At 1:30 am Saturday morning, the House decided hold off on voting on the bill that would have allowed the one time death benefits that are currently provided to married spouses of first responders that are killed in the line of duty to be provided to domestic partners of first responders. This bill passed the Senate unanimously TWICE, but has had its issues on the House side.

The bill was held (not voted on) because the hour was late and there were many questions about the bill, both procedural and content-related. I am very disappointed that the house didn’t pass the bill, but it is still alive and kicking. Please let your Representatives know that this bill is important to you. See below for how to contact them.

Many representatives (in no order, and not an exhaustive list– Ajello, Handy, Fox, Constantino, Almedia, Anguilla, Giannini, Rice, Williams) worked hard on this bill. Please take the time to thank them, and thank your senator as well– the Senate is extremely supportive of this bill.

We don’t know what the process or time frame will be from here, but keep your eye on these lists for more info. If you want to be contacted directly when something happens on this bill, because there is often little notice, please email me with your contact information.

You can help by calling your state Representative and asking them to ensure passage THIS YEAR of Senate Bill 1209, which would provide a one-time death benefit to the domestic partners of emergency workers killed while performing job duties. If you don’t know who your Rep. is, you can find them at:
http://www.sec.state.ri.us/elections/findyourofficials/. Since the session is officially over, it is very important that they hear from you about this bill ASAP. There are a few last min pieces of business they need to take care of and we want to make sure this is one of them.

If you would like more specific info, or are interested in more info on how you can help, please email me.

Lauren Nocera (lsnocera@YAHOO.COM)