Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Yet another circumscribed week in Dover.  There will be no session on Wednesday in deference to the Inauguration of President Biden and Veep Kamala Harris.

Look for a similarly-circumscribed Inaugural today for Governor John Carney and Lt. Governor Bethany Hall-Long.  As someone who has attended these in the past, I’m thankful it’s virtual.  You can check it out here. Nothing worse than standing in a crowd outside Leg Hall in freezing weather while dignitaries gather on the steps.  Another plus is that there will be no inaugural balls.  Oh, sure, some money is raised for charity, but the event is, by and large, funded by all the special interests who feed at the trough of the General Assembly. Real and implied quid pro quos front and center. The Delaware Way at its worst.  Time to end that tradition for good.

Before I look at today’s activity, I encourage all of you to check out the legislative coverage at Delaware United.  They could well render me more superfluous than I already am.   (Memo to self: Find out who is writing this and, you know, perhaps send a threatening e-mail or two.  Oh, here they are:  John Richard Jannelli, Joe & Brandi Muehlethaler, and Dustyn Thompson).  Seriously, you should support the great work that they’re doing. It’s a public service.

With no session on Wednesday, committee meetings will be held on both Tuesday and Thursday this week.

The Senate Executive Committee will consider the following nominations.  Once the nominations clear committee, the Senate will consider them today:

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION; APPOINT
Shawn Brittingham

SECRETARY OF THE DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; APPOINT
Karryl Hubbard

ALDERMAN FOR THE TOWN OF DEWEY BEACH; APPOINT
The Honorable Linda Madrid

DELAWARE INTERSCHOLASTIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION; APPOINT
Dr. Amelia Hodges
Dorrell Green

For those of you (like me) wondering about Karryl Hubbard, who would replace Cerron Cade as Labor Secretary,  here’s the scoop from the Cape Gazette:

Replacing Cade at DOL will be Karryl Hubbard, who currently is the deputy labor secretary. Before and throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Carney said, Hubbard has led efforts to connect Delawareans affected by the loss of a job or income with employment services and rapid skills training. Hubbard also is helping lead interagency efforts – coordinated by the Family Services Cabinet Council in partnership with the National Governors Association – to increase training and services around trauma and adverse childhood experiences. 

Here are the highlights from today’s committee meetings:

This week’s Senate Committee meetings.

This week’s House Committee meetings.

SB 33 (Hansen) ‘(c)ontinues increasing the required minimum percentage of electrical energy sales to Delaware end-use customers from renewable energy sources through 2035.  Kids, here’s where the synopsis provides inadequate information.  The bill increases the minimum percentage renewable energy supply to 40% (it’s currently 21%) by 2035.  Many states are pushing it to 50%.  As Delaware United asks in its analysis, why are we being so timid in Delaware? Environmental & Energy Committee.

SB 22 (Hansen)  ‘prohibits the import, export, sale, transport, distribution, or propagation of any plant identified by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, with the advice of the Delaware Native Species Commission, as an invasive plant’.  I’m sure that I, along with the vast majority of Ardenites, support this bill.  Way back in the day, one of Arden’s founding matriarchs brought yellow celandine back from England, just because she liked it.  Every year, our yards are overrun with yellow celandine. Can’t get rid of the stuff.  This is a more important bill than it seems. Environmental & Energy Committee.

SB 31 (Brown).  This is the second leg of a constitutional amendment that adds ‘ add race, color, and national origin to § 21 of Article I of the Delaware Constitution to explicitly declare that protection against discrimination based on race, color, and national origin is one of Delaware’s fundamental rights’.  In order to become part of the Constitution, the bill must pass in identical form in two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly.  This being the second leg, this will become part of the Constitution should it pass.  It does not require the Governor’s signature although, obviously, this is a bill the Governor would willingly sign.  The bill has been scheduled for consideration on the Senate floor on Thursday once it clears committee. Executive.

From today’s House committees:

HB 20 (Longhurst).  The bill ‘requires all public and charter schools which have students in grades 6-12 to provide free feminine hygiene products in 50% of the bathrooms used by students who can have a menstrual cycle’. The fiscal note projects an annual cost of about $77,023. Even John Carney should be willing to scrounge up that paltry sum. I see that only one R (Michael Smith) is on the bill as a sponsor. In a more rational universe, this would pass unanimously in both houses. Health & Human Development.

HB 48 (Bentz) helps reduce student loan debt for new health care providers.  I’m all for that. Health & Human Development.

HB 55 (Matthews).  21 states have already adopted ‘Gun Shop Project’ legislation.  Now, it’s Delaware’s turn.  The bill’s primary purpose is ‘to develop, create, and provide suicide prevention education materials and training, to be made available for dealers and consumers of licensed deadly weapons in Delaware. The Delaware Suicide Prevention Coalition will oversee the Gun Shop Project and include the Project’s annual report in the Coalition’s annual report. The Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, which staff the Coalition, will staff the Gun Shop Project.’  Since the bill does nothing to restrict gun sales, even many of the downstate mouth-breathers are on the bill as co-sponsors. Health & Human Development.

HB 37 (Minor-Brown) attempts to partially respond to the Covid epidemic in Delaware prisons (misinformation spewing out of Claire Dematteis’ mouth notwithstanding).  From the synopsis:

There is no real way to prevent an outbreak and the spread of a highly contagious disease inside a prison where inmates share cells, communal recreation and dining spaces, and in some instances reside in large bunk rooms. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the operations of the prisons as they struggle with staff shortages due to illness and quarantines, and curtail activities to reduce opportunities for community spread within the prison. This bill seeks to address both the COVID-19 pandemic as well as any future public health emergency that impacts prison operations and conditions by creating a “public health emergency credit” that would automatically be awarded when a public health emergency is declared. Credits would be awarded at the rate of 6 months for every month served during the public health emergency up to a maximum reduction in sentence of 1 year. This has the practical effect of moving forward release dates for inmates whose release would come within the next year regardless of the emergency. This will reduce the prison population in an orderly and fair manner, relieving pressure on staff and creating better conditions for those inmates who remain incarcerated to socially distance and control the spread of infectious disease. By applying additional credit towards sentence completion, this legislation also recognizes that the conditions of confinement during a public health emergency like the current one can be considered significantly more punishing – since visitation, communications, programming, and recreation are all significantly negatively impacted by the emergency conditions and modifications to operations.

I highlighted that line because you can bet that the remaining demagogues in Dover will misrepresent the impact of the bill in order to defeat it.  This is good legislating, and I hope that this bill passes. I suspect that supporters will need to be mobilized, especially in the House, to get this enacted into law. Corrections.  Here are the members of the Corrections Committee:

Chair:

Melissa Minor-Brown

Vice-Chair:

Nnamdi O. Chukwuocha

Members:

Eric Morrison
Gerald L. Brady
Franklin D. Cooke
Andria L. Bennett
Shannon Morris
Stephen Smyk
Jesse R. Vanderwende
Ruth Briggs King