Another busy week on Smith Hill saw lawmakers drop a whole slate of bills aimed squarely at Rhode Island’s housing crisis, while major initiatives on wages, gun control, and public health gained significant momentum. If you’ve been waiting for the legislative session to get interesting, your wait is over. The sheer volume and importance of the bills moving through the process signal that the General Assembly is getting down to business on some of the state’s most pressing and controversial issues.

What’s New

The biggest story among newly introduced legislation is a coordinated push to tackle housing production by changing local zoning rules. A series of high-importance bills aim to streamline development and increase density across the state. S1090A and H5800A would require cities and towns to permit residential housing in their commercial districts, paving the way for more mixed-use developments. Another pair of bills, S1086Aaa and H5794B, propose a sweeping overhaul of local planning and subdivision laws to make approvals faster and more predictable, including making it easier to build on smaller lots. An amended version of S1083A would mandate that towns allow townhouses and the conversion of old commercial buildings into apartments.

Beyond housing, a major elections bill, H6423, was introduced to create an automatic voter registration system through the DMV. Eligible citizens would be automatically registered to vote when getting a driver’s license unless they opt out. In healthcare, S1159 seeks to expand state-funded childcare assistance for low-income families, while H6422 would require health insurers to cover at least one form of buprenorphine, a key opioid addiction treatment, without copayments or deductibles for most plans.

Several towns are also seeking legislative help with their finances. Bills have been introduced to allow Glocester, Woonsocket, and Providence to raise property taxes beyond the state-mandated cap to fund schools and other services. Other notable new bills would reform the Coastal Resources Management Council by replacing its members with a panel of experts, and expand criminal record expungement for non-violent felonies and misdemeanors.

What’s Moving

Several significant bills are now just a step away from the governor’s desk after passing one or both chambers. A bill to ban certain semi-automatic firearms, defined in the legislation as “assault weapons,” (S0359A) passed the Senate. Another Senate-passed bill, S0125A, would schedule annual minimum wage increases, reaching $17.00 per hour by 2027. Both chambers have now passed versions of a bill (H5598A and S0771A) that would require schools to create policies restricting student access to cell phones during the school day. Also passing the Senate was S0549aa, which mandates human trafficking awareness training for hotel and short-term rental employees.

A large number of bills cleared the committee hurdle, a critical step in the legislative process. The entire package of major housing and zoning reform bills mentioned above (S1083A, S1086A, S1090A, and S1086Aaa) all passed their respective committees, signaling strong support from leadership. Also clearing committee were bills aimed at reining in healthcare costs and practices, including a bill to stop insurers from requiring prior authorization for many services (S0168B) and another to prohibit medical debt from appearing on credit reports (S0169A).

Labor issues also saw action. A bill giving graduate student workers the right to unionize (S0124B) passed committee, as did a bill expanding paid family leave benefits under the state’s TDI/TCI program (H6066A). A proposal to ban smoking inside casinos and pari-mutuel facilities (S0188Aaa) also advanced out of committee, as did a bill to prohibit deceptive “deepfake” media in election campaigns (S0816A) and another to effectively ban payday loans (S0229A).

Finally, a handful of bills have completed the journey and are now law. These include H5505, which tightens rules for contractors on public works projects to provide actual healthcare and retirement benefits instead of cash equivalents, and H6320, which gives the city of Warwick more flexibility in setting its property tax rates. A bill allowing for VIN checks to be done at new car dealerships (S0075aa) also became law.

With so many high-stakes bills advancing, the next few weeks will be critical. The coordinated push on housing, in particular, suggests that major changes to how and where homes are built in Rhode Island could be on the horizon, setting the stage for what are sure to be intense floor debates.