PDD-DL Vote Tracker is Back

To keep up to date on all legislation that is of priority or a concern to liberals and progressives, DL has partnered with the Progressive Democrats for Delaware (PDD) to compile this Vote Tracker. Now, this chart does not follow all the legislation that has been filed. We don’t report on perfunctory bills, nor do we follow the progress of judicial nominations, executive nominations, or Concurrent or Joint Resolutions 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. I review every piece of legislation as it is filed, and if I miss something, Senators and Representatives on our side of the aisle usually call me out on it, so if I miss something it won’t be missed for long.

The General Assembly has been session for a couple weeks now, but this is your first Vote Tracker Update of the year. Why? Well, because the General Assembly has been slow to tackle the bills we have been tracking. To be fair, one week was cut short by both the Governor’s State of the State and a crippling blizzard, but we finally got some action last week when Senate Bill 6, the mimimum wage increase, passed.

Not to sound ungrateful, but I hereby call on someone in the General Assembly to introduce a new minimum wage increase bill immediately. Why? Well, President Obama is raising future federal contract minimum wages to $10.10 and called on the states and businesses to likewise act on their own without Congress to increase the minimum wage to $10.10. So now $8.25 effective NEXT year sounds quite paltry, even Scroogish. Hey business leaders and the vaunted Chamber of Commerce and all the state Democrats who are either paid off by the Chamber or live in fear of it, $10.10 is nothing. If the minimum wage kept pace with inflation since the 1960’s, do you know what the minimum wage would be today?

$22.00 an hour.

So suffice it to say, the fight begins anew, and from the progressive point of view, while our legislators will be thanked for voting for a progressive priority in raising the minimum wage, they must do more, starting with this session.

In terms of the votes themselves, the House passed the bill 27 to 14, with Rep. John Atkins, the pretend Democrat, voting no, and Rep. Steve Smyk (R) voting yes, in a surprising move. In the Senate (which had to pass the bill again because the dates were changed to June instead of January 2014), it passed 13-8. Senator Bob Venables (D) changed his mind.

SB 55 also passed both Houses unanimously. The bill adds members of the Public Service Commission to the definition of ‘public officer,’ which subject them, like many other individuals in positions of public trust, to financial disclosure requirements. Another small step to more open government.

HB 73, which increases penalties on crimes committed with firearms and which passed the House last year 40-1, has been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So now it awaits a vote on the Senate floor.

HB 167, the Ban the Box Bill, passed the House 31-8 and now heads to the Senate. The bill prohibits a public employer from inquiring into or considering the criminal record, criminal history or credit history or score of an applicant before it makes a conditional offer to the applicant. The bill permits inquiry into a criminal history after that first conditional offer. The passage in the House in interesting for the number of Republican votes it got (Ramone, Blakely, Smyk, Miro, Spiegelman, Outten). And of course, John Atkins voted no.

I am going to start a new contest. Days since John Atkins voted yes. Now, since we are only tracking bills of substance here, and from a progressive point of view, it might be a foregone conclusion that John Atkins will rarely vote yes. But we do also track just plain Democratic priority bills.

Anyone care to guess when or if and on what John Atkins will vote yes?

Alright, as you will see below, more bills saw committee movement. New actions or movement in the new year (2014) is highlighted in yellow in the Status Column. Democratic Representatives and Senators are in Blue writing. If they were endorsed by the Progressive Dems, they are also highlighted in yellow. Republican members are naturally in Red writing.

If you want to download this Vote Tracker chart, click on the book icon at the lower right of the chart, and then click on “Download a Copy.”