R.I. lawmakers speeding to the finish line

June 26--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Buckle up.

The rules have gone out the window as Rhode Island's part-time lawmakers race toward the expected end this week of the General Assembly session that began on a Tuesday in early January. After a leisurely five-and-a-half months on Smith Hill, they are about to get crazy-busy.

Bills will go flying from legislative committee rooms to the floor for immediate votes. Blink and you may miss a last-minute House Finance Committee meeting on something important to someone, on the marble terrace outside the House lounge.

If this year is anything like last year, the sun will rise before the last vote is taken by half-awake lawmakers. But House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello has promised: no overnight-session again this year.

The House plans a rare Monday session to get a jump start on its packed calendar, which at some point this week will include a closely-watched vote on a bill to disarm domestic abusers that the NRA and its Rhode Island allies are fighting furiously to kill.

"The House hopes to conclude its business this week," House spokesman Larry Berman confirms. What day? "Speaker Mattiello is making no firm predictions, but will conclude business no later than Friday and has said if bills still remain in play, it is possible they could be considered in the fall if necessary."

A fall session? Pawsox fans -- still hoping for legislative action on the minor league baseball team's relocation-financing plan -- will keep those words in mind.

These, meanwhile, are some of the big issues awaiting votes in the final days:

The budget

Having cleared the House on a 64-to-11 party line vote last week, the proposed $9.2-billion state budget for the year beginning on July 1 is slated for a Senate Finance Committee hearing, and likely committee vote, on Tuesday.

Senators raised concerns at an earlier hearing about the state's ability to pay the escalating cost of the car-tax phaseout launched by this budget bill. It begins with $26 million in reimbursements to the cities and towns for their lost local revenue and then swells over six years, to $221 million annually.

But no serious opposition is expected to the $9.2-billion bill in package that House and Senate leaders hammered out with Gov. Gina Raimondo, a fellow Democrat.

Several other closely-watched proposals are in the budget bill, including two years of free community college tuition championed by Raimondo, and a two step-increase in the state's $9.60 an hour minimum wage that will raise it to $10.10 on Jan. 1, 2018, and $10.50 a year later.

Mandated sick leave

The Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a compromise in this year's high-profile fight over a paid-sick leave mandate.

The original bill sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin sought a guarantee of up to 7 paid sick days. The latest version of the bill offers up to 32 hours of paid sick leave and safe leave (which covers absences related to domestic violence or sexual assault) the first year -- and up to 40 in later years. The requirement would apply only to businesses that employ 11 or more people.

Guns

A bill to disarm domestic abusers won the 13-to-5 approval of the House Judiciary Committee last week, as opponents streamed into the House speaker's office one by one to register their opposition on a make-shift petition.

Called the Protect Rhode Island Families Act, the legislation would expand the current prohibitions on gun possession by people convicted of a crime of violence, including felony domestic assault, to those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence or under the umbrella of a final protective order issued by a court.

Unlike earlier versions which contained a lifetime ban, the bill now headed for a full House vote includes a process for those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to a file a petition to get their state gun prohibition lifted, five years after they complete their sentence. The bill is headed for a House vote with Mattiello's support, but no public commitment from Senate leaders to pass it.

Expungement

With tens of thousands of crimes committed in Rhode Island already purged from state records -- as if they never happened -- the House earlier this month approved a bill to allow a judge to remove up to five misdemeanors from an individual's record.

A similar bill cleared the House last year, then stalled in the Senate, which holds the cards again this year. No Senate vote has yet been scheduled.

Criminal sentencing overhaul

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the so-called "Justice Reinvestment" package again, early in this year's session with then-Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed declaring the new sentencing guidelines and prison-diversion thrust one of her own top priorities.

But then Paiva Weed left mid-session for a six-figure job heading the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, depriving Raimondo of her strongest ally in her quieter effort this year to nip away at Rhode Island's third highest-in-the-nation probation rate.

That doesn't mean the package is dead, however.

"The justice package is one of many items still under consideration. The House leadership and bill sponsors have met with the Senate and are working on amended language," House spokesman Larry Berman confirmed over the weekend.

Health care

Abortion-rights advocates, fearful of what the Supreme Court may do in the Trump era, tried and failed to convince lawmakers to take steps to codify the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in the state's Constitution.

But the Senate has passed legislation to enshrine in state law many of the same benefits and protections for health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, should Congress repeal or weaken the federal law, known as Obamacare. The bill awaits House action.

"Suspending some of the rules in the final days of the session to speed up the legislative process is an annual tradition, but not the good kind," notes John Marion, executive director of Common Cause. "The unintended consequence of speeding up the process is that it becomes more difficult for the public to follow what their legislature is doing."

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