General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, March 16, 2021

We can’t let last Thursday’s session  go w/o mentioning the latest musings of Delaware’s Least Woke (Awake?) legislator. SB 56 (Sturgeon), which ‘codifies the Opportunity Fund, an additional source of educational funding for Delaware public schools intended to support the increased needs of low income and English learner students, and establishes the parameters for how the funding is to be distributed to school districts and charter schools’, passed the Senate by a 20 Y, 1 NV roll call.  Somehow Sen./Gun Nut/Sharia Law Theorist Dave Lawson took the following out of this bill:

“So it’ll never come down from the $60 million, no matter where we are? Hopefully the English Learners will sometime soon start to lessen, I would hope,” Lawson said. “Unless we’re going to be a Spanish-speaking country.”

Only Dave Lawson could somehow transpose teaching ‘English learners’, um, English, into becoming a Spanish-speaking country.

Ho-kay. The House once again will only meet in virtual session on Thursday this week.  Tuesday and Wednesday will be for committee meetings. (Personal To a Certain Lumpy Legislator: Keep that bottle of Bushmills off camera.)

The Senate, which apparently can walk and chew gum at the same time, will conduct both committee meetings and legislative sessions this week.

We’ll start there. Here is today’s Senate Agenda.  Of interest to me:

SS1/SB 38 (Brown) ‘clarifies’ provisions in landmark legislation pertaining to expungement of criminal records that was initially passed in 2019.  This is not uncommon.  After a shakedown cruise, problems are discovered and ideally rectified.

SB 28 (Hansen) is of particular interest to civic associations and communities. It ‘represents the consensus agreement among the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and stakeholders to provide the public with access to de-identified accident data. Access to the crash history of intersections will enable the public to weigh in on development discussions and roadway projects. This Act also clarifies when accident reports may be released and the purposes for which accident reports can be used.’  I have no idea why this information had previously been withheld, but any disinfectant of sunlight on the process is a plus.

SB 66 (Lopez) is a good bill.  It ‘exempts an individual from having to pay the revoked license or driving privileges reinstatement fee if the individual is eligible for and applies for reinstatement of the individual’s license or driving privileges within 1 year of their release from Department of Correction Level V supervision. The purpose of this Act is to limit financial barriers that may impede an individual from successfully reintegrating into the community after that individual has served their time. The bill has bipartisan support.

No committee meetings are scheduled in the Senate today.  However, and this is important, the minimum wage increase will be considered in the Labor Committee tomorrow. All 4 D’s on the committee will certainly vote to release the bill to the floor, the two R’s will almost certainly vote no. That’s enough. Could hit the floor as early as Thursday.  Be prepared.  If John Carney comes out and says that, as a Democrat, he supports the bill and will sign it in its current form, the bill will fly right through. If he doesn’t, Speaker Pete and Carney’s Chamber Chums still have a way to delay its passage.  Your move, John. Oh, and remember, the bill doesn’t take effect until 2022, so all the phony arguments that businesses are struggling are just phony arguments.

Highlights from today’s House Committee meetings:

HB 125 (Longhurst) ‘establishes the crimes of possession of an unfinished firearm frame or receiver with no serial number, possession of and manufacturing a covert or undetectable firearm, possession of and manufacturing an untraceable firearm, and manufacturing or distributing a firearm using a three-dimensional printer. This bill also makes it a crime to possess a firearm frame or receiver with a removed, obliterated, or altered serial number.’  In other, it bans ‘ghost guns’ and their components.  Even the Cop Caucus and one lonely R are on the bill.  Why anyone would oppose this bill is beyond me.  Let’s see if anybody does.  (Administration).

HB 22 (Briggs King) ‘creates the Delaware Digital Right to Repair Act. Currently when an electronic product such as a phone or electronic game breaks, it is only allowed to be repaired by the manufacturer. Parts are not available whether you are a consumer or a local repair shop. This act requires the manufacturer to make parts, documentation, tools, and updates available on fair and reasonable terms.’  I certainly support the intent of this bill.  The devil is in the details. Specifically, what constitutes ‘fair and reasonable terms’.  I wonder if this bill will get pushback from the lobbyists for the manufacturers.  (Business Lapdog Committee).

OK, kids, you’ve seen me consistently refer to the House Economic Development/Banking/Insurance And Commerce Committee as the ‘Business Lapdog Committee’.  That is because it is what the committee has been since its inception.  Speaker Pete has dumped previous minimum wage increase bills into this committee to kill them.  Chamber lackeys like Bryon Short and Quin Johnson have previously headed the committee. In fact, Bryon Short secured the chairmanship to help him bolster his Carperesque profile in order to run for higher office.  The current chair is Bill Bush, who has publicly stated that he opposes the minimum wage bill. The co-chair is the ethically-bankrupt Andria Bennett, who literally quoted Chamber talking points word-for-word in opposing minimum wage legislation in the past.  It’s no accident that Bush and Bennett are on the committee. Together with the committee’s Rethugs, they have enough votes to bury progressive legislation, like minimum wage.  If Pete dumps the bill there, it’s because Carney asked him to.  Be aware, and be active.

HB 111 (Lynn) ‘prohibits discrimination because an individual takes PrEP medication (an AIDS preventative) in the issuance or renewal of disability, long-term care, and life insurance’.  (Business Lapdog Committee).

HB 9 (K. Williams) ‘adds the term “adjudication” to this section of the criminal code to enable juvenile defendants to petition the court for their adjudications of delinquency to be vacated and their juvenile criminal record to be expunged in regard to crimes, other than defined violent felonies, committed as a direct result of being victims of human trafficking.’  I, of course, support the bill, but I have a question: I thought that the original ‘human trafficking’ package took great pains to ensure that those forced into prostitution and other forms of slavery were not only exempt from prosecution, but were provided an array of social services.  I really wonder what happened with the implementation of that original package. (Judiciary).

HB 67 (M. Smith) ‘closes a loophole in existing Delaware law by making it a crime for a person who is not otherwise legally eligible to own, possess, or purchase a firearm or ammunition to attempt to obtain same through fraud, deceit, or deception’.  I’m, uh, no longer young. Yet, somehow, I reached this advanced age w/o knowing what ‘inchoate’ means.  It means, for legal purposes, ‘anticipating or preparatory to a further criminal act’.  I learned something today. (Judiciary).

SB 39 (Gay), which unanimously passed the Senate, appears to be on the fast-track. Good.  Maybe cops and prosecutors will stop ‘stacking’ charges in order to lock people up. (Judiciary).

Be back tomorrow, likely a little green around the gills.

Which reminds me, what do you call a wee Irish person who is always complaining of their aches and pains? A leprechaundriac, don’tchaknow?  Write it down, it’s a good one.