Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, January 11, 2022

With a whimper, not a bang.

The House has virtual committee meetings scheduled today and tomorrow, won’t reconvene until Thursday.  They are scheduled to convene live in Leg Hall on Thursday.  Betcha that doesn’t happen.

The Senate is scheduled to convene virtually today. No agenda has been posted.  They will conduct committee meetings tomorrow.

I suspect that all the January legislative proceedings will be conducted virtually, and will gradually return to live sessions once the omicron subsides, assuming that yet another strain doesn’t surface.  Not sure how the JFC hearings will be conducted.

Short story shorter (I’m working on my brevity),  the only announced activity for today takes place in House Committee meetings.

Notable bills to be considered:

HB 290 (Schwartzkopf): ‘Permanently removes the sunset provision of House Bill 1 to allow food and drink establishments who suffered great losses since March, 2020 due to the pandemic to continue to sell alcoholic beverages in transactions for take-out, curbside, or drive-through service and to use outdoor seating for serving of food and drinks so long as the licensee satisfies certain conditions’. Administration.

HB 183 (Hensley):  ‘…creates a process for the Commissioner of Elections to determine if a candidate or an incumbent elected official for a State or county elected office are residents of the district or area they represent or seek to represent. This Act does not apply to municipalities. The purpose of this Act is to require all candidates for State or county elected offices and incumbent elected officials to have their primary residential address in the area or district they represent or seek to represent’.  Administration.

Interesting bill. Although…isn’t there a process now in place, or are these determinations merely made by the whim of the Commissioner of Elections?  You know, like the one Elaine Manlove made to somehow enable Park City Kathy to run for office.  Also of interest: Longhurst is the only D on the bill.  We know she’s not on there due to her respect for the integrity of elections.  Let’s see if she votes to release the bill from committee.

HB 280 (Bentz):  You may have read articles like this recently.  This bill facilitates the ‘…the rapid certification of National Guard members as certified nursing assistants (CNAs) by allowing the Department of Health and Social Services to establish the total required classroom and clinical training and mandatory facility-specific orientation hours.’  This bill is on the fast-track to passage by the end of this month. Health & Human Development.

HB 271 (Heffernan):  ‘…this bill will grant DFS (Division Of Family Services) the statutory authority to continue providing transitional and independent living services for youth until age 23.’  This temporary authority was set to expire in September, so this bill will essentially make the provision of these services permanent.  Health & Human Development.

HB 285 (Osienski):  This bill ‘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. Section 1 exempts unemployment compensation benefits received in 2021 from the calculation of Delaware adjusted gross income so that unemployment claimants will not have to pay state taxes on the benefits they received during the continuation of the pandemic into 2021; and holds the 2022 new employer assessment rate, average industry assessment rate and average construction industry assessment rate at the same rate as 2020 in order to avoid an increase in these rates as a result of the increase in unemployment claims due to COVID-19’. Labor.

Of course I support this bill. However, this bill has a fairly-large fiscal cost ($18,900,000) which has yet to be funded, yet it hasn’t been buried in Lumpy Carson’s Appropriations Committee, unlike this bill, which was funded in the FY 22 Budget, yet remains buried in that committee.  This is how Pissant Pete and the Kop Kabal operate. Just thought you’d like to know how these totalitarians run the place.

Back tomorrow with…whatever.