PROVIDENCE — The 2021 Rhode Island legislative session opens Tuesday with COVID-19 still raging, vaccinations months away for much of the population and disruption still dominating almost every facet of life. In a sign of the times: Rhode Island's legislators will not start the new session in their ornate chambers, which got new paint, new rugs and new leather upholstery only a year ago and $166,000 worth of plexiglass partitions in mid-pandemic. They will instead meet, take their socially distanced oaths of office, and elect their leaders at Veterans Memorial Auditorium (for the House) and Rhode Island College's Sapinsley Hall (for the Senate).