General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., March 17, 2022

First, a shout-out to the Delaware State News for their legislative coverage.  No, they’re not up to Matt Bittle levels yet, but the reporters have done a real good job of focusing on key bills.  A couple of samples from yesterday:  Municipal Elections.  Abortion Meds.  I very much like the fact that the reporters seek feedback from all sides, and not just the usual suspects.  Keep it up, it’s why I continue to subscribe.

Here’s yesterday’s Session Activity Report. For some reason (time constraints?), neither HB 315 (Heffernan) nor HB 318 (Dorsey Walker) were considered in the House Education Committee despite having been on the committee agenda.  I don’t think there’s anything to worry about as I can’t imagine much opposition to either bill.

Today’s Senate Agenda  is relatively mundane.  Except for SB 236 (Lopez), which:

(1) Changes the name of the State Human Relations Commission to the Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission (“Commission”), as it appears in the Delaware Code. (2) Changes the name of the Division of Human Relations to the Division of Human and Civil Rights (“Division”), as it appears in the Delaware Code. This name change makes clearer the role of the Commission and Division in ensuring human rights and civil rights and helps differentiate the Commission and Division from the work of the Department of Human Resources and the City of Dover’s Human Relations Commission.

‘Human Relations Commission’ was always a euphemism for ‘passive oversight of racism’.  Perhaps the name change will either reflect, or result in, more aggressive oversight.  Anyway, the name change can’t hurt.  Maybe it will help.

Hey, whaddayawant?  I can only riff on whatever tunes are on the playlist.

Similar mundanity(real word?) awaits on the House Agenda.  Only bill of note is a piece of special interest legislation proposed by the Insurance Commissioner (we can do better, although we’ve done worse) and sponsored by the House’s #1 D business lapdog Bill Bush.

HS1/HB 168  ‘would allow insurance companies to invest in mortgages on long-term leaseholds in the jurisdictions approved by the Department of Insurance. It is the intent of the Department of Insurance that the first approved jurisdiction be the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom real estate typically is held not in fee simple (like the US) but long-term land leases. Thirty three other states including Maryland, New Jersey, and New York have similar statues.

Hey, if 33 other states have similar statues, and if they aren’t statues of Robert E. Lee, then what do we have to lose?

I hope that we will have more meat on the legislative bones next week.