For over a year, BillBuddy has provided Rhode Islanders with helpful summaries and analysis of every piece of legislation that passes through the State House. But we knew we could do better.

Today, we are debuting the all-new BillBuddy 2.0. We have made it easier than ever to learn about new legislation making its way through the General Assembly. For too long, local media have served as quasi-gatekeepers, determining which bills get Rhode Islanders attention. Oftentimes this is done to steer debate and achieve a specific agenda. We believe those days are numbered – Rhode Islanders are likely to be shocked at the amount of good legislation that never sees the light of day because it is not covered on the news.

See the Latest Bills as They Are Introduced
The cornerstone of the new BillBuddy is the Latest Bills page, which lists every bill that has been introduced, from most recent to oldest, allowing you to easily keep tabs on what’s new and learn what these bills are all about.

No longer are you limited to specific categories or must you wait for an email alert. Email alerts will return but now Rhode Island residents can bookmark the Latest Bills page and see what’s new anytime.

If you want to see bills from categories that matter to you, it’s super-easy. Just choose your category from the drop down and see every matching bill within the timeframe you select. Oh, and see that “Filter by Impact” dropdown? We’ll get to that in a bit.

The new latest bills page is just the tip of the iceberg. Users who click the blue link for any bill will be taken to an all-new page dedicated to that bill with a wealth of key information including its sponsors, committee, current status, and a brief 20-word summary to start.

Keep scrolling to find BillBuddy’s marquee feature, a comprehensive summary of the bill in layman’s terms which makes understanding even the most legalese-written legislation a piece of cake. Want an even more basic explanation? Our vastly-improved Child Summary explains the bill in a way that even an 8-year old can understand.

Sometimes, even with a comprehensive summary at hand, it might be difficult to determine how a bill may affect you. For those on either side of the political spectrum wanting to know “What’s in it for me?”, we’ve got you covered. Following the summaries are a breakdown of pros and cons for both progressives and conservatives. While conservative ideology has changed substantially over the past year, the analysis does its best to reconcile old-school conservative beliefs with the vast expansion of government power by the Trump administration.

Will a bill likely pass constitutional muster or will it be subject to court challenge? Using a vast training set of case law and constitutional knowledge, BillBuddy breaks down the likelihood that the bill will survive judicial scrutiny in a way that is easy to understand.

Additionally, BillBuddy highlights which groups and Rhode Island towns are most likely to be impacted by the legislation.

Many bills create fees, taxes, or other costs for all of specific taxpayers. They can also generate revenue for the state. When these amounts are known, BillBuddy spells it out so you can learn the financial impact of the bill.

What impact will a bill have on your freedom? Will it make changes to public services? How much of a regulatory burden will it create? The all-new BillBuddy Impact Ratings attempt to quantify this for each bill. A score of 0 indicates there is no impact at all while a score 100 signifies extreme impact. Additionally, the analysis rates the clarity of the bill’s language (lower scores could leave the bill open for interpretation by the courts) and its enforcement provisions. In other words, does the bill have teeth?

It’s important to note that these ratings are intended to be non-partisan and high/low scores are not necessarily good or bad. For example, the Freedom Impact rating rates the impact of the bill on your freedom, in either direction. A bill that severely restricts freedom (eg. a statewide curfew for all residents) and a bill that removes severe restrictions (eg. an end to prohibition of all illegal drugs) would both be scored “100”.

There is another important reason why we created these impact ratings. You may have noticed the filters atop the Latest Bills page. These filters allow you to quickly find bills with impact ratings above a certain threshold. For example, if you are a privacy advocate and want to find all of the bills with a Privacy Impact over “70”. With the click of a button, you’ve got it. We plan to add even more Impact Ratings for the 2026 session and are always open to suggestions.

So, now that a bill has been introduced and you know its ins and outs, how do you track it? As you saw earlier, the bill’s most current status, updated daily, is shown atop the page. But for the complete history, including a fancy-shmancy timeline of its progress, just scroll on down to the Bill Status section and get all the details.

Last but not least is the bill’s text itself. You may have noticed that other bill analysis sites such as LegiScan simply link to the state’s bill text page rather than displaying it directly. This is because Rhode Island’s antiquated legislative website outputs the bill text in a convoluted format that makes formatting it for display elsewhere quite difficult. We spent the time to figure it all out and the end result is a superior version of what the state offers. With better separation between sections, colored cross-out text, and eliminated line numbers, the BillBuddy version makes it easy to review the bill’s entire text, if you are so inclined.

This is just the beginning. The robust system powering the new BillBuddy allows us to create reports and legislative alerts that you will find incredibly useful. Those are coming soon. Additionally, we’re adding the ability to easily give feedback on any bill to your legislator and get instant answers to any question you may have about a piece of legislation. Both of these features from the original BillBuddy, and many more, are on the way.

We are very excited about the engagement possibilities that the new BillBuddy brings for Rhode Islanders. Our goal is to substantially increase awareness for the various legislative acts making their way through the General Assembly. We hope that you will use the new BillBuddy 2.0 to stay informed and keep your legislator(s) on their toes.

Lastly, I want to extend our deepest thanks to our supporters. Your monthly support and one-time donations not only fund these services, which are now free to everyone, but motivate us to continue making even more useful tools. Our next proposed tool, MoneyTrail, will aim to track and report on political donations to every member of the General Assembly and state government. We hope you will help us fund it.