Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report. All of the bills we discussed yesterday were released from committee, including HB 183. The skeptic in me (about 80% of what comprises ‘me’) wonders what’s behind this bill although, on the surface, I see nothing wrong with it. Anybody with inside info?
Today is solely devoted to committee meetings in both the House and the Senate.
Today’s Senate Committee highlights:
SB 197 (Gay) provides ‘…that child protection treatment caseload standards be reduced from 18 to 12 families per worker.’ Funding for the additional workers will be phased in over two years. The bill is ‘ a key recommendation of the Child Protection Accountability Commission Caseloads and Workloads final report’ that was released in 2019. Why we’re only now getting around to passing this and funding this is a question to be answered by Governor Budget-Smoothing. Elections & Government Affairs.
SB 204 (Gay) ‘ would allow DSCYF (Services To Children, Youth & Families) to conditionally hire an applicant and begin training the person after they have provided proof that they have submitted to the required drug testing’. The current process is so cumbersome that the agency has been unable to fill vital vacant positions. Elections & Government Affairs.
SB 203 (Townsend) is yet another bill from the Corporate Section Of The Delaware Bar. Neither you nor I are expected to understand it. But, kids, it’s time to tell you all about The Third Rail Of Delaware Politics: Nobody in Dover messes with the Court Of Chancery, The Delaware Division Of Corporations, and most importantly, Delaware’s role as the ‘Incorporation Capital Of The United States’. Any and all illegal activities enabled by Delaware’s secretive incorporation laws are, by definition, legal. Worker exploitation, child slavery, political dark money, all legal. Judiciary.
SB 172 (Lawson) is yet more Rethuggery in bill form. Introduced, I suppose, b/c the citizenry of Delaware is inadequately armed. The bill ‘allow(s) a person who is 21 years of age or older and not a prohibited person under either Delaware law or the laws of the United States to carry a deadly weapon concealed on or about their person for the purpose of defending self, family, home, and State’. I recommend that you read the entire synopsis to see how Lawson (and presumably Anthony Delcollo) makes that case. Bill’s not going anywhere. Judiciary.
The Senate Executive Committee considers a few key nominations today, including that of Mark Holodick (true story, I used to umpire him when he was in Little League, I’m old) to be Secretary of Education. Also, Claire Dematteis will be considered for yet another office. Probably an office where she is once again called upon to bury the worst abuses taking place in said agency.
Slim pickins’ in the House today:
HB 274 (Osienski) does away with the arcane requirement that those seeking to change their names must publish notification in the classified section (do they still exist?) of a newspaper. Judiciary.
HB 254 (Griffith) ‘requires all public schools that serve pupils in grades 7-12 that issue pupil identification cards to have printed on the identification cards the telephone or text numbers for the National Suicide Prevention and National Domestic Violence Hotlines and allows them to add the National Sexual Assault, Teen Dating Violence and Bullying Hotlines’. Education.
That’s, uh, it. Join us tomorrow for the very first legislative Agendas of the year!