Baby Bonds, $100M history center, 'assault weapon' ban: What RI's state officers want in 2024

Are you willing to put your tax dollars into "Baby Bonds" for later-in-life use by children born into poverty?

How about a brand-new $100 million building to house Rhode Island's precious history, including a bona fide John Hancock on an original copy of the Bill of Rights?

And how do you feel about same-day voter registration, no minimum residency required?

All three of these proposals top the wish lists of one or more of Rhode Island's general officers heading into the 2024 legislative session, amid warnings that the federal tap is running dry.

Treasurer James Diossa's priorities? Baby Bonds and retirement plans

General Treasurer James Diossa gets the prize for the most eye-catching – and thought-provoking – new proposal: a Rhode Island version of a "Baby Bonds Program," pioneered in Connecticut with an initial $381 million investment from a budget surplus in that state to fund the program for at least the next decade.

As Diossa envisions it here, a child born in Rhode Island in a family eligible for Medicaid would receive a sum of money held and invested by the Treasury until they reach 18 years of age.

"When recipients reach adulthood, they can use the funds for wealth-building activities, such as purchasing a home, investing in education or starting a small business," Diossa spokeswoman Michelle Moreno-Silva explains.

In Connecticut, the money came from reserves created to shore up the teachers pension fund that were later replaced by an insurance policy.

In Rhode Island, Diossa is counting on taxpayer dollars, aka "general revenue."

Details are yet to come, but when asked how much money Diossa would like the state to put into "Baby Bonds," Moreno-Silva said $13.9 million initially.

"The Treasurer has not yet decided the exact amount of the initial trust, though it would be in the ballpark of at least $3,000 per child," she told The Journal.

The math: "If we gave every Medicaid-eligible child in RI $3,000 (over the past 5 years, an average of 4,633 children were born in RI to families receiving public health insurance). 4,633 x 3,000 = $13.889 million."

Diossa also hopes to convince lawmakers to pass what he calls a "Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program Act" to aid private-sector workers.

More: What new laws go into effect in RI on Jan. 1? From minimum wage to plastic bags, take a look

The impetus: a study that found Rhode Island among the three states with the lowest rates of access to employer-provided retirement plans nationally.

As of 2021, the study found, the states with the lowest share of workers with access to a plan were Florida (33%), Georgia (37%), and Rhode Island (38%).

Diossa's office is crafting legislation to create "automatic-enrollment [in a] portable retirement savings program for any private sector employee not currently offered a retirement savings plan." Stay tuned for more details.

Attorney General Peter Neronha's priorities? 'Assault weapons' ban, reforming the CRMC

Attorney General Peter Neronha will again push for an "assault weapons" ban and a safe gun storage requirement, each of which has hit resistance in past years, though there are signs of movement in the Senate this year.

With Senate Majority Leader Ryan Pearson calling the safe-storage bill a personal priority, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio now says he has an "open mind."

"Law enforcement continues to be routinely outgunned in their communities – if you back the blue, you should be backing these bills," Neronha argues.

Neronha also plans to advocate for reform of the state's Coastal Resources Management Council in the wake of the messy Champlin’s Marina case. 

The short version: After nearly two decades of hearings and litigation, the Rhode Island Supreme Court in October 2022 said Champlin’s Marina could not expand its operation into Block Island's Great Salt Pond, also known as New Harbor. In reaching that decision, the court rejected the validity of a "backroom deal" struck in late 2020 by the marina and the state Coastal Resources Management Council behind closed doors.

And finally, Neronha hopes to convince legislators to agree with him on an issue that got him in a public spat with Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini on the merits of requiring the prosecution’s consent to a jury-waived trial.

He calls this "an issue of fundamental fairness in our criminal justice system" and says, "Rhode Island is currently in the minority."

Secretary of State Gregg Amore's priorities? New $100M state archive and museum, same-day voter registration

Secretary of State Gregg Amore has picked up his predecessor's campaign for the construction of a permanent "State Archives and History Center" across the street from the State House to house a trove of historic items dating back to the state's early history.

He has some convincing to do, though Ruggerio – who never met a construction project he didn't like – told The Journal he supports it in concept.

"We have what I like to refer to as treasures," Amore told The Public's Radio this fall.

"We have an original Declaration of Independence, one of the original 13 before the signing," he said. "We have ... one of the original 13 Bill of Rights documents. We have 64 letters from George Washington. We have the Act of Renunciation from May of 1776, which made Rhode Island the first colony to declare its independence. We have a request for troops from Abraham Lincoln signed by Lincoln."

He also promises to pursue another elusive goal: moving the state's September primary elections back to August.

In the same bill, he wants the legislature "to codify a decision-making process" in the event there is suspected forgery or fraud on nomination papers, as happened with Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos' papers when she ran for Congress earlier this year.

Amore also wants the legislature to add poll workers and elections officials to the definition of a “public official” under the law (RIGL 11-42-4) that makes it a felony to threaten or harass public officials.

On the election front, Amore will continue the push for same-day voter registration, which would require a change in the Rhode Island Constitution. State law – and the Constitution – currently restrict voter registration to 30 days before an election.

Same-day registration, which is currently allowed only for presidential/vice presidential elections, is also a priority of the citizens advocacy group Common Cause.

"We want Rhode Island to join the 22 states, including four of the six New England states, that give voters the option to register up to and on Election Day," says Common Cause executive director John Marion.

Gov. Dan McKee's priorities? Raising incomes, life sciences and innovation

Gov. Dan McKee has lofty goals – many of which received legislative backing in 2023 – but it is not yet clear how they will translate into a 2024 legislative agenda.

Broadly speaking, his spokeswoman Olivia DaRocha said he remains intent on "raising education outcomes" and "raising incomes" by, for example, "capitalizing on the creation of the new quasi-public Life Science agency, continuing to build housing at multiple levels, supporting innovation and entrepreneurship of our small businesses and more."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Here's what RI's top general officers want to change in 2024 session