In our hyper-partisan world, bipartisanship is commonly a stretch; unanimity appears not possible. But simply this week, Rhode Island’s Home of Representatives unanimously handed a shoreline entry invoice. Sure, you learn that proper: each single current member of the Home of Representatives voted to cross a invoice defending your proper to entry the shoreline. Not a single member voted towards it.
However that victory might be hole if the Rhode Island Senate proceeds on its present course. No companion invoice has been launched within the Senate and the Senate spokesman Greg Paré says the problem is “not a spotlight presently.” With the part-time legislature planning to adjourn by the tip of the month, time is operating quick.
The invoice handed by the Home is the perfect likelihood we have now to treatment an issue 40 years within the making. In 1982, the Rhode Island Supreme Courtroom haphazardly affixed the extent of the general public’s proper to the shore at a degree that’s usually underwater. The case was a rushed affair: no oral argument, stipulated details, and a restricted document. However the ramifications have been immense. For the primary time since our colony’s founding in 1663, the general public’s proper to the shore had been considerably curtailed.
Rhode Islanders didn’t abide such a taking of their public property. Simply 4 years later the voters overwhelmingly handed a referendum to amend the state structure to incorporate the precise of “passage alone the shore[.]” That ought to have settled the matter.
Nevertheless, the Rhode Island Supreme Courtroom has not subsequently addressed the amended language. Nor has it overruled its 1982 resolution. The result’s a authorized headache: non-public property house owners wave the 1982 resolution whereas shoreline advocates level to the state structure. Readability is required.
That’s what this invoice does. It makes plain the place the general public’s proper to entry the shoreline is, preserving that proper for all. And it’s an concept that everyone can get behind; in any case, it bought unanimous assist within the Home.
That makes the Senate’s inaction all of the extra troubling. The clock is ticking. The Senate must act now to deliver this invoice to a vote. Rhode Islanders depend upon it.
Sean Lyness is a College Fellow at New England Legislation Boston. He was an skilled witness for the Rhode Island Shoreline Entry Fee when the shoreline entry invoice was introduced earlier than the Rhode Island Home Judiciary Committee.