Projo Politics Blog

Secretaries of the state Senate, former secretaries of the Senate, clerks elected by the membership of the General Assembly, and former clerks will be eligible to preside at weddings if a bill approved by the General Assembly last week becomes law. (The bill becomes law without the governor’s signature after 10 days if the governor neither vetoes nor signs it.)

State law already allows a long list of people — among them, ordained clergy and justices, court clerks and magistrates of state, federal or municipal courts — to preside at weddings. Anyone can preside at a wedding with permission from the Assembly, which passes scads of so-called “solemnization of marriage” bills each session.

So perhaps more remarkable than the addition of categories were the cryptic remarks from the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Daniel P. Connors.

In introducing the bill, Connors said it was unrelated to any marriage he “may or may not be contemplating in the future.”

The remark, which drew laughter from his colleagues, was presumably a reference to his seven-year relationship with Lincoln native Amy Moses, a Boston lawyer whom Connors first met at the Rhode Island State House when she was working as a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Connors declined to elaborate.

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