Gonna need some extra strong coffee to recap a whole week and then set the stage for this week. Got some monkeys digesting coffee beans in the kitchen right now. Don’t let my wife know.
(3 hours later…back from scooper doody duty…and highly-caffeinated.)
Here are the Session Activity Reports from last week:
The Senate unanimously passed SB 197(Blevins), one of the best best bills addressing human trafficking in the country.
The Senate unanimously passed SB 191(Henry), which establishes ‘Downtown Development Districts’ in an attempt to revitalize…downtowns.
Good news/bad news: The good news: One of this session’s best bills was introduced. HB 331(Kowalko) ‘removes the exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and thus fully applies FOIA to the University of Delaware and Delaware State University’. Delaware may now be the only holdout when it comes to requiring academic institutions receiving state funds to open their books. The bad news: The bill has been assigned to the House Administration Committee, where Pete Schwartzkopf and Valerie Longhurst are likely to keep it buried. I also wonder why this bill wasn’t introduced earlier in session. It would have given proponents the chance to push for the release of this bill.
A busy and productive day. In the Senate. Crickets emerged from the House.
The Senate passed SB 188(Peterson), a long-overdue repudiation of the excesses of Delaware’s War on Drugs. The bill ‘vests judges with discretion to determine “habitual offender” sentences, rather than the Attorney General’s staff. It also permits some offenders whose sentences were determined by the Attorney General’s Office to be resentenced by judges’. You see, then AG Jane Brady decided that judges would coddle criminals if given this discretion and, along with hardline legislators like Tom Sharp, Jim Vaughn and Wayne Smith, she actually got legislation passed to make the prosecutors the arbiters of just who is an habitual offender, not the judges, who as judges, heretofore had had sentencing authority. Brady, of course, ended up as a judge in one of Ruth Ann Minner’s sleazier maneuvers. The vote on SB 188 was close, and one co-sponsor, Sen. Marshall, voted no.
The Senate also passed SB 209(Townsend), a good first step in considering the potential impact of granting additional charters on existing schools. The bill ‘requires the Department of Education to promulgate regulations to further define the meaning and process for consideration of impact in the charter school application review process, to be considered and approved by the State Board no later than its October 2014 meeting. It also clarifies the conditions that an authorizer may place on an approved application, and provides that the State Board of Education may place or modify conditions to address considerations of impact’.
I think that people are finally seeing that public education is endangered by the worst elements/excesses of the charter movement. Based on the broad sponsorship here, let’s hope that this can be brought under control before it’s too late. The vote, of course, was not unanimous. All D’s voted yes, 7 R’s voted no, Cloutier and Lopez voted yes.
Most of the bill’s on today’s House Agenda appear to be relatively non-controversial. I would, however, like to hear from barristers on the advisability of HB 254(Walker), which claims to reduce both judicial costs and times that juries must serve by removing the need for certain expert witnesses. On the surface, it makes sense to me. But I’d like to know what the legal eagles think.
I also have concerns about HS1/HB 297(D. E. Williams). As originally constituted, HB 297 could potentially have caused the putting down of dogs who were simply doing their duty of protecting their loved ones and their property. I heard this from a few normal animal rights supporters. So, my question to them is, has the substitute bill addressed those concerns?
Pretty substantive Senate Agenda today.
SB 202(Bushweller) seems like a good means of providing statistical analysis to determine whether health organizations have sufficient capital. Only problem is that this tool is to be used by the Insurance Commissioner. Both this bill and SB 203 are pieces of model legislation from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
Delaware will jump on the e-cigarettes ban once the Senate passes HB 241(Hudson). The sheer number of prime co-sponsors should tell you that virtually every incumbent’s campaign brochure will herald this dubious achievement.
SB 193(Peterson) requires ‘a mammography service provider to provide specific notice to a patient if that patient presents with dense breast tissue.’ Hard to believe that they aren’t already doing this, but I can’t see anyone opposing this bill.
I support SB 187(Marshall), which ‘provides a safe alternative for the return of prohibited campaign and suspected prohibited campaign contributions. This bill allows a reporting party to donate a prohibited or suspected prohibited contribution to a charitable organization’. Let’s be realistic here, OK? When a campaign receives an illegal contribution here in Delaware, the campaign is almost never aware that it is an illegal contribution. When they find out, they (almost) invariably seek to either give the contribution back or contribute it to charity. The Rethugs, bereft of anything else to run on (except, perhaps, ‘Right to Work’), at least here in Delaware, screamed that it was illegal to donate the money to charity, it needed to be returned to the donor who (illegally) made the donation. SB 187 puts an end to that idiotic rationale. I’m for anything that shuts up Colin Bonini, so I support this bill.
I know that some people will scream about the ‘Mommy State’, but I support SB 94(Cloutier), which bans minors from using tanning beds in tanning facilities. Skin cancer is a dangerous by-product of tanning, as we know. So, if we ban sale of cigarettes to minors based largely on the health risks, then I have no problem doing this.
OK, starting to come down from the buzz, we can look at committee meetings tomorrow. Time to brew another pot. Monkeys, it’s Time:
Major Lance: ‘The Monkey Time’