March 29, 2006
Welcome to the Edward Achorn Legislative Tracker
In a column in yesterday’s Projo, Edward Achorn described a number of reform bills before the Rhode Island legislature. The descriptions of the contents of each bill are from Mr. Achorn, I've added a brief description of each bill's status, and a link to the bill's text...
H7123 would require Rhode Island to follow the example of New Hampshire and Vermont, in letting citizens immediately and easily call up, on the Internet, the voting record of any legislator. At present, Rhode Island citizens can only extract a legislator's voting record from the tallies of each bill, a laborious process.Status: Has been heard once by the House Finance Committee and is awaiting a second hearing.
H6814 would require cities and towns to post on the Web their budgets, charters, and collective-bargaining agreements.Status: The House Judiciary Committee has voted to hold this bill for further study, which means no further action is required this session.
H7733 would require that, before ratification of a collective-bargaining agreement, the public would have to be notified of its principal terms and projected cost. That would give citizens a much better sense of how their tax dollars are being spent.Status: Still awaiting a first hearing by the House Finance Committee, which has not yet been scheduled.
H7580 would remove the pensions from local collective bargaining, as they are from state collective bargaining. That would tend to limit the little-observed deals at the local level that end up driving property taxes into the stratosphere.Status: The House Labor Committee has voted to hold this bill for further study, which means no further action is required this session.
H6802 and H6803 would require the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, the administrative arm of the legislature, to be regularly audited, with the results posted on the Web. That would let citizens easily figure out how $37 million of their tax dollars are being spent each year.Status: Both bills have been heard once by the House Finance Committee and are awaiting second hearings