We start today with a sigh of relief from Yours Truly. There was a lengthy senate caucus yesterday, and Matt Bittle speculated, and I feared, that the fate of the gun bills was being discussed. However, the bills are still scheduled for consideration in today’s Executive Committee meeting. The math on these bills is pretty clear. 10 of the 12 D’s need to support them (everybody but Ennis and Paradee), and R Cathy Cloutier needs to support them. That means that the 11 prospective yes votes need to hold firm against (literally) killer amendments. Any defections will make them members of the Pro-School Massacre Caucus.
If you are represented by any of those 11, contact them and urge them to stand firm. If you’ve read the screeds from the gun nuts on our blog this morning, you know that they’ll be spewing their (literal) bullet points, courtesy of what remains of the NRA. If your senator has a foot planted in the Pro-School Massacre camp, contact and ask them why they are enabling mass murderers. Start with Trey Paradee. And don’t forget to contact Ernie Lopez, who sometimes pretends to be a moderate. And, yes, Bruce Ennis, who needs to hear that there are a lot of gun control supporters in his district. These bills can pass, largely thanks to Laura Sturgeon’s takedown of Greg Lavelle. But will D’s cave and allow the bills to be winnowed down to window dressing? You can make a difference here. Make it.
Here’s yesterday’s Session Activity Report. I see that SB 11(Sokola), which would enable Newark to get compensation for state-owned tax exempt properties within its municipal boundaries, was not worked. Knowing the parochial nature of the General Assembly, I wonder if it’s been held up by the ‘What About Us?’ Caucus. You know, as in ‘what about Smyrna’, ‘what about Seaford’, what about, well some other bumfuck town in Kent County? Small towns and small minds often go together. Especially in Dover (Dover, Georgetown and Wilmington already get this compensation). For the record, SB 11 is not on today’s one-bill Senate Agenda either.
Highlights from today’s Senate committee schedule:
*Here are the three gun bills the Senate Executive Committee will consider. SB 68(Townsend); SB 70(Sokola); and SB 82(Sturgeon). I described them in yesterday’s preview. The committee will also consider Sen. McBride’s bill to put us in something called ‘Atlantic Standard Time’ year-round if adjacent states do the same. Delaware and Nova Scotia: Perfect together.
*A good consumer protection bill from Sen. Delcollo. SB 71:
…protects consumers from paying high prices for prescription drugs by ensuring competition in the marketplace by doing the following: 1. Prohibiting a pharmacy benefit manager from requiring or providing an incentive for an insured individual to use a pharmacy in which the pharmacy benefit manager has an ownership interest. 2. Requiring that a pharmacy must be owned by a pharmacist or by a majority of pharmacists if owned by an artificial entity. This ownership requirement is modelled on the same requirement in North Dakota law, enacted in 1963, which has kept North Dakota prescription prices among the lowest in the country and provides North Dakotans with more pharmacies per capita than the national average and a high level of care from locally owned pharmacies. This ownership requirement does not apply to current holders of a permit to operate a pharmacy or to hospital pharmacies that furnishes services only to patients and employees.
In the Banking, Business & Insurance Committee.
*SB 78(Poore) ‘requires that the health education programs presented by the Department of Education include instruction on what it means to “consent” in the context of a sexual encounter’. (Elections, Government & Community Affairs)
Highlights from today’s House committee meetings:
*I don’t usually cover bills that have already passed one chamber and are awaiting consideration in the other, but I’ll make an exception for this one. SS 1/SB 37(Brown) provides for the expungement of criminal records under certain circumstances. Would it be churlish of me to point out that some of these relatively minor offenses became criminal in nature thanks in part due to the draconian actions of former AG Jane Brady? No, I don’t think so. The General Assembly in part is undoing the incalculable damage done by the new state Rethuglican Party chair. To their credit, every R senator voted for this bill, which passed unanimously. (Judiciary)
*Here’s a bill that deserves to die in committee. HB 116(Smyk) ‘will permit properly licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers to possess and store destructive weapons in this State and engage in activities associated with the sale and delivery of such weapons to (or from) qualified purchasers. The synopsis states that ‘(u)nder existing Delaware law, importers, manufacturers, and dealers of destructive weapons are not permitted to deliver them to purchasers in Delaware who are otherwise permitted to own such weapons, such as military or police forces.’ Is this ex-cop suggesting that military or the police are not getting weapons b/c this bill is not in force? Bullshit. The only possible outcome of this bill can be increased distribution of deadly weapons. Kill this bill dead. (Public Safety & Homeland Security)
*Rep. Baumbach has again introduced an ‘End Of Life Options’ bill, which includes legalized suicide. I support the bill, but see little chance for its passage. However, it makes sense that Paul has introduced the bill during the first year of the current General Assembly. Perhaps he can work with the concerned parties over the break and see if a consensus can be reached. (Health & Human Development.) It would help if we didn’t have a governor who can’t get past his Catholic faith to consider signing it. Yo, John, JFK figured out how to address this back in 1960, for bleep sake. Guess Carney worships two masters: The Catholic Church and the Chamber of Commerce. Oh, and maybe Tom Carper, the man who put him on the political map. When it comes to ‘Worst Governor Ever’, at least during my time following Delaware politics, Carney’s green eyeshade is in the running. Worse than Minner? Yes. He possesses a callousness that Minner sometimes, but not always, held in check. And he is much more clueless than Ruth Ann who, for all her faults, had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the nooks and crannies of state government. Of course, he wasn’t as blatant in his employing of cronyism as was Minner. But I digress. I just can’t get over the fecklessness of this governor. My bad.