Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: May 1, 2018

Late-breaking news!  Either PAL Longhurst was scared snitless, or she maybe has yet another amendment up her sleeve (Spoiler Alert: She does). HB 300 now appears on a revised House Agenda for today. You remember HB 300. It ‘makes it a crime to sell, transfer, buy, receive or possess a trigger crank or bump-fire device designed to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle, making such weapon function more like an automatic weapon’.  Or, at least it did before the Senate got hold of it. 

Let’s check out those amendments that sent Longhurst into that Deep Long Night Of Her Soul (that, of course, is hyperbole as Longhurst HAS no soul). The NRA’s top gun, Sen. DelCollo, sponsored an amendment that ‘will allow people to continue to relinquish these weapons (bump stocks or trigger cranks) without fearing prosecution based solely on the fact that they had the weapon when it was relinquished’.  Seems reasonable to me. You do want people to turn ’em in, don’t you? The other Senate amendment, sponsored by Sen. Ennis, reduces the penalties for violating the statute. OK, that one sucks.  Especially since seeing how there is no other purpose for these devices other than to make deadly weapons exponentially deadlier.  Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I’d like to see the bill pass with the new amendment. Then…back to the Senate.

Let’s talk Speaker Pete’s diatribe against the latest casino bailout. Alby laid it out yesterday, thanks largely due to excellent reporting in the Delaware State News.  I disagree a bit with Jason’s take on what Pete is likely to do:

As that passage indicates, the probable outcome here is some reduction in taxes on the casinos, but one with a smaller financial impact.

Perhaps more notable is Schwartzkopf’s shot at Gov. John Carney for cooking up this bill with the state Senate and leaving Pete and the House on the outside. “This has been a total breakdown in communication,” the speaker said. Schwartzkopt said that he won’t bury the bill and will give it a hearing — forcing that was the point of the lopsided Senate vote — but it’s obvious he considers this a snub by the governor.

When Pete says that he ‘won’t bury the bill and will give it a hearing’, he doesn’t necessarily mean that the hearing will be on the House floor with the bill on an agenda. The bill has not yet been assigned to a House committee, but the House Administration Committee is the likely landing spot. It will no doubt ‘get a hearing’ there, but there is more than a little doubt whether it makes it out of committee. At least, not w/o some concessions from DINO Bushweller.  Let’s see…I’d start with a commitment to vote for a minimum wage increase (don’t think that Pete and I are in synch on that one), and an end to the monopoly on casinos.  I somehow think that casinos in the tourist area of Sussex County and at the Wilmington Riverfront would demonstrate that free enterprise can thrive when it comes to people throwing away their $$’s on the spin of a wheel.

In addition to the bump-stock bill, we get a final vote on Ramone’s ‘angel investor’ giveaway for nothing in the House. Here’s the House Agenda.  I don’t find much else of interest…unless you care about the hours of school board elections, which I admit some do.

Today’s Senate Agenda features Ernesto Lopez’ total transition to Sussex County culture (the irony in the word ‘culture’ is deliberate). The self-described good government guy from Newark has morphed into the ‘get off my lawn’ guy.  Or, to be precise, the ‘get off Sussex County’s lawn’.  Here’s the bill.  Because, of course, regardless of how polluted certain properties in the county are, it’s more important to protect the privacy rights of those whose properties may be contributing to the pollution problem. Ernie Lopez, Karma Chameleon. Karma, thy name is Kathy McGuiness.

Oops, looks like there was a teensy-weensy error in that Blue Cross/Highmark merger thingy.  This bill would apparently address that error.

Tomorrow’s report will be a lot longer…including Senate consideration of one of the worst bills in history, which is really saying something. I live for bills like this. Don’t worry, it won’t pass.  Oh, no, no clues, that would be cheating.