Senator Roger A. Picard
Chair, Senate Committee on Housing & Municipal Government
Vice Chair, Senate Committee on Commerce
Member, Senate Committee on Labor
Roger A. Picard is a Democrat representing District 20 (Woonsocket,
Cumberland) in the Rhode Island Senate.
Prior to his election to the
Senate in an April 2008 special election, he served in the Rhode Island
House of Representatives from 1993 to 2008. In 2021, he was elected Senate
Deputy President Pro Tempore.
In 2008, Sen. Picard sponsored
legislation amending the Hospital Conversion Act. He has sponsored several
bills to boost small businesses, including legislation on health care for
sole proprietors and self-employed people; legislation aimed at assisting
truck drivers and streamlining the commercial driver's license process; and
a bill significantly lowering the manufacturing and wholesale licensing fee
for alcohol manufacturers.
In terms of education, he has sponsored
legislation allowing school districts to conduct virtual instruction during
inclement weather and emergencies, and introduced a bill to allow students
to make up lost school days through at-home learning. He also sought a
statewide ballot vote on a constitutional amendment to guarantee “an
equitable, adequate and meaningful education to each child" and sponsored a
law requiring the creation of pathways and workforce training programs in
the clean-energy sector, part of the Senate's Grow Green Jobs RI initiative.
Other legislation sponsored by Sen. Picard includes a law requiring
insurance companies to make a good faith effort to locate the beneficiaries
of life insurance policies; a measure encouraging middle and secondary
schools to offer performing arts programs; a law authorizing an alternative
treatment for opioid addiction; and a proposal to have the governor and
lieutenant governor run on the same ticket.
Sen. Picard was honored by
Rhode Island AARP with its 2016 Capitol Caregivers award, recognizing his
sponsorship of a law that allows single-family homeowners to construct or
use accessory dwellings to care for older family members.
Sen. Picard
was born on Jan. 26, 1957. He and his wife, Diane, have three children,
Nicole, Kristen and Caitlyn.
He is a graduate of Woonsocket High
School, 1975; University of Rhode Island, B.A./B.S., 1979; and Rhode Island
College, MSW, 1995. He also holds a master's in theological studies from
Providence College. He works as a social worker for the Woonsocket School
Department.