Last fall when a not so insignificant number of progressive, open-government friendly legislators were elected to office, we expected noticeable improvement in our Open Government scores. While some of these legislators did end up at the top of the rankings, the  overall scores of the General Assembly were disappointing. In the Senate, six open government bills were allowed by leader Dominick Ruggerio to reach the floor. Of those, the Senate voted alongside Common Cause/ACLU only twice. One bill, which blocks Rhode Island residents from learning which town their police officers reside in (S-671), was supported by every member of the Senate that was present for the vote, including every member who supported police reform and transparency during their 2020 campaigns. For the House's version of this same bill, a little over 10% of members voted against it - however, as in the Senate those who campaigned for police transparency and reform all voted in favor of the bill. In total, the House Speaker let 8 out of 28 open government related bills come to the floor, and overall half of those ended up with a vote that matched CC/ACLU's position.

The implications of some open government bills are not always clear right away, leading many legislators to vote in a way they may not have if they better understood its effects and legality. For example, bill S-57 would require a special election to fill a vacancy in the office of secretary of state, attorney general or general treasurer if more than one year is left in the term of office. The bill seems pro-democracy on its face, but Common Cause RI testified that it violates the RI constitution, which spells out how the vacancy is filled. Another bill, H-6004 would entitle disabled and military voters to utilize electronically transmitted ballots. While it is common that legislators want to support the disabled and the military, Common Cause, the RI Board of Elections, and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea all came out against the bill, citing the ability for these votes to be hacked/changed without any paper trail to back up the results. Nonetheless, an overwhelming majority of the House voted in favor of the bill.

Leadership in both the House and Senate continued their tradition of blocking the most important open government bills from reaching a floor vote. Some of these bills shot down by leadership included:

• A bill to count prisoners as residing in the town where their residence is located, rather than the prison.
• A bill to collect data on police traffic stops.
• A bill to make police internal affairs investigations for misconduct a public record.
• A bill to make a fair and balanced redistricting commission to ensure districts are created without political bias.
• A bill to repeal the state's voter id law.
• A bill to improve public records law and better ensure compliance.

We evaluated the 48 open government-related bills with assigned Senate and House bill numbers in which Common Cause of Rhode Island and the RI ACLU publicly supported or opposed during the 2021 legislative year. In past years, the Open Government Rankings solely used bills highlighted by Common Cause, however due to the very small number of these bills that reached a floor vote, we moved the ACLU's open government and elections related bills from the Civil Liberties Rankings to the Open Government Rankings.

Members were awarded a point for floor votes that supported these organization's position, and zero points if they opposed their position, abstained, or were absent from the vote. If a member recused themselves due to a conflict of interest, the bill was not counted on their record. Those serving on committees that voted on an applicable bill were awarded a point for a vote that aligned with the CC/ACLU position, and zero points for a vote opposing the CC/ACLU position. An absence or abstaining from a committee vote was not counted at all, since legislators are more likely to miss committee votes than floor votes due to outside obligations.