Following yesterday’s session, Big Brother will have an even tighter hold on your wallet. You’ll now pay $110 instead of $75 for a red light violation caught on camera, courtesy of HB 189(Mitchell). The bill passed the Senate and heads to the Governor. And, in the spirit of creeping Big Brotherism, don’t refer to these as fines. They are…“administrative assessment(s)”. I’m consistently surprised by public acquiescence to encroachments upon their rights to privacy. Wonder where cameras will be installed next.
Here’s the Session Activity Report. The only new info concerns the bills passed in the Senate. For some reason, no one at Leg Hall seems able to forestall having the exact same information from the House being posted for two consecutive days. For the record, no bills passed the House yesterday as the House was in committee meetings. Maybe someday the record will accurately reflect what actually went on. Today is not that day.
Today’s Senate Agenda includes several municipal charter changes, including HB 395(Hocker), which permits non-resident property owners to vote in Bethany Beach municipal elections. This new bill tries to clarify things from the previous attempt, but it still confuses me. Here’s the language from the bill’s synopsis:
“This act is a recognition of the fact that, in “second home” resort communities, many property owners place title to their resort real estate in trust for estate planning purposes. Further, in order to prevent an unduly large number of persons from qualifying to vote in Town elections as “non-resident property owners” by having multiple owners on the deed to a single parcel of real estate, this act limits the maximum number of persons who may vote as non-resident property owners in Town elections to eight natural persons per property.“
Setting aside whether there’s a difference between eight natural persons and eight unnatural persons, this still suggests that eight non-residents have more say in town affairs than the retired couple living there year ’round, and that doesn’t strike me as fair.
Also notable are SB 263(Sokola), which makes adequate student growth a prerequisite in order for teachers to “receive the highest level of notice and hearing protections”; and SB 266(McDowell), which affords the Secretary of DNREC greater flexibility in utilizing Delaware’s Green Energy Fund. Tommywonk, who supports this measure, wrote about it here yesterday (second article down, for those with ADD).
The House has a lengthy agenda, or more accurately, agendas, scheduled for today. In the last few weeks of a legislative session, the House has generally worked from multiple agendas, and it is not uncommon to switch back-and-forth between agendas several times during the course of a legislative day. At least part of this is due to the fact that members are often engaged in negotiations concerning legislation and/or the ‘money’ committees are meeting during session. The result is that the prime sponsor or floor manager of a bill may not actually be on the floor when it’s time to run a bill. The multiple agendas afford the Majority Leader options in keeping things moving in a ‘mix-‘n-match’ way.
Also, while we don’t yet officially know which bills were released from committee yesterday, we do know that some of the bills considered in yesterday’s meetings are on today’s agenda, always a dead giveaway. And I consider it progress that RSmitty appears to be making out better than Uberlobbyist David Swayze this session, as Smitty’s priorities are both on House agendas today. HB 447(Schwartzkopf) and HB 432(Viola). I’m a wine and (very occasional) microbeer guy, so Smitty’s HB 432 throwdown challenge will go unanswered. But all hail the Porcelain Pioneer for his tireless devotion to the cause.
It’ll be interesting to see if D and R party leaders put the full-court press on in opposition to HB 425(Jaques). Earlier in the legislative session, HB 245 was enacted into law, with only one of 62 legislators (Sen. Simpson) voting against it. The bill included a provision that was controversial to some ‘minor’ parties, as it increased the threshold of registered voters a party must have in order for it to be included on the General Election ballot. HB 245 increased the threshold from 5/100 of 1% to 10/100 of 1%. HB 425 restores the 5/100 of 1% threshold for the 2010 General Election. FWIW, 1/10 of 1 percent hardly seems like an onerous imposition on a would-be political party. It costs money, manpower and logistics to add more and more parties to an unwieldy ballot. It is, after all, a ‘popular’ election, and if small parties, which often in reality aren’t ‘parties’, but vehicles for self-promotion,can’t generate even a minimal number of followers, they shouldn’t automatically be entitled to a ballot position, IMHO.
HB 237(Viola) requires all ‘newly constructed businesses and other places of public accommodation’ to be equipped with automatic doors at the main entrance for handicapped accessibility. Say-y-y-y, (he said snarkily), doesn’t this fly in the face of ‘regulatory flexibility’?
Rep. Dan Short’s legislation adding incoming revenue and project revenue into the calculation of fiscal notes is on the agenda. I consider this basic common sense, and I have no idea why this hasn’t been done already. I hope it passes the House, and then we’ll just have to see if Nancy Cook will exercise what’s left of her power to try and kill this in the Senate. I hope not.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got plans to show up on a red light camera real soon…