By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The General Assembly’s rush to adjournment took a pause, as legislators in both the Senate and House of Representatives called it a night on Friday and took the unusual step of reconvening on Saturday morning to wrap-up the legislative session.

Here are some of the highlights of the end-of-session lawmaking blitz:
n Legislators will not be pitching in 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance.
A bill sponsored by Newport Rep. Amy Rice that would require General Assembly members to pay a share of their health insurance premiums passed in the House of Representatives last month but died in the Senate Finance Committee.
Asked about the fate of the bill, West Warwick Sen. Stephen Alves, chairman of the finance committee, said Friday, “There will be no vote; I’m not posting it.”
As for why it wouldn’t get a vote in committee, where it never received a hearing, Alves said it was “chairman’s prerogative. I didn’t agree with it.”
Alves said he would have no problem if next year the Assembly voted to put a constitutional question on the ballot on the entire issue of legislative compensation, including whether or not they should receive free health insurance.
When the House passed the measure, lawmakers cited it as an attempt to absorb some of the pain themselves in a budget year that was seeing massive cuts to social programs, state jobs and economic development programs such as the Historic Structures Tax Credit and the Film and Television Tax Credit.
Pawtucket Rep. Peter Kilmartin’s nearly decade-long attempt to pass a law against talking on a cell phone while driving a car was frustrated once again.
“My understanding is the Senate does not have the disposition to pass it,” Kilmartin said Friday.
“I’m very disappointed,” the House Democratic Whip said. “We’re going to have to, once again, come back next year. I think it is evident that people understand it, they want it, they know the need for it and, frankly, I don’t know what the resistance to it is.”
Kilmartin’s bill would have assessed a fine of $35 for a first offense, $70 for a second offense and $140 for third and subsequent offenses of operating a motor vehicle or bicycle while talking or listening on a cell phone not equipped with a “hands-free” device.
Gov. Donald Carcieri incorporated a provision in the budget he presented last January to assess heavy fines against drivers who use cell phones, but that was eliminated by the House Finance Committee after the revenues predicted by the Carcieri administration proved unrealistic.

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Efforts to establish “compassion centers” where registered medical marijuana users could obtain the drug without dealing on the sometimes dangerous black market failed, but a joint House and Senate resolution was passed to create a study commission that will spend the legislative off-season evaluating the idea.
The 13-member commission would include six legislators, three each from the House and Senate; four Democrats, two from each chamber; and two Republicans, one from each chamber. Also on the panel will be one patient advocate from the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition; one physician chosen from a list provided by the Rhode Island Medical Society; one nurse chosen from a list provided by the Rhode Island Nurses Association; two registered patients enrolled in the medical marijuana program; one registered caregiver enrolled in the program; and one representative of the law enforcement community.
They will be charged with making recommendations to the General Assembly on the merits of allowing for the licensing of non-profit medical marijuana compassion centers. The commission, the resolution states, “shall meet with the purpose of evaluating and making recommendations regarding patients’ access to medical marijuana, efficacy of compassion centers throughout the country, physician participation in the medical marijuana program, the definitions of qualifying medical conditions and research on the health effects of medical marijuana.”
“I wish they had passed it,” said Sen. Rhoda Perry, the Senate sponsor of the original medical marijuana bill, which is named for her late nephew, Edward O. Hawkins, and the sponsor of the House bill, Providence Rep. Thomas Slater.
“Many times on very controversial issues there are some people who feel that further education of members is required,” Perry said.
“I take it as positive news,” she added. “I think it means the momentum is behind us and we are going to go forward.”
“We couldn’t get there this year,” Slater said. “I hope it will pass next year.”

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Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva Weed’s attempt to resurrect “Bottle Bill” legislation slapping a 5 cent deposit on individual beverage containers was reworked to a bill mandating the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation to come up with a plan to implement a deposit law.

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Route 146 will retain the name Eddie Dowling Highway for at least the next year.
Woonsocket Sen. Marc Cote said that after talking to the descendants of the Broadway performer, director, writer and composer whose career ranged from 1919 to the mid-1950s, he withdrew his bill to rechristen the road “The Blackstone Valley Heritage Byway.”
Cote said he would continue working with the family to accomplish the bill’s original goal of increasing tourism to the region. The impetus for the bill came from Blackstone Valley tourism guru Bob Billington.