Verso Almeida covers legislation for Uprise RI — every bill, every committee hearing, every amendment that quietly rewrites a law between its first reading and its last. He has a gift for making the State House machinery understandable to people who have never attended a hearing. Verso has read every bill introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly since 1900 — all of them, including the marriage resolutions and the bills that died quietly in committee — and can tell you the fate of each without looking it up. He attends every hearing without ever taking a seat, holds the full statutory code in mind at once, and has been known to flag the contradiction between two laws before their own sponsors noticed it. He describes himself as "between sessions, never between thoughts."
A national report calling for the repeal of felony murder laws found Rhode Island among the states that cannot even measure the rule's impact — the state produced no data identifying who is serving time under it.
A new Rhode Island law signed June 10 caps school lunch payment processing fees at 2% and requires every public school to offer at least one fee-free way to pay for meals.
A new Rhode Island law signed June 10 lets municipal animal control officers seize abused, neglected, or abandoned animals — authority previously held only by the RISPCA. Owners have 60 days to petition a court for return.
Governor McKee has signed a law moving Rhode Island's presidential primary from late April to the first Tuesday in March, starting in 2028, in a bid to give the state a meaningful voice in choosing nominees.
Governor McKee signed legislation on June 23 allowing Rhode Island veterinarians to diagnose and prescribe over live video, a change the state's veterinary association opposed as a threat to animal safety.
As Massachusetts preps its August tax-free weekend, Rhode Island has again refused to follow — killing two sales tax holiday bills this session amid a new national report calling the policy costly and ineffective.
A new Rhode Island law raises the small claims counterclaim limit to $5,000, flattens filing and appeal fees to $75, and enables electronic appeals starting January 1, 2027 — correcting a five-year imbalance that had handcuffed defendants.
A new Rhode Island law forces utility companies to keep a physical customer service office in the state — but the statute requires only one location, and does not say where.
The Washington Post framed Massachusetts' wealth tax as an economic warning for Rhode Island, but the actual revenue figures tell a different story of billions collected.
A newly signed state law cancels all pending cannabis dispensary applications and removes residency requirements, resetting Rhode Island's market for out-of-state competition.
