Lawmakers pass bills to lower the property-tax cap and get tough on drunken drivers but kill a measure to protect nurses from forced overtime.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 25, 2006

BY SCOTT MAYEROWITZ, KATHERINE GREGG, ELIZABETH GUDRAIS, BRUCE LANDIS and AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writers

In a withering General Assembly session that lasted until 4:26 yesterday morning, legislators approved a new state budget and a scaled-back cap on how much communities can raise property taxes.

A number of broad, far-reaching measures were approved with little discussion in the chaotic wee hours of the morning.

Suspected drunken drivers will face tougher penalties -- even jail for repeat offenders -- if convicted of refusing to take a breath test. Voters will get to decide in November whether to give voting rights to convicted felons on probation or parole. And Rhode Island homeowners are getting a new shield of protection against the encroachment of predatory lenders.

Governor Carcieri's spokesman, Jeff Neal, said the governor was happy with the General Assembly's session.

"Overall, Governor Carcieri believes this was a very positive legislative session for Rhode Island taxpayers," Jeff Neal said. "The General Assembly approved a budget that largely adheres to the spending priorities that the governor set back in February."

The new budget holds some tax relief, welfare reform and includes spending on math and science education, Neal said. Carcieri was also pleased with the legislation that lowers the property-tax cap for local communities, he said.

THE SENATE waited late into the night to vote on the $6.66-billion state budget containing a controversial income tax cut for the state's highest earners, because it was waiting for the House to act on its own tax-relief initiative: a lower property-tax cap.

The new state budget finally cleared the Senate at 11:45 p.m. on a 36-to-1 vote, with Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, casting the dissenting vote because of what he called "that tax cut for the rich."

With the budget passed, the House acted -- just before 1 a.m. -- on a bill by Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, lowering the caps on annual increases to local property taxes and school district spending.

Most lawmakers praised the bill; however, Rep. Steven F. Smith, who is president of the Providence Teachers Union, said he felt the chamber was being "held hostage."

"It has had a devastating affect in Massachusetts," said Smith, D-Providence. "Services are cut. Schools are closed. Programs are slashed."

"This is not property tax relief," he said. "This is a senator getting her way."

In the end, though, Smith voted for the bill, and the tally was 69 to 0.

The bill reduces, over six years, the current 5.5-percent cap on annual increases in municipal tax levies to 4 percent. Larger communities could get around the cap with the approval of at least four-fifths of the city or town council. In smaller communities, approval would be required at a Financial Town Meeting as well.

After the vote, Gary S. Sasse, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council called it "the most important piece of pro-taxpayer legislation in over a decade."

A SIGNIFICANT bill against drunken driving got its first breath of fresh air early yesterday morning.

For years, police and the families of victims of drunken drivers have urged the General Assembly to get tough on drivers who refuse a breath test.

Rhode Island leads the nation with the highest rate of drivers refusing to take a breath test. The state also has the highest rate of alcohol-related fatalities. The police and traffic safety experts have long insisted there was a connection between the two, but until this session, their insistence only won sympathy in the Senate -- and deaf ears in the House.

The bill passed early yesterday was a compromise of Senate and House proposals by Rep. J. Patrick O'Neill, D-Pawtucket, and Sen. Joseph Polisena, D-Johnston. For a first offense, the compromise doubles the minimum license suspension to six months, with a one-year maximum, which is more than first-time DUI offenders receive. A second conviction is a crime, with up to six months in jail, higher fines and more community service. Third and additional convictions mean up to a year in jail, more fines and community service, and a license suspension of two to five years.

"This really is a victory for everyone who cares about making Rhode Island's roads safer," O'Neill said in a statement. "We're finally going to get rid of an easy way out for people to get away with driving drunk."

At home yesterday, Polisena said he was happy the measure finally passed. The Senate had approved similiar bills every year, only to watch them die in the House. "I think it's going to make a huge difference," he said. "Even if we just save one life."

That's what Richard Morsilli thought. He's testified at the General Assembly for more than a decade about the issue, telling legislators about his son Todd who was killed by a drunken driver in 1983.

The news of the bill's passage caught him by surprise yesterday.

"There's no doubt in my mind it's going to save lives," Morsilli said. "I'm thrilled. I'm sure other victims will feel the same way."

Meanwhile, a bill to put interlock devices on cars driven by repeat drunken-driving offenders died, as did a bill to allow police to get warrants to take the blood or breath of drivers who refuse a breath test.

MARKED BY a bomb scare that kept lawmakers out of the State House for two hours, the last day of the Assembly was disorganized and messy, with mounds of bills flying between the House and Senate. As is tradition, lawmakers waited until the last second to pass the bulk of the year's laws.

Scores of lobbyists ran around trying to keep track of their bills. Everybody was asking everybody else for updates on action elsewhere in the building. Lawmakers were voting, one after another, on unseen bills that were not even on their calendars. Committees held unposted meetings at 1 a.m.

At one point as the Senate was about to cast one vote for a thick packet of bundled bills, Paiva Weed had what she called a "moment of panic."

A mistyped bill number had accidentally put the full Senate on the verge of passing an "informed consent for abortion" bill that had never emerged from committee.

Later on, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, read an amendment regarding the privacy of medical information. After reading the new language, Fox said, "whatever that means . . . I move passage."

IN THE EARLY hours of yesterday a number of bills faltered, including legislation that seemingly came out of nowhere that would allow Providence to work out a payment in lieu of taxes from the Providence Water Supply Board.

Critics -- and there were many -- said the cost of the measure, backed by Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, would be paid by thousands of water users across the state.

The bill had zipped through a key Senate committee and then the full Senate on Thursday night. It cleared the House Finance Committee on a 12-to-4 vote Friday, less than 24 hours after its 9:44 p.m. Thursday posting.

But at around 4:15 a.m., the House sent the bills back to a committee, which was tantamount to death.

A bill that would have prohibited hospitals from forcing nurses to work overtime was also eventually killed. The bill had won unanimous approval in the House -- with a bevy of nurses bursting into applause upon its passage -- but it ultimately died in the Senate.

Also a newly introduced bill to try to get extra money to 13 communities that ended up with less school aid than Carcieri's budget proposal had offered them was defeated in the Senate. Lawmakers reworked the aid formula to give every community a 4.8-percent increase, a move that favored urban districts over suburban ones.

Senate Finance Chairman Stephen D. Alves, D-West Warwick, spoke against the measure, saying some communities would now have "10, 15 and 20 percent increases," which wasn't fair to those seeing just 4.8 percent.

Sen. J. Michael Lenihan, D-East Greenwich, who introduced the bill, countered: "If anybody believes that decisions are made on fairness, not politics, then I would suggest to you that you are a tad naive."

His bill then failed 14 to 21.

AS 3 A.M. came and went, the House overrode the governor's veto of a bill that would bar the governor from signing onto international trade agreements, another that required extensive disclosure by state agencies about private contractors, and one to require auto-body shop labor rate surveys by insurance companies that sell car insurance.

Before calling it quits, both chambers approved a bill that could potentially affect the lawsuit over the Station nightclub fire in February 2003. The fire killed 100 people and injured about 200 others.

The bill would enable plaintiffs in civil suits to get larger awards from the court than the law currently allows, if the plaintiff settles with one defendant but not the others. The changes would only apply in cases relating to incidents where 25 or more deaths result. It would not retroactively affect settlements that have already been signed.

Rep. Charlene M. Lima, D-Cranston, also got Senate passage of her bill to place stricter regulations on builders and contractors.

The House passed, and sent along to the governor, the so-called Jessica Lunsford Act, which would require global positioning system monitoring of some categories of convicted sex offenders. The bill would also make it a felony to assist a convicted child molester in eluding a law enforcement agency, and increase the mandatory minimum sentence for first-degree child molestation from 20 years in prison to 25.

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Status report

Other legislation passed by the Assembly this session:

Lets restaurant patrons take home unfinished bottles of wine.

Allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes. This was passed over Governor Carcieri's veto.

Strips governor of power to put nonbinding questions on the ballot. Carcieri's veto was overridden in both House and Senate.

Requires mandatory spaying and neutering of cats, and calls for a permit to breed them.

Increases state-paid life insurance for active members of the Rhode Island National Guard to $400,000 from $250,000.

Permits Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island to sell life, disability and long-term care insurance as well as health insurance.

Prohibits drivers under 18 from using cell phones while driving.

Asks the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on whether the governor's appointments to the Beacon Mutual Insurance board are subject to Senate advice and consent.

Bans sodas and sugary snacks in schools.

Requires people convicted of sex crimes in other states to register in Rhode Island upon moving here.

Excuses churches from sprinkler requirements under the state fire code.

Allows members of public bodies to respond to comments made during the public-comment portion of meetings.

Allows members of public bodies to vote by phone if a disability prevents them from attending meetings.

Encourages the use of renewable energy and gives low-income customers discounts on natural gas, heating oil and electricity.

Extends death benefits to domestic partners of police officers, firefighters and correctional officers.

Makes driving off without paying for gasoline a larceny.

It's all in their hands. See a collection of unusual portraits from the State House. Journal photographer Connie Grosch.

http://projo.com/hands