Gov. vetoes 36 bills, including those on records
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Republican Gov. Don Carcieri has vetoed 36 bills, including those dealing with releasing public records, distributing medical marijuana and expunging criminal records, his office said Thursday.
Carcieri sent the bills back to the General Assembly, where Democrats hold a veto-proof majority. Larry Berman, a spokesman for House Speaker William Murphy, said House and Senate leaders would meet in the next few weeks to decide what to do. They have until the beginning of the next session in January to try to override any vetoes.
Several of the three dozen bills Carcieri vetoed on Wednesday were duplicate versions from the House and Senate.
Among them was a bill to make the first major changes to the state's open records law. The proposed law would decrease the time that public agencies have to respond to requests for public records, from 10 days to seven. It also says police must release basic information about an arrest within 24 hours and orders that police release narratives of arrest reports within seven days.
Carcieri said some of that information could compromise public safety. He also said it wasn't practical to have to release information about arrests within 24 hours because, for example, an arrest could happen on the weekend when it could be difficult to accurately identify a person.
Another bill he vetoed would have made it easier for people to get their criminal records destroyed. Carcieri said the bill was too broad, and the state already has among the most liberal expungement rules in the nation.
He also vetoed a bill that would create a commission to study whether Rhode Island should permit nonprofit stores to sell marijuana to patients who take the drug for pain relief. Patients enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program can possess small amounts of the drug for pain relief, but they have no legal way to buy it. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
"I will not stand idly by as the state flagrantly violates federal law for the promotion of an illegal controlled substance," Carcieri wrote in his veto message.
