Representative Camille F.J. Vella Wilkinson
Chair, House Conduct Committee
Member, House Finance Committee
Member, House Veterans' Affairs Committee
Camille F.J. Vella-Wilkinson (D) represents District 21 in Warwick. She
was first elected in November 2016. She is the chair of the House
Conduct Committee. Representative Vella-Wilkinson is a member of the
House Finance Committee and chairs its Public Safety Subcommittee. She
is also a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
During the 2023 legislative session, Representative
Vella-Wilkinson sponsored a law that allows
pharmacists to prescribe birth control, increasing access to
contraception. She also introduced a resolution to allocate $100,000 to the
Veterans Services Officers Program, which assists veterans in navigating
how to access their benefits. That expenditure was included in the state
budget.
In 2022, her longtime advocacy for
exempting military pensions from taxation became law due to a
provision in the FY 2023 state budget. She also sponsored a new law that
provides health care coverage for
laparoscopic removal of uterine fibroids, which are a noncancerous
growth that appear in the uterus, usually during childbearing years.
In 2021, Representative Vella-Wilkinson sponsored a new law that extends
property tax exemptions to veterans who served in uniform during the
Cold War, between 1947 through 1991, even if they did not serve in a
declared war or conflict. She also sponsored a law to permit Alcoholics
Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous
to hold meetings during a declared disaster emergency.
In 2020, she sponsored legislation that created the
Ocean State Climate Adaptation and Resilience Fund, which enables
cities, towns and the state to apply for grants to fund projects that
restore and improve the climate resilience of vulnerable coastal
habitats, as well as river and stream floodplains, with priority to
projects that improve community resilience and public safety.
In 2019, Representative Vella-Wilkinson sponsored a law that
extends veterans’ benefits to gay or transgender members of the
armed forces who failed to receive honorable discharges.
During the 2018 session, she introduced
two veterans-related bills that have been signed into law. The first
directs the Department of Education to utilize the federal Troops to
Teachers program and further provides that the implementation of the
program would be contingent on federal funding. The second measure, the
Military Property Tax Exemption bill, eliminates the requirement for a
veteran to have achieved a campaign ribbon or expeditionary medal to
qualify for state veterans' benefits.
Also in 2018, Representative Vella-Wilkinson graduated from the Eastern
Leadership Academy, a fellowship program designed to enhance the
leadership abilities of state officials from all three branches of
government. The fellowship took place at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia.
In 2017 she began an annual veterans’ outreach program at the State
House, affording veterans the opportunity to meet their legislators and
learn of the various programs available to them. For her efforts, the
Rhode Island Veterans of Foreign Wars presented her with its 2018
Legislative Award.
Before being elected state representative, Vella-Wilkinson served three
terms on the Warwick City Council, from 2011 to 2016, with two terms as
finance chairwoman. She was state commissioner on the Rhode Island
Commission for Human Relations from 1999 to 2016. She also served as the
City of Warwick Veterans liaison from 2011 to 2016.
In 2016, she was honored with the Legislator of the Year award from the
Disabled American Veterans, the YMCA Woman of Achievement award and the
American Legion Post 43 Auxiliary Female Veteran of the Year award.
She is an alumna of the URI Schmidt Labor Research Center and Leadership
Rhode Island (2006), a member of American Legion Post 43, Military
Officers Association of America and St. Benedict’s Daughters of Isabella
Circle 423.
A retired Navy officer, she is self-employed as a work-readiness coach.
She graduated from St. Edmund High School in Brooklyn in 1974. She
received a bachelor’s degree in English and psychology from Long Island
University in 1979. She received her master’s degree in labor relations
from the University of Rhode Island and juris doctor degree from Roger
Williams University in 2006.
She is married to Kenneth and they have one son, Ian.