The state Supreme Court upheld the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act, passed in 2019 to safeguard abortion rights in Rhode Island. The high court upheld Superior Court Judge Melissa E. Darigan’s November 2019 dismissal of a challenge to the law brought by the advocacy group Catholics for Life and several other activists. 

With access to health care and reproductive rights under constant attack, tonight we can celebrate Rhode Island’s commitment to advancing reproductive freedom. As states across the country continue to pass extreme, harmful, and unlawful abortion bans with the intent of challenging the protections of Roe v. Wade in front of Trump’s Supreme Court, Rhode Islanders can be assured that the fundamental right to abortion is guaranteed in their state, no matter what happens at the federal level.

Sen. Mark McKenney, a Warwick Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Rules, led a successful push for rules revisions that will requires the Senate to publish online any written testimony related to bills. The rules change, mirroring a similar change made by the House four years ago, has been pushed for by good government groups and media members without success until Sen. McKenney successfully persuaded naysayers to come around. 

While fully automatic weapons, such as machine guns, are already illegal in Rhode Island, the Assault Weapons Ban Act of 2025 (H5436) aims to prohibit the purchase, sale, manufacturing, and possession of certain weapons, including semi-automatic shotguns, rifles and pistols.

Rhode Island’s Democratic-controlled state House on Friday approved legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of many semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Mark McKenney (D-Warwick) was unanimously approved by the state Senate Finance Committee to create a Warwick School Budget Commission. “I certainly did not want to put it in, and I would prefer not to be here,” McKenney said. “It has been my hope that in the time it’s taken for this to move to this point, that the School Department can address the situation adequately. Unfortunately, there’s a serious lack of confidence that an adequate solution can be reached in-house, and that’s why we’re here.”

House Speaker Shekarchi says he supports the concept but the House is working on a possible amendment

The legislation draws a new line for Rhode Islanders’ constitutional rights to access the shore, but it will likely face legal challenges

Rhode Island joins nearly 20 states, counties and municipalities across the country that now provide medical debt relief

“No one should become trapped in a spiral of debt — with the heavy weight of stress that debt brings — simply because they get sick. Medical debt is a danger for public health, it holds back our economy, and it prevents individuals and families from achieving financial security.”’