This is a ‘soft opening’. A soft virtual opening. Today, the House meets virtually to pass legislation that will enable them to meet virtually. Tomorrow, the Senate will do the same.
Each of these two meetings will serve as a shakedown cruise to test the respective virtual systems, which is why they’re not both meeting today. No sense in having the Senate virtually sit around to await the legislation, which must be passed identically in each House.
Here is what is on the House site:
The Delaware House of Representatives plans to virtually reconvene session on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 2:00 P.M. The purpose of this session will be to amend House Rules to remove any impediments to conducting virtual meetings. The session will be livestreamed via YouTube.
Legislative Hall remains closed until further notice.
The House will have Out-of-Session Pre-Files on Friday, May 29, 2020. Please have bills released to the Chief Clerk for numbering no later than noon on the day of the pre-file.
This tidbit from Legislative Council is also newsworthy:
Joint committees will also meet in the coming weeks with a schedule to be announced.
‘Joint committees’ basically mean the money committees. The committees that must craft a budget, a bond bill, and a grants-in-aid package. It’s possible that the Joint Sunset Committee will meet, but it’s not essential in a year where little more will be accomplished than taking care of the finances.
It’s also of note that mention was not made of House or Senate committee meetings. Will there even be meetings for the rest of the session?
A truncated session likely means that even more power will be concentrated in leadership. There will almost have to be near unanimity in a caucus to bring a bill to the ‘floor’. What will ‘virtual debate’ look like? How will the caucuses ‘caucus virtually’? Will anybody be in Leg Hall by the last week of June? If not, how will the so-called ‘Big Heads’ get together? What happens if/when the Rethugs pull some kind of a stunt? BTW, that’s more likely, especially in the Senate, with Bryant Richardson running for governor.
Clearly more questions than answers. We start to get some answers today. If all goes well, I’ll be watching.