Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Anyone who thinks that the Ft. DuPont Cash Cow Bill is dead just because it wasn’t worked on Thursday, guess again.  Word on the street is that Our PAL Val was perhaps only a vote short. Her equally corrupt legislative colleague Stephanie Bolden was not present (BTW, Bolden’s term is starting to look like Hazel Plant’s last term when Hazel was chronically ill and could rarely attend. Don’t know if Bolden has health problems, but she’s missed a lot of dates, is corrupt, is willing to sell her constituents down the river, and still doesn’t have a primary opponent.)

The bill could well face challenges in the Senate, as Poore’s (sole) Senate sponsorship of the bill and the bill placing her on the Ft. DuPont board appear to violate the Senate’s strong ethics rules. Lots more on that if/when events require. As for now, I will be interested to see whether Deb Heffernan votes for the bill.  She has the exact same blatant conflict-of-interest as does Poore–the bill would make her a member of the Board. You know, so that she and Nicole, in their roles as Bond Bill chairs, can shovel as much money to the Ft. DuPont project as Val and Nicole want.

The bill is not on today’s House Agenda, but Val could always move to suspend rules–if Bolden shows up.

Little of note on the House Agenda, except perhaps HS1/HB 204 (Williams),  which ‘removes the exemption for private schools and youth camps that allows them to use a name, rather than fingerprint, based background check or to choose not to do background checks at all for employees, contractors, or volunteers.’  Kinda makes you wonder how they were exempted in the first place.

Today’s Senate Agenda features SB 26 (Sokola), which ‘requires that meetings of the Board of Trustees for the University of Delaware, Delaware State University, and Delaware Technical and Community College must be livestreamed using technology that permits the public to hear all participants contemporaneously.’  Good.

I’m also very happy that HB 259 (Lambert) will hopefully get final approval from the Senate today.  The bill ‘requires Delaware to use the Wireless Emergency Alert (“WEA”) system to notify the public of emergency alerts and requires that the emergency alert system be used when a catastrophic release occurs. A catastrophic release is a major uncontrolled emission, fire, or explosion that presents an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health.’  Rep. Lambert is the Rep for our RD, and he is simply already one of the best legislators in Dover.

There are a couple of Senate Committee meetings today.  Only bill of note is SB 248 (Ennis), which ‘excludes structures used for agricultural, horticultural, or forest use from valuation, assessment, and taxation of property.’  Hmmmm. Agriculture.

Today’s House Committee meetings feature:

HB 354 (Morrison), which ‘amends Delaware’s Whistleblower Protection Act to preclude an employer from reporting or threatening to report an employee’s citizenship or immigration status or a family members citizenship or immigration status to a federal, state, or local agency, in response to the employee engaging in a protected activity under Delaware’s Whistleblower Act.’  Great bill. Wonder how the Chamber D’s in the Caucus will vote…Labor.

I also really like HB 374 (Wilson-Anton), which ‘extends protections to homeowners in manufactured home communities even if their homes do not qualify as “manufactured homes” under the current definition of manufactured home. Currently there exists a population of Delawareans living in camper trailers on rented land. Due to this unique living situation these individuals are not protected under the landlord-tenant code or our state’s manufactured housing laws. This act remedies this inequality for Delawareans who have lived in this situation for at least 5 years.’  With both Ennis and Kowalko retiring, it’s wonderful to see Rep. Wilson-Anton beginning to fill that void.

Back tomorrow with, trust me, what will be a full analysis of quite a few important bills in committee.  I’d better get started on that one early.