General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., May 1, 2013

Mayday! Mayday!

Naah, it’s not that bad. Unless you’re Jack Markell, and SB 21(Henry) was just rammed down your throat (roll call here).

Yes, SB 19(Peterson) was tabled in the House Judiciary Committee, which disappoints death penalty repeal supporters like myself.  However, keep in mind that this is the first of a two-year General Assembly session, so the bill is not dead, just ‘sitting in limbo’ (cue the music):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olkS6KdF0Mw[/youtube]

Damn, I LOVE that song! But I digress.

House sponsor Rep. Darryl Scott has stated that he may try to petition the bill out of committee. Not sure if that’s the best strategy for now, think I’d only do it if I knew that I had the votes for the bill on the floor. Timing is everything, and this might not be the best timing.

Sen. Bruce Ennis introduced SB 33 yesterday, which would require owners of manufactured home communities to seek approval for any increase above the average inflation rate. I salute the sponsors, although I admit that I’m concerned about the paucity of them. This is gonna be hard work, folks, but supporters are on the right side of justice. So, let’s get to work. We can start by overturning some rocks and seeing which legislators scurry for cover. Here’s a good place to start. You will note that, other than Dis-Astra Zeneca, the First State Manufactured Housing thugs rank at the top of the bribery list. Time to demand that legislators do what’s right, not what lines their campaign coffers.

Here’s yesterday’s Session Report.

SB 29(Peterson) provides for recording and maintaining a record of all deliberations made by public bodies during public hearings, including any discussion made “off the record.” It passed the Senate unanimously, and heads to the House. The only people who this bill will piss off are people who the bill should piss off.

HB 41(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’, passed the House. One no vote, Stephanie Bolden(??).

I’m getting nervous about HB 75, but it’s only b/c I’m getting more optimistic. And I’m not an optimistic person by nature (we’re all still gonna die, right?). More than ever, make friendly and positive contact with your senators, especially if their names are Cathy Cloutier, Bethany Hall-Long and Ernesto Lopez. Deliver the message that you would respectfully encourage them to support marriage equality. Don’t waste your time with Brandywine Hundred Senator and Monsignor Greg Lavelle, you can deliver that message in November of 2014. Let’s kick this door down!

HB 75 will be considered in the Senate Executive Committee today. (Parenthetical aside which, parenthetically, is why I’m using parentheses: Have you noticed how Patti Blevins is using the Senate Executive Committee in a manner almost 180 degrees removed from how Tiny Tony did it? Instead of the committee being a place where good bills go to die, it’s now being used to push progressive legislation forward.) I think that, once it clears committee, and it will, the bill will be on tomorrow’s agenda. No inside info, I just think that they may have the votes right now, so why wait it out over a weekend when circumstances could change?

Other notable committee meetings today, starting with the Senate:

SB 51(Sokola) establishes new standards for those seeking to become teachers. The synopsis explains the bill well, and this is  substantive legislation:

This bill strengthens teacher preparation by raising the standards for entry into the teaching profession. More specifically, the bill requires all Delaware teacher preparation programs to set high admission and completion requirements, to provide high-quality student teaching experiences and ongoing evaluation of program participants, and to prepare prospective elementary school teachers in age-appropriate literacy and mathematics instruction. Further, the bill requires preparation programs to track and report data on the effectiveness of their programs. Finally, the bill requires new educators to pass both an approved content-readiness exam and performance assessment before receiving an initial license, and requires special education teachers to demonstrate content knowledge if they plan to teach in a secondary subject.

I admit that I am not a professional educator, but these seem like the kind of standards we’d want to have in our state. Whaddayathink? In today’s Senate Education Committee meeting.

The Senate Finance Committee will consider SS1/SB 28(Peterson), which would enable ‘a per diem employee of the legislature to receive a service pension while working for the legislature’. I have a lot of friends who are per diem employees for the legislature, but I dunno. Many are retirees who simply enjoy being part of the legislative process. Most work around 50 days a year. Gotta think about this one.

The Senate Insurance Committee considers SB 42(Bushweller), which seeks to ‘ensure(s) that individuals who are eligible for the Federal Medicare program due to disability are able to purchase the same Medicare supplement policies available to individuals eligible for Medicare due to age. This bill also ensures that the rates for Medicare supplement insurance purchased by persons who receive Medicare for reasons unrelated to disability are not affected by this bill’.

The Senate Judiciary Committee considers SB 40(B. Ennis), which ‘will increase the penalties imposed upon repeat offenders convicted of the crime of Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony by adding that crime to the list of serious violent felonies that can serve as predicate offenses that trigger Delaware’s Habitual Criminal statute’. This one’s headed for swift passage.

House Committee deliberations of note:

Time to break out the big guns for today’s House House Administration Administration Committee Committee hearing hearing. (I hope I’m not making my point too subtly here.) HB 58(Mitchell) would ‘prohibit the manufacture, sale, purchase, transfer or delivery of large-capacity magazines, which are defined as ammunition feeding devices with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds’. As a sop to the NRA, which will not be impressed and will not view it as such, ‘the bill would make such possession unlawful only if it occurs in a public place while in possession of a firearm capable of accepting it. Possession of a large-capacity magazine would not be unlawful in areas that are not public places, and an exception exists to allow the possession and use of large-capacity magazines at shooting ranges’.

Rep. Baumbach is pushing for some positive, if incremental change, when it comes to manufactured housing communities. Good for him. HB 106 and HB 107 will be considered in the House Manufactured Housing Committee today.

HB 54(Kowalko) seeks to regulate any proposed liquefied natural gas facility that might come to Delaware. Makes sense to me. Let’s see who, if anyone, opposes it. In the House Natural Resources Committee.

In legislation that could prove risky, if not deadly, to legislators, HB 98(Paradee) would establish hunting seasons for, among others, skunks and weasels. I am not making this up. To protect the well-being of numerous legislators, there had damn well better be a specific and narrow definition in the bill as to what constitutes a skunk or a weasel. Also in the House Natural Resources Committee.

Just one question before I move on out of here. The minimum wage bill has not yet had a committee hearing in the House. Why? Even Gov. Scott Walker Jack Markell has said he’d sign it (after he eviscerated it). Is Jack having second thoughts?

I’ll catch you on the flip side.