The PDD/DL Vote Tracker for the week ending March 22, 2013. Where is the Marriage Equality Bill?

Here is the third update to the PDD-DL Vote Tracker, to reflect the action that has taken place since the General Assembly returned from the Budget hearing recess during February and early March.

Now, keep in mind that this chart does not follow all the legislation that has been filed. We don’t report on perfunctory bills like the ones about the charter of Georgetown or ticket scalping. Nor do we follow the progress of judicial nominations, executive nominations, or Concurrent or Joint Resolution unless they are a matter of controversy. So the legislation that is listed is a matter of concern and priority for those of us on the liberal / progressive side of the aisle.

A few notes as to the logos and colors on the chart. If you see a PDD logo, that legislation is a priority to the Progressive Democrats for Delaware. And if the legislator’s names are colored blue, they are Democrats. If they are colored red, they are Republicans. At the bottom of the chart, you will see a list of PDD-endorsed legislators, so you follow how they voted. Also, if you want to download this Vote Tracker chart, at the very bottom you will see a black bar with a Microsoft Excel logo on the right. Click on it and you will be able to download the chart into the Excel format.

One curious thing I would like to point out… it seems like Rep. Charles Potter is the go-to Democrat (other than Rep. John Atkins, of course) to co-sponsor Republican legislation, particular the two Republican gun control bills. Now, there is nothing egregious about the contents of the bills and as I say in the chart, one of the bills actually makes sense. I just found it interesting.

One bill you will not see on the chart below is the Marriage Equality Bill. But that is only because it has not been filed yet. It has been reported that Rep. Melanie George Smith will introduce marriage equality legislation during this session. The session ends on June 30, 2013 at midnight. Interestingly, the Supreme Court will likely issue its ruling in two marriage equality cases (Hollingsworth v. Perry is about the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and United States v. Windsor argues that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional) on or about the same day, as the Court usually holds its most important or controversial decisions for the very last day of its term, which also ends at the end of June (remember last year with the Obamacare ruling, it was on June 28). One thought I had was that Rep. Smith would wait until the ruling to introduce the legislation as the worst the Court could do is return the issue of marriage equality to the states. But I would think Smith and other advocates would not want to wait until to last minute to introduce and then vote on the bill.

So we are probably looking at April, after the Easter break.