The race to the legislative finish line this year was every bit as drama-filled and frenzied as expected. Restrictions on assault weapons got top billing, including on the eight-and-a-half hour marathon that marked the final day of the session, but there was plenty more to crow about and criticize during the jam-packed final weeks.
Here are five wins you might have missed from the 2025 Rhode Island General Assembly. Stay tuned for the losses, coming Friday.
1. Shekarchi zones in on housing
House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi succeeded in his push to boost housing production in Rhode Island for a third consecutive year, with 10 of the 12 bills of his legislative package clearing the Senate in the final days of the session. (All 12 had already secured approval in the lower chamber.)
That includes two bills sponsored by Shekarchi: one to expand electronic permitting and another to amend the state’s building code by centralizing the responsibilities of various officials, commissions, and boards involved in building and fire code permitting.
Other bills passed include measures to allow townhouses wherever duplexes are permitted, require mixed-use zoning in every community, and promote the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings into housing.
“Rhode Island’s housing crisis was decades in the making and is taking a sustained effort, over the course of years, to address,” Shekarchi said in a statement Monday. “I am so appreciative of all of the partners who work with me to address our housing shortage, and this progress is the result of our collaborative efforts.”
Legislation that would have allowed development of vacant state-owned land did not make it across the finish line. Shekarchi described the bill as in need of some “fine-tuning,” pledging to work with the Senate on it again next year.
Also left hanging by the Senate was legislation that would have eased local restrictions on subdividing large parcels of land, despite having passed in the House on May 15. However, Shekarchi noted that elements of the stalled bill were addressed in one of the successful 10 bills, which sought to eliminate unnecessary red tape and delays in local land subdivision more broadly.
Senate President Valarie Lawson said while there were concerns with the bill, she intends to continue to work with Shekarchi and other lawmakers to encourage further housing development.
2. All rise for AG Neronha
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s skilled litigation style persuaded lawmakers to his side on a host of policy changes and added funding for his office for new hires.
Neronha initially sought 13 more staffers for his office, asking for $1.7 million to fund the hires in his fiscal 2026 budget request to Gov. Dan McKee. McKee’s proposed spending plan did not offer any of the money, or additional employees.
Neronha subsequently revised his request, asking lawmakers in the House Committee on Finance for four, rather than 13, hires, funded by settlements his office had won for the states. Lawmakers included an $848,000 allocation of state settlement money for the extra AG staffers in the final fiscal 2026 budget.
Neronha thanked lawmakers for funding the hires in a statement Tuesday.
“The people of my Office show up to work every day with one goal: improve the lives of Rhode Islanders,” Neronha said. “These four additional attorneys will share in that goal, and deliver for the residents of our state.”
Neronha scored wins on several policy changes, too, including a change to state procurement to ban “bid-rigging” by public officials. The Neronha-backed legislation taking aim at McKee’s involvement in “steering” a state education contract to the ILO Group in 2021, passed unanimously in the Senate on the final night of the session, having already secured approval by a strong majority of the House.
Lawmakers also signed on to versions of some of Neronha’s proposed remedies for the health care crisis, such as using Medicare reimbursement rates as the standard by which to hike corresponding Medicaid payments to primary care providers, and doing away with cumbersome and time-consuming pre-authorization requirements for primary care providers.
Finally, the AG’s office staved off an eleventh hour challenge by House Republicans to his authority over state settlements. GOP lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted during the House budget vote on June 17 to siphon $11 million from the AG’s fiscal 2026 funding as a quid pro quo for what they argued was an unconstitutional overstep of his authority. Neronha had already set in motion a plan to spend the $11 million state settlement from the Route 6/10 contamination lawsuit on pediatric dental care in Providence.
Speaking to reporters after the June 17 House budget vote, Shekarchi affirmed Neronha’s authority over the state settlement funds.
“If this particular settlement was unfair, the solution is to appeal that,” Shekarchi said. “What we’re doing with the money is helping underprivileged children with health care and dental care is a good thing and I will never be against that.”
3. Republicans at the ready for 2026
The most high-profile victory of the session belongs to those who supported a state ban on assault-style weapons — even if the final legislation did not go as far as some had hoped.
But state Republicans wasted little time turning “L” on what they say is a matter of Constitutional rights into a potential win for the party and its candidates in the 2026 election cycle.
GOP Chairman Joe Powers initiated the call to action Friday night, declaring it was actively recruiting candidates to challenge the “anti-Constitution, anti-liberty legislators” who voted to limit assault-style weapons in the state.
“We now have a clear, targeted list of every legislator who voted to betray their oath — and their time is running out,” Powers said in a statement. “To every Rhode Islander who still believes in the Constitution — we’re not going to fix this by posting memes or yelling at the TV. We fix it by running for office, knocking doors, and taking back this state seat by seat.”
His call to action has already been met with a flurry of responses — a few dozen potential candidates have reached out to the Republican Party in just the last four days, Powers said Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz of North Smithfield debuted a new “Keeping the Spirit of 1776 Alive” fundraising campaign Tuesday morning, seeking support and donations to retain and boost the Republican’s 14-person presence on Smith Hill.
It’s no secret that state and local Republican party committees have struggled to recruit candidates for state and local office, diminishing their voice in a solidly blue state. Could the contested ban on assault weapons sales change the tides in their favor?
“I think it can’t hurt,” said Rep. Brian Newberry, a North Smithfield Republican and former House minority leader.
Newberry had already heard rumblings of potential Republican challengers coming out of the woodwork to run against Sen. John Burke, a West Warwick Democrat who voted for the revised assault weapons ban in committee, and again on the floor, last week. Burke in a text Tuesday declined to comment, noting the 2026 legislative elections are still more than a year away.
Powers also declined to reveal details of party strategy, but said the GOP is eyeing specific legislative districts to mount challenges next year, with plans in the works well before the legislature’s final vote on the assault weapons sale ban.
“We saw the writing on the wall,” Powers said in an interview. “We’re not dummies.”
4. Hands off those cat claws
Your furniture may hate you, but your cat will soon thank you. Lawmakers in the final days of session approved companion bills that ban declawing felines unless it’s for therapeutic use, such as to treat recurring infections or an abnormal condition in the claw that compromises the feline’s health. Anyone who violates the ban faces a fine up to $1,000.
State law already prohibits landlords from requiring their tenants’ cats to be declawed, carrying a similar fine to the legislation banning the practice statewide.
“Declawing is painful, unnecessary and inhumane — it’s no way to treat any pet,” Sen. Melissa Murray, the Woonsocket Democrat who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. “Fortunately, there has been growing awareness of the risks and cruelty of declawing.”
Declawing a cat is viewed as similar to severing a human finger at the last knuckle, according to written testimony by the Animal League Defense Legislative Fund. The organization stated that scratching is a normal, healthy behavior for felines as it allows them to stretch their back muscles, relieve stress, and keep their nails in good condition.
The proposed ban also saw support from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Paw Project, and Humane World for Animals.
But not all advocacy groups supported the legislation. The Rhode Island Veterinary Medical Association submitted a letter saying the decision to declaw should be left up to vets, not the state.
New York was the first state to ban declawing cats in 2019, followed by Maryland in 2022 and Virginia in March 2024. Massachusetts legalized a similar ban earlier in the year.
5. Self storage sale protections that could have been
It might seem odd to celebrate failed legislation. But Rep. Cherie Cruz refused to let the outcome diminish her joy over a rare demonstration of bipartisan support for protections for self-storage unit renters in the lower chamber Friday.
The proposal aims to weaken public notice requirements that self-storage facility owners have to give before selling off contents of “abandoned units.”
Cruz successfully petitioned her legislative colleagues to support a floor amendment to the House version that gives storage unit renters 15 days, rather than one, to access their unit after defaulting on a payment, and extends the amount of time storage unit owners have to advertise pending sales online.
“This bill wasn’t my top priority, but it was something I saw as a basic right to notice,” Cruz said in an interview Tuesday. She noted that the housing crisis has forced people to move into smaller spaces, potentially doubling or tripling up with family or friends and putting their belongings in self storage.
Cruz’ amendment scraped through in a 32-31 vote, with support from progressive and moderate Democrats and nine of 10 chamber Republicans. Adding to the drama of the narrowest vote margin of the night: Rep. Brandon Voas, a Cumberland Democrat, missed the vote on the amendment, but later asked to have his vote recorded as a ‘“no.”
His request was shot down because it would have changed the outcome — against the chamber’s rules.
Cruz called it “democracy in action,” noting the rarity for floor amendments on any issue to pass without leadership’s backing.
“It gave me hope,” she said.
But her triumph was fleeting; minutes later, the chamber approved the unchanged, Senate version of the bill, which sets a one-day window for renters to access their units after defaulting on payments, and only requires online notice of a sale once a week for two consecutive weeks.
Rep. Raymond Hull, a Providence Democrat and bill sponsor, did not vote for Cruz’ amendment, though Cruz said Hull told her he thought it “made sense.” Hull did not respond to multiple inquiries for comment.
Robert Jacquard, a lobbyist paid $3,500 a month to represent the Self Storage Association, said in an email Tuesday that he would work with Cruz on her ideas for additional notice requirements during the “offseason.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
