By Katherine Gregg, Philip Marcelo, Lynn Arditi and Bruce Landis
PROVIDENCE -- A major end-of-session snag over tolls on the new Sakonnet River Bridge threw the General Assembly's adjournment plans awry Tuesday, leaving scores of contentious issues unsettled for at least another day.
The Senate will return at 3:30 Wednesday, and House at 2 p.m.
But a new plan to impose a 10 cent toll on the Sakonnet River Bridge starting Aug. 19 now heads to Governor Chafee for his action, following House and Senate passage late Tuesday.
The so-called "trailer bill' reverses a decision lawmakers made just last week, when they included a provision in the state budget to delay the start of tolls on the Sakonnet bridge - and barred increases on the Pell bridge - until a special commission meets to come up with alternatives.
The eleventh-hour turnaround left East Bay lawmakers and residents fuming over what they saw as a broken promise.
"What they just did to the East Bay was wrong," said Jeanne Smith, of Portsmouth, who came to the State House with a handful of other East Bay residents to protest the new proposal. "That's a commuter bridge, but no one on this side of the bay cares."
"A toll is a toll whether it is 10-cents, $1 or $10," said an "extremely unhappy" Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton, calling it "grossly unfair" to impose any toll on the people of Aquidneck Island.
The lawmakers approved the 10-cent toll, amid warnings that their attempt a week earlier to postpone the tolls could put the state in default on earlier borrowings, and make tolls impossible after the bridge is substantially complete.
The votes came after heated debates in both chambers that led one lawmaker, Rep. Karen MacBeth, to say: "We were lied to about the bridges."
"It's not a 180," said House Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston. "This maintains the intent and spirit of the original [budget] article. The 10-cent toll is a reprieve from the original toll. We're still going to give this a good study."
"A vote not is to pass the cost along to our children,'' he added.
But the debate grew heated with Rep. J. Patrick O'Neill saying: "Our collective word to the state of Rhode Island is no good anymore ...We just voted to delay the tolls on the Sakonnet bridge ... Today we are completely undoing that based upon essentially bad information or lack of information."
"How can we lead?" he started to ask, when Mattiello declared his remarks out of order.
"Get to the merits of the bill. We all know the history," said House Speaker Gordon D. Fox. "We don't need you to repeat the history."
"I think it's important," O'Neill began again. "Get to the bill," Fox ordered.
"Thank you for the lecture. I appreciate that," O'Neill responded. "I'll rule you out of order, then you won't get a chance to thank me for the lecture," Fox replied.
"I don't think you have the guts," O'Neill said. "You're out of order," Fox snapped.
In the end, the "trailer" bill cleared the House on a series of lopsided votes. A key vote: 40-25. At close to 11:30 p.m., the Senate reconvened for its own discussion of the eleventh-hour compromise.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel DaPonte, D-East Providence, said the "nominal toll" is necessary so that the state does not lose the ability -- under federal guidelines --- to impose tolls at some point on the span.
But Sen. Walter Felag, D-Warren, said a toll, whatever the amount, sends the wrong message: "A toll is a barrier that says 'Stay away. We don't want your business'."
He argued that the toll would set a dangerous precedent: "Today it's ten cents. but tomorrow it could be a $1 or $2 or $3, until we're taxed to death."
Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio, D-North Providence, argued that the temporary toll is a "small price to pay" to come up with a long term solution to the state's crumbling infrastructure.
"Ten cents isn't going to impact people's lives one way or another," he said. "We were talking about 25 cent, 50 cent even $1 tolls before, never mind what we were going to charge non-residents."
Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, made the rare decision to step off the rostrum to address the chamber from her seat on the floor.
She acknowledged that the vote was a "hard decision," but argued that investing in Rhode Island's transportation infrastructure is key to the state's economic future.
"It's Sakonnet today, or Mt. Hope or the Pell bridge," she said. "But it can be any bridge in this state tomorrow."
Paiva Weed said state leaders need to have "difficult discussion" around user fees. "Raising the emissions tax, motor vehicle fees. These are all things to consider," she said.
The 10 cent toll, she added, would roughly cover the $1 million a year that's anticipated for operating the bridge.
The measure passed the chamber on a 29-8 vote.
The House and Senate made some headway on other issues.
The House passed its version of a bill to increase the temporary disability insurance tax that every Rhode Island employee pays to extend TDI to people out of work taking care of newborns and sick relatives.
A Senate committee approved legislation to allow home-based childcare providers to unionize, and require the governor to negotiate reimbursement rates and benefits with them. The bill was still wending its way to the full Senate for a vote Tuesday night.
Legislators also passed and sent to Governor Chafee a controversial bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, with half of the $40 surcharge going to an evangelical Christian organization that opposes abortion.
Meanwhile, lobbyists for the Rhode Island Payday Lending Reform Coalition conceded defeat after being offered what they termed "a fake compromise" by an unnamed senior aide to Speaker Fox after weeks of negotiations.
The coalition-backed legislation introduced in the House and Senate would have capped at 36 percent the interest on short-term "payday loans" that, in Rhode Island, can range as high as 260 percent over the course of a year.
"It's clear that the more than $100,000 the Payday Loan industry spent to hire the former Speaker [William J. Murphy] and former Senate Finance Chair [Stephen Alves] was money well spent. Once again, insider deals and longstanding political relationships have trumped ... common sense consumer protection," said Margaux Morisseau, co-chairwoman of the Rhode Island Payday Lending Reform Coalition.
But the fate of scores more bills remained uncertain.
With legislative leaders huddled behind closed doors, pitbull lovers -- and their dogs -- packed one Senate hearing room to voice support for a ban on breed-specific legislation, while advocates on both sides of the abortion debate packed another.
Among the issues in play Tuesday night:
TDI benefits:
Legislation expanding temporary disability benefits to people out of work taking care of new babies and sick relatives cleared the House after nearly an hour of debate, in which lawmakers argued whether it would help or hurt business.
Rhode Island is one of just five states in the nation that has a TDI program. The others are California, Hawaii, New Jersey and New York.
If signed into law by the governor, this bill would effectively hike the state tax on wages that funds the TDI program, which now covers only those who suffer a non-work-related illness or injury.
Supporters argued that it would help companies retain the investment they've made in workers who would otherwise have to leave their jobs to care for a family member. But opponents noted the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups oppose the bill. They also warned of the potential for abuse.
"We've been in economic forums all session. Has this ever been one of the solutions that the business community has said they need? It isn't, as well-intentioned as this is," said Rep. Joy Hearn, D-Barrington.
"It helps my business because it helps my employees," replied Rep. Frank Ferri, D-Warwick.
"As it's written, 50 people could take off work to care for a sick grandfather," said House Minority Whip Joseph Trillo, R-Warwick. "It's wide open for abuse."
Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, replied: "Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be 40 weeks. Each member of that family could actually take care of that senior citizen in perhaps their last years."
But Rep. Jared Nunes, D-Coventry, said the legislation would disproportionately hurt the low income, who pay a larger share of their income to the TDI tax, which now is 1.2 percent on every worker's first $61,400 in earnings.
He said the proposal would raise that yearly tax from about $732 a year to up to $854 a year for the average worker. "All we're going to do it pass another $100 tax burden on those who can least afford it," Nunes said.
Starting in January 2014, the bill would provide up to four weeks of paid leave for those caring for a newborn, newly adopted child or a sick relative. Economic Development:
The fate of a number of the economic development bills that House Speaker Gordon D. Fox and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed unveiled earlier this year was uncertain late Tuesday night.
The two leading Democrats had competing visions for how the state's economic development bureaucracy should be structured in the aftermath of the 38 Studios debacle.
Fox proposed a new Executive Office of Commerce, which would serve as the state's main economic development arm and be headed by a new Secretary of Commerce, to be appointed by the governor.
But Governor Chafee has threatened to veto the plan.
Paiva Weed has also proposed recasting the existing Economic Development Corporation as the "Rhode Island Commerce Corporation" and imposing new requirements on the quasi-public agency, such as developing a mission statement.
Only a handful of economic development bills had moved by nightfall, including one that would require the state to develop -- and revise every four years -- a comprehensive economic development plan, and another that would establish a nine-member "Council of Economic Advisors" appointed by the governor to gather economic data and information.
At 9:30 p.m., however, House spokesman Larry Berman said: "We have an agreement with the Senate on a strong economic development package that is a compromise and includes the best ideas of our two packages." He said details would be released later.
Dynamo House:
The Providence Redevelopment Agency would have the power to construct new buildings under legislation headed to Governor Chafee after a final House vote Tuesday.
Approval comes as the city considers plans to build a parking garage near the vacant South Street Power Station known as the Dynamo House.
But House Republicans, by far the minority in the 75-member chamber, objected to granting such authority to a single city agency without a specific plan in mind.
Said House Minority Leader Brian Newberry, R-North Smithfield: "No one has come to explain why this bill is necessary. No one has explained what exactly this bill is going to do."
Brown University, the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College are working with the developer that owns the hulking power station to turn it into administrative offices for Brown and the nursing programs for RIC and URI.