This Week in the General Assembly: April 26th-30th

Welcome to our new Women’s Caucus weekly legislative update! We have some great and important bills to pay attention to this week, and we need your voices.

We especially want to highlight S267, being heard MONDAY in the Senate Judiciary committee. This bill allows Medicaid and state healthcare plans to cover abortion services. We have a special blog post on action items you can take on Sunday, April 25 or Monday, April 26, ahead of the hearing.

As well, on WEDNESDAY, the $15 minimum wage bill is being heard in House Labor committee! This bill already passed the Senate this year, so now we need to push it through the House as well.

These are definitely not all the bills being heard this week. It is a sampling of bills you, the members of the Women’s Caucus, may be interested in. The bill text is linked next to every brief bill description, and links to sign up to testify for or against a bill are included below as well!

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MONDAY, APRIL 26

Requests for verbal testimony must be submitted by 4:00pm on April 25th. Written testimony may be submitted by email to jpbaxter@rilegislature.gov by 2:00 on the 26th.

Senate Judiciary

• S267: allows Medicaid and state health plans to cover abortion

• S645, S664, S669: restricts abortion by redefining the start of “life” and subjecting abortion health clinics to unannounced inspections

• S775: provide a legal mechanism whereby a terminally ill patient may choose to end their life

Senate Finance

Requests for verbal testimony must be submitted by 4:00pm on April 25th. Written testimony may be submitted by email to jpblume@rilegislature.gov by 2:00 on the 26th.

• S576: provides healthcare services for undocumented children

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28

Senate Special Legislation and Veterans Affairs

Requests for verbal testimony must be submitted by 4:00pm on April 27th. Written testimony may be submitted by email to sLegislation@rilegislature.gov by 2:00 on the 28th.

• S614: creates a special “Choose Life” license plate, the purchase of which at the DMV would fund problematic anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers”

Senate Labor

Requests for verbal testimony must be submitted by 4:00pm on April 27th. Written testimony may be submitted by email to sLegislation@rilegislature.gov by 2:00 on the 28th.

• S611: increases the amount of parental or family leave available to an employee from thirteen (13) weeks to twenty-six (26) weeks

• S688: increases temporary caregiver benefits to six (6) weeks in a benefit year starting January 1, 2022 and would later increase to benefits to eight (8) weeks

House Labor

To testify, email of call committee clerk James DeCastro at HouseLabor@rilegislature.gov or 401-222-1882.

• H5130: increases the minimum wage from 11.50 to 15

• H5851: repeals the section of law that allows those with physical or mental disability to be paid below minimum wage

THURSDAY, APRIL 29

Senate Health and Human Services

Requests for verbal testimony must be submitted by 4:00pm on April 28th. Written testimony may be submitted by email to SLegislation@rilegislature.gov by 2:00 on the 29th.

• S484: provides for doula coverage

• S168: requires all insurance plans to cover all FDA approved contraceptive drugs, devices, and other products

• S646: requires a set of uniform criteria to be established for prior authorization requests by insurance companies, so denial of drugs can be better regulated