General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, January 28, 2021

It’s Clean-Up Day in Dover. Both agendas feature bills that will head to the Governor after today, with the House mostly working Senate bills, and the Senate working House bills.

Here are the respective agendas:  House.  Senate.

The key bills that will likely achieve final passage today:

HB 65 (Osienski):  ‘Provides COVID-19 related relief to both claimants receiving unemployment benefits and employers who are assessed unemployment taxes, and extends the end date of the Secretary of Labor’s COVID-19 related rulemaking authority’.

SB 31 (Brown): ‘This Act is the second leg of a constitutional amendment to 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.’ (Does not require the Governor’s signature.)

SB 33 (Hansen): This bill ‘(c)ontinues increasing the required minimum percentage of electrical energy sales to Delaware end-use customers from renewable energy sources through 2035.’ Perhaps not as ambitious as we’d like, but better than what we have.

SB 42 (Townsend): ‘This Act suspends the educator evaluation system during the 2020-2021 school year and replaces it with an observation and feedback cycle that provides educators with coaching and support related to hybrid and remote learning practices.’

Here is yesterday’s Session Activity report.  You will note that eight senators don’t believe that gun violence is a public health crisis: The seven Rethugs and Bruce Ennis.

More proof that the Rethugs just want to take stances for elective purposes, and have no interest in, you know, legislating:  SJR 1 (Bonini).  The bill ‘ rejects the 2021 report of the Delaware Compensation Commission in its entirety’. This is an annual rite-of-passage for the Rethugs.  The Commission recommends salary changes for judges, cabinet officials and legislators.  The purpose is to try to remove legislators influencing their own compensation.  For the Rethugs, it’s just a bloody shirt to wave at the mouthbreathers.  The resolution failed, again, by a partisan vote of 7 yes and 14 no.

Here are two interesting bills that were introduced yesterday:

HB 86 (K. Williams):  This bill ‘provides increased funding for kindergarten through third grade students identified as eligible for basic special education services. Currently, basic special education is provided for students in fourth through twelfth grade who are identified as eligible for basic special education and related services; there is no additional unit funding for students in kindergarten through third grade who may be eligible for basic special education services.’  By introducing this bill now, the proposal can be considered by the Joint Finance Committee since it needs some additional funding.

HB 88 (K. Williams):  Oh, yeah. This bill ‘removes the training minimum wage and youth minimum wage, which takes effect 90 days after enactment.’  It will happen. Book it.  No more ripping-off of teenagers.

With today’s release of John Carney’s budget proposal, we kick off the work of the Joint Finance Committee.

See ya in six weeks.