers to file needless paperwork indicating the application has been rejected.
“It’s just an administrative deadline, so it didn’t make sense for the law to be so rigid,” Lima said.
Especially because one-third of late applicants for mail ballots never ended up voting in-person after their applications were rejected, according to analysis of 2020 and 2022 elections by the Rhode Island Board of Elections.
Hassle-free primaries for independent voters
Saving local election workers time and hassle is also the intent behind another new, Secretary of State-backed law that removes the requirement for voters to affiliate, or change affiliations, before participating in a party primary.
The phenomenon of affiliating then disaffiliating is particularly prevalent in Rhode Island, where nearly half of registered voters typically identify as independent. Many also want to detach themselves from a party label immediately after a primary, creating thousands of forms for local elections workers to sift through, said Secretary of State Gregg Amore.
Removing the affiliation requirement also eases the process for voters who might forget to change their affiliation prior to a primary and therefore be ineligible to participate. Amore expected to see an uptick in primary election participation under the new law, though the upcoming September primaries may be too soon for the change to take hold in public perception.
Amore’s backing also helped secure passage for another bill that will apply to upcoming elections, specifically, the ballot questions, which now must be written in “plain language” at an 8th-grade reading level.
“There’s a growing movement in government and elections administration to use plain language and this is really important,” Marion said.
He added, “It’s nice to see it pass without taking years and years.”
Better luck next year, same-day voter registration
The same cannot be said for the push for same-day voter registration, which has failed to gain traction on Smith Hill for four years. Acknowledging lawmakers’ hesitancy to change longstanding state policy, Common Cause diluted its proposal this year, pitching a change to the state constitution that would eliminate the 30-day residency requirement rather than enshrining same-day registration in the state’s guiding document. Still, the proposed constitution amendment, also supported by Amore, failed to advance out of committee in either chamber.
Marion was undeterred.
“In our experience, constitutional amendments often take several cycles to gain momentum,” he said. “It’s an educational process. As we begin to talk about this more we realize that not just the public but lawmakers don’t appreciate how much Rhode Island is an outlier.”
Twenty-two other states and Washington D.C. already allow same day voter registration. Rhode Island is also one of three states that enshrines its voter registration deadline in the constitution, Marion said.
ConCon question returns
Which opens up another avenue to the same end: a constitutional convention. Voters will get a chance to decide this November whether to take advantage of the once-in-a-decade opportunity to take a fresh look at the state’s governing document.
While appetite for the decennial gathering has waned in recent decades — the last constitutional convention was held in 1986 — Sen. Sam Zurier is eying a prospective convention to settle debate over alternative voting methods.
Following his leadership of a Senate panel tasked with studying various voting options, Zurier, a Providence Democrat, pitched a legislative reform that would have removed the constitutional provision for plurality voting. His bill, along with a separate proposal by fellow Providence Democratic Rep. Rebecca Kislak to offer ranked-choice voting in presidential preference primaries, both failed to advance beyond committee this year.
Zurier was unsurprised.
“It was more of an effort to introduce the concept,” he said of his legislation. “I did not see this change as something that would happen quickly.”
Especially given objections by election administrators who called for more education and equipment before considering such a dramatic overhaul to how voting works in Rhode Island.
Ranked-choice voting: More work to do
High-profile state or national races where a crowded field produces a winner with a low percentage of voters may help galvanize reform, especially now that Rhode Island has local organizers ready to capitalize on that momentum, Marion said. That includes Ocean State Ranked Choice Voting, a nonprofit that launched last year in the midst of the 12-way Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District seat.
Organization leaders have been making the rounds to farmers markets and summer festivals, in addition to traditional meetings at town halls and on Smith Hill to educate voters on their preferred voting alternative, said Leah Creiglow, secretary of the board of directors.
“This current presidential election and the lack of choice overwhelmingly people are feeling is another example of why we need a system that favors voters over power dynamics,” Creiglow said. “We are really trying to capitalize on this.”
Two other changes that could have helped local and state election administrators through what is expected to be an exhausting and turbulent election cycle remain in legislative purgatory. One would have banned “fraudulent and synthetic media” — more commonly known as “deepfakes” — in the 90 days leading up an election.
An amended version passed the House but stalled in the Senate, in part because of hesitation over the industry-backed amendments which exempted creators of the technology from facing sanctions for its use.
Priorities: Protecting voters and elections workers
Having seen how AI-generated robocalls sent to New Hampshire voters ahead of the state’s February presidential primary hurt election participation, Amore was worried for Rhode Island.
“It’s not necessarily the attacks against candidates I fear, but the misinformation about voting that will intimidate or restrict the ability of people to vote,” Amore said.
However, he acknowledged the difficulties in legislating guardrails around a new and evolving technology, pledging to take another crack again next year. Also on Amore’s 2025 legislative priorities list is revival of a failed bill that would increase penalties for those who threaten election administrators and poll workers.
Rhode Island is not Maricopa County, Arizona, Lima acknowledged. But hostility toward election workers is not confined to battleground states. Last year, he and his coworkers arrived at Cranston City Hall to find the office window shattered, a rock lying on the floor inside.
Lima didn’t think the perpetrator meant to aim for the election office, but it rattled his colleagues, nonetheless.
“It’s important for us to let election administrators know ‘we have your back,’” Amore said. “In many states, they are playing defense on voting reform. We want to still keep playing offense.”
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Rhode Island
R.I. House Finance budget phases in millionaires tax over three years – The Boston Globe
In January, Governor Daniel J. McKee touched off a debate about a millionaires tax by proposing a state budget that would impose a 8.99 percent tax rate on personal income of more than $1 million — a 3 percentage point increase over the current top bracket that would have generated $67 million in fiscal year 2027.
The House Finance budget would phase in that millionaires tax by raising that top rate by 1 percentage point per year over three years — 6.99 percent for tax year 2027, 7.99 percent in 2028, and 8.99 percent for 2029. The move would generate an estimated $22 million in 2027, $68 million in 2028, $115 million in 2029, and $142 million in 2030.
Blazejewski said phasing in the millionaires tax will help Rhode Island deal with federal funding cuts as they take effect in the years ahead. Advocates see that tax as a crucial source of funding for essential programs amid federal cuts, he noted, while opponents predict it will hurt small businesses and drive away rich residents.
“We thought this strikes the right balance here for our state, given the situation we’re in with the federal government,” Blazejewski said. “We think this is a prudent way of increasing revenue over time, and then phasing it in, so it has less shock, it has more time to be absorbed, and then also comes online exactly when we need it.”
Rhode Island is pursuing a millionaires tax three years after Massachusetts imposed a 4 percent millionaires tax on top of its 5 percent income tax, raising billions in revenue. On May 25, the Globe reported that the Massachusetts surtax on that state’s highest earners has already generated more than $3.1 billion in revenue this fiscal year, with two months remaining — surpassing the $2.4 billion projected.
Inspector general
The House Finance budget includes $1.3 million to fund an independent inspector general’s office staffed with 12 full-time employees who will investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in state government.
Blazejewski called for creating an inspector general’s office soon after becoming House speaker on May 7. The move by the state’s most progressive House speaker came as a surprise to some because Republicans have long made the inspector general’s office a top legislative priority.
But Blazejewski noted he introduced inspector general legislation in 2015. On Friday, he said the federal government is cutting funding at the same time the state has seen “high-profile state failures” such as the closure of the Washington Bridge westbound and the botched rollout of a $99 million state payroll system.
McKee and Republican lieutenant governor candidate John J. Loughlin II questioned why Blazejewski wants the inspector general to oversee the executive branch — but not the Legislature.
On Friday, Blazejewski noted that voters approved a separation of powers amendment to the state Constitution in 2004 to ensure the three branches of government are separate and distinct, and that the inspector general’s office would be an administrative agency of the executive branch.
“If you allow the executive office to run roughshod over the Legislature, the judiciary, you no longer have three branches of government,” Blazejewski said. “It’s not original to Rhode Island. It’s a fundamental principle of government.“
RIDOT audit
The budget includes an audit of maintenance work by the state Department of Transportation. “We just have had too many high-profile failures, and we need to conduct an audit as to the maintenance program,” Blazejewski said.
The budget also removes the Department of Transportation director as chairman of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. Former DOT director Peter Alviti Jr. began serving as chairman of the bus agency’s board in 2023. But Blazejewski said, “We just think it’s a conflict of interest.” The DOT director can continue to serve on the board, but not as chairman, he said.
No line-item veto
The House Finance budget rejects McKee’s call for placing a constitutional amendment on the November ballot asking voters to give the governor line-item veto power, which would allow him to strike specific items from the budget without having to approve or veto the entire bill.
Last year, McKee refused to sign the state budget approved by the General Assembly because it raised taxes and fees, but he did not veto the bill. And McKee noted that 43 other states have some form of line-item veto authority.
But Blazejewski said, “That line item veto is about changing the power structure between the governor and the General Assembly,” and the current process works with the governor proposing a budget and legislators passing a budget. Other states have had “issues” with the line item veto, he said, noting Wisconsin’s governor used that power to delete words, numbers, and punctuation from a bill to change its meaning.
Budget exceeds $15 billion
The budget totals a record $15.2 billion for the fiscal year that starts July 1, marking an increase over the $14.859 billion proposed by McKee.
In August, the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council warned that the state’s rate of spending was not sustainable. And in the Republican response to McKee’s State of the State, House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale said the state budget has grown by 200 percent since 2000, when it was about $4.5 billion.
URI medical school funding
The House Finance budget includes $5 million as an initial investment in creating a medical school at the University of Rhode Island.
The Senate had included that proposal in a 17-bill package aimed at strengthening the state’s strained health care system. Blazejewski said the medical school will help alleviate the state’s severe shortage of primary care doctors in the future.
Tax on Social Security
The House Finance budget includes the first year of McKee’s proposal to eliminate state personal income taxes on Social Security benefits over three years.
Under current law, taxpayers who have reached full Social Security retirement age (67 or older) and have incomes of less than $107,000 for single filers, or $133,750 for joint filers, are exempt from state income tax on Social Security income. The House agreed to eliminate the current minimum age threshold.
Child tax credit
The House Finance budget does not adopt McKee’s proposal to replace an existing tax deduction for dependents with a new child tax credit that would refund families $325 on their taxes per child, per year.
But it does build on the existing tax deduction structure and adds a $330 child tax credit to help lower income families. Blazejewski said the new system “costs a little bit more but gives even more of a benefit to families in Rhode Island.”
Bond questions
The budget includes a record $600 million in bond questions on the November ballot, but it modifies some of the proposals in McKee’s budget.
- Blazejewski said McKee’s budget “underfunded” an integrated health building at URI. So the budget provides $275 million (rather than $215 million) for the state’s three colleges, including $165 million (rather than $105 million) for the URI building, $50 million to renovate Rhode Island College’s Adams Library; and $60 million for a workforce innovation center at the Community College of Rhode Island.
- $120 million for housing, including $25 million for producing housing units for homeownership.
- $100 million (rather than $115 million) for economic development, including $55 million (rather than $70 million) for site development at the Quonset Business Park and I-195 District.
- $50 million for the “cultural economy,” including $45 million for a State History Center that would display the state’s founding documents.
- $55 million for “green economy bonds.” Blazejewski said, “Our caucus spoke over and over about making the green bond greener, and we’ve done just that.“
- The House budget eliminated the $50 million McKee proposed for Career and Technical Education. Blazejewski said testimony indicated the proposal was underfunded even at $50 million, “so we’re going to go back to the drawing board.”
Energy proposals
The House Finance budget adopts some, but not all, of McKee’s proposals for lowering energy bills.
House Majority Whip Katherine S. Kazarian, an East Providence Democrat, said the budget expands the renewable energy standard to including hydro and nuclear energy, which will result in savings.
But she said the budget would reject McKee’s plan to push back the 2033 deadline to reach 100 percent renewable energy sources for state electricity until 2050. “We’re going to continue to keep that 2033 deadline, which is really important to our caucus and, frankly, to the renewable energy investments that have come to the state,” she said.
Central Falls schools
The budget returns the Central Falls school district to local control after 35 years of state control. Blazejewski said this was a priority of Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.
Domestic violence calendar
The House budget includes $600,000 to hire three full-time employees and create a domestic violence calendar in state Superior Court to address a backlog of 1,200 felony domestic violence cases.
The House Finance Committee voted 11 to 2 to send the budget to the House floor for a vote next Friday, June 5.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Health professionals are warning Rhode Islanders to look out for a fast-moving threat in the brush this summer: the Lone star tick.
NBC 10’s Martha Konstandinidis went out to see the increase in ticks firsthand and has some simple steps to protect your family.
(WJAR) — The Rhode Island House has passed a Bill that offers a rare alternative when considering end-of-life options: water cremation and human composting.
These processes are actually considered better for the environment.
Instead of being rooted in flames during cremation, remains are placed in water and no greenhouse gases are released.
Tom Harries, CEO of Earth Funeral – Green Funeral Home, explains the natural organic reduction also known as human composting, process while standing in front of an actual vessel in the warehouse during a tour at their new location, which will open in Elkridge. Eventually it will house 126 vessels. Jeffrey F. Bill/Baltimore Sun)
Last year NBC 10 was able to get a first-hand look into how it works.
The John F. Tierney Funeral Home in Connecticut became one of the first in Southern New England to offer water cremation or “Aquamation” for humans.
Remains are placed into a machine, and water begins to circulate, leaving bone material behind.
Human composting uses fertile soil to break down remains.
Lawmakers on both sides spoke before the vote.
It passed 47-17.
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It now heads to the Senate.
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