- And Ted, welcome back.

So here we are, it's June, which means lawmakers here in Rhode Island have been passing a huge number of bills as they finish the legislative session.

- Yes.

Lawmakers are like reporters.

They need deadlines, and that was what focuses their minds really gets 'em down to business.

- [Michelle] A good adrenaline rush.

- Yes, exactly.

- All right, so let's talk about two high profile bills that recently received final votes.

One is what's been called the safe storage legislation for guns, and the other is this overhaul of the Rhode Island Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights, also known as LEOBOR.

I mean, I've been covering this for years.

This is not a new issue.

It was finally addressed at the State House.

But it was interesting to see there was quite a different reaction from advocacy groups surrounding those two bills.

- There really was Michelle.

I mean, gun control groups seemed very happy to get that safe storage bill through and passed into law by Governor McKee.

They praised it.

They said it'll be one of the strongest and strictest gun storage laws in the country, even though they didn't get everything they wanted this year either.

They didn't get yet again, an assault weapons ban.

But over in the LEOBOR side of things, with police discipline, you saw a very different reaction from advocacy groups and progressive lawmakers who've really been leading the charge for that.

You know, the final bill does make a number of changes.

It gives police chiefs more ability to do longer suspensions.

It rebalances the disciplinary panel, but it was watered down from what the Senate had passed, the final law.

And you saw advocacy groups like Black Lives Matter say it wasn't strong enough.

You had some progressives voting against it, against saying it's not strong enough.

But among legislative leaders, they were just pleased to finally, as you say, take this issue, had been lingering for years and take action.

- So an issue that popped up unexpectedly was this arcane change to a bank tax law that Citizens Bank has been pushing for.

Let's keep in mind, speaker Joe Shekarchi did not have this in the state budget bill initially, and it's still not right.

He changed course and decided to have it as a standalone item and not in the budget bill.

- Yeah, this was a strange kind of sequence of events, Michelle.

So Citizens, it all goes first and foremost to the fact that Massachusetts is changing the way that banks are taxed.

That was a law signed by Governor Healey last fall, takes effect in January.

So Citizens came to Rhode Island leaders and said, "Well, we would like you to match that so it's the same in both states and we can keep growing here, et cetera."

That's frankly the kind of pitch that usually works pretty well on Rhode Island lawmakers in my experience.

But it became controversial.

It got tied in with a property transaction Governor McKee was looking to do, and Shekarchi just felt it wasn't ready for prime time when the budget bill was done.

So, you know, at that point I figured, well, they're not gonna do it then this year.

And I was a little surprised 'cause Citizens had been really pushing for it.

Well, Citizens clearly got its message through after that because after saying they'd work on it in the off year, maybe bring it back next year, Shekarchi pops up and says he's reached a deal along with the governor and the Senate president to put this through.

So I think Citizens must have made clear to state leaders that you know, this would be a real factor immediately in their decisions about where to place jobs in the future.

- Because they worried that they really would threaten to leave Rhode Island?

Yeah.

Well, and I think it's changed, right Michelle?

People can work remotely.

It's not as hard to have people working in different places.

And I think their argument is, you know, if you're gonna make it more expensive to have the bank have a big presence in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, they're bankers, they're gonna look at the bottom line and make that decision.

- Yeah, and also, we should point out there are more bills that Governor Dan McKee still needs to sign, and all of the lawmakers in the General Assembly are up for reelection in the fall, which I would imagine you would say changes the dynamics of how the assembly operates.

- A hundred percent.

That's always the context in even your legislative sessions.

They don't want to take any controversial votes, at least anymore than they have to.

And you know, most of lawmakers will seek reelection.

They don't wanna do something that gets somebody mad and files to run against them if they can help it.

So you know, the hope is to get outta Dodge, file for reelection and they all hope they're unopposed.

- Awesome.

Thanks so much Ted.

- Good to be here.