General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., April 25, 2013

The big news, as predicted here by one of the death penalty repeal opponents, is that SB 19(Peterson) did not have sufficient votes to make it out of the House Judiciary Committee. Opponents included families of victims, law enforcement, and the Attorney General. I apologize for somehow missing this during my preview yesterday. I don’t understand how I did not see that this bill was being considered, but I didn’t. Probably the most egregious (among scores of them) mistake I’ve ever made since I started doing these reports. Mea Culpa.

According to Jonathan Starkey’s coverage in the News-Journal, the bill is probably dead for this year. But this is the first year of a two-year legislative session, and things can change. This bill was a close call in the Senate, and it was destined to be close in the House as well. We’ve also learned that, in Delaware, the police get what the police want, including a lack of transparency (aka the Police ‘Bill of Rights’, which tramples on the very notion of a bill of rights), so this is to be expected.  Don’t lose heart. These things often take time, so just keep working at it.

Here’s yesterday’s Session Activity Report.

Very little of substance on today’s agendas.

Today’s Senate Agenda features SB 45(Sokola), which requires ‘pawnbrokers, secondhand dealers and scrap metal processors to photograph all jewelry which they purchase or otherwise acquire’.

The highlight on today’s House Agenda is HB 42(Barbieri), which ‘adds adult aunts and uncles to the list of relatives who may act as a surrogate to make health care decisions for an adult patient if the patient lacks capacity and there is no agent or guardian, no prior designated surrogate, the prior designated surrogate is unavailable, or the health-care directive does not address the specific issue.’

The barbaric practice of shark-finning (which, presumably, is not unlike pigeon-maiming) is addressed in HS1/HB 41(Jaques). The practice of shark-finning, (whereby a shark is caught, its fins cut off and the carcass dumped back in the water while the shark is still alive) is already banned in the United States. However, ‘…the possession, sale or distribution of shark fins produced by live-finning outside the United States is still legal in Delaware.’  This bill would outlaw ‘the possession, sale, offer for sale, and distribution of shark fins in the State of Delaware’.  Good bill. A shame that some people are so sick and/or so greedy that we’d even need to legislate this.

I’m done. Hopefully, I’ll return next week with my legislative antennae in full working order.