Uneventful day yesterday. Stephanie Bolden was back, but the Ft. DuPont Cash Cow bill wasn’t run. There’s always Thursday.
Only real item of note was that HB 259 (Lambert) was tabled in the Senate. Likely either a technical glitch or a request for more information. Everything else passed on both agendas with no controversy.
Take a deep breath, folks. HUGE Committee meeting day today. I think I’ll save the most controversial items for later, and start with the Senate Committee highlights:
SS1/SB 240 (Sturgeon) ‘prohibits landlords from renting a dwelling unit that the landlord knows has a current bed bug infestation. This Act also obligates landlords to notify prospective tenants of any bed bug infestation occurring in the dwelling unit or within the building in which the dwelling unit is located within the previous 12 months.’ While I fail to understand how ‘I didn’t know’ wouldn’t be a defense, the bill thankfully:
sets forth the steps a landlord must take upon receiving notice of an actual or suspected bed bug infestation, including acknowledging the complaint, obtaining investigatory and remedial services from a pest management professional, notifying tenants of inspection, remediation, and monitoring in connection with a bed bug complaint, notifying tenants of the pest management professional’s determination regarding the infestation, obtaining reasonable monitoring services for a period of 12 months after no evidence of bed bugs can be found, and maintaining a written record of all complaints and control measures provided for a period of 2 years. Further, the Act provides that if notice of an actual or suspected bed bug infestation is provided within 180 days after the lease commencement or within 90 days of discovery of a bed bug infestation in an adjoining unit in the building, the landlord is responsible for the costs of investigating and remediating the infestation. Health & Social Services.
Good. Searched for Stephanie Bolden’s name among the sponsors. Didn’t find it. Betcha the checks from Buccini/Pollin just keep on coming.
Marie Pinkney is good at legislating. She understands the State’s family/social services network better than most, if not all. SB 255 is the type of bill that results. The bill ‘would enable youth experiencing foster care to access psychiatric treatment voluntarily when their parent or legal guardian is not available to consent to the treatment on their behalf. This bill also allows the Director or Deputy Director of the Division of Family Services to make a written discharge request on behalf of the youth receiving voluntary treatment.’ Health & Social Services.
SB 256 (S. McBride) ‘updates the crime of official misconduct to ensure appropriate accountability of public servants who abuse their positions of power and public trust. The statute establishes a grade in the penalty for the official misconduct to be commensurate to the gravity of the misconduct. In addition, this statute conforms the discrimination language to the language used in the Hate Crimes statute.’ The irony of seeing Mike Ramone‘s name on the sponsor list cannot be overstated. A corrupt elected official sponsoring an anti-corruption bill–one of the last refuges of a scoundrel. Judiciary.
One last note: Guess who the Governor is appointing to the Board Of Pension Trustees? Everybody’s Privileged Preppy, Ken Simpler. Hey, Carney owes him for ‘budget-smoothing’. Bipartisanship at its worst. Executive. God, Carney sucks.
We’ve got a few House Committee highlights (Patience, mes amis, I always go through the Committee lists in alpha order):
HB 330 (Heffernan) ‘renames the Claymont Regional Transportation at First State Crossing in Claymont, Delaware as the “Harris B. McDowell, III Transportation Center” after Senator Harris B. McDowell, III, the longest serving member of the Delaware General Assembly.’ This honor is incredibly well-deserved. Chances are, we still wouldn’t have commuter rail in Delaware were it not for Harris and his Republican colleague David Ennis. Then-Transportation Secretary (and future jailbird) Kermit Justice fought against commuter rail with every tool in his arsenal. When the service started, Justice made sure not to invite McDowell to the kickoff. For those of you who only know Harris for his later years in the General Assembly, you would do well to see all that he accomplished in, say, his first 20 years in Dover. Very few legislators can measure up to that standard. Creation of the Sunset Committee. Creation of The Kids’ Department. Creation of the Low Income Heating Assistance Program. The SEED program. To name but a few. Administration.
HS1/HB 293 (Baumbach). A bill that Our PAL Val and Pistol-Packin’ Pete will hate. I love it. You know how the General Assembly exempts itself from requirements that all other state agencies are required to follow? This bill ‘requires that meetings of public bodies that are open to the public must provide an opportunity for public comment. Meetings of a public body of the General Assembly are excluded from the requirement to provide an opportunity for public comment because under § 9 of Art. II of the Delaware Constitution, the rules of proceedings for legislative meetings are established by the Senate and House of Representatives of each General Assembly. House Substitute No. 1 for House Bill No. 293 differs from House Bill No. 293 by revising the limitations a public body may impose on public comment as follows: 1. It requires that the time for public comment provide a meaningful opportunity for the public to engage with the public body.’ Administration. Betcha it doesn’t make it out of the Kop Kabal Kommittee. It’s too good (meaning ‘dangerous to leadership’) a bill for the House leadership to permit its members to vote on.
HS1/HB 25(Dorsey Walker) ‘provides for election day registration for presidential primary, primary, special, and general elections whereas currently the deadline is the fourth Saturday prior to the date of the election. Moreover, same day registration at polling places will be permitted with submission of an application along with a copy of a current and valid government issued photo identification or a current government document displaying the name and address of the person registering to vote.’ Looks like a simple majority bill, so it should pass. It’s in the Administration Committee b/c, for some reason, the House doesn’t have an Elections/Government Affairs Committee. The Senate does.
HB 262 (Griffith) ‘seeks to provide consumers with critical information about how their personal information is being used by data brokers. This Act requires data brokers to register with the Consumer Protection Unit of the Department of Justice and answer questions regarding their use of personal information that would be published online to inform consumers. A fee schedule is established based on the size of the data broker that would fund the enforcement of the statute. As near as I can tell, since there are two fiscal notes (good news, more on this later), the bill will actually generate about $150K annually. Appropriations. BTW, since this bill is coming out of the Appropriations Committee, which is comprised of the House members of the Joint Finance Committee, you can safely assume that the initial costs for the program are in the draft Budget Bill.
HB 304 (K. Williams) ‘recognizes advancements in the science of reading and literacy instruction by requiring that all public school students in kindergarten through grade 3 participate in a universal reading screening 3 times each year to identify potential reading deficiencies, including dyslexia, and allow for early intervention and prevention.’ Yes! I’m certain that many of us have stories we could share to demonstrate how helpful such a program would have been, well, forever. Education.
HB 377 (S. Moore) ‘requires the Department of Education to conduct an annual workforce study of early childhood professionals to support the development of a plan and implementation of a system of supports to grow and deepen the early childhood workforce.’ Education. Y’know, being progressive isn’t just passing bills on hot-button issues, it’s nuts-and-bolts stuff like these last two bills.
HB 371 (Osienski). Then again, there are progressive bills that fall into the ‘hot-button’ category that absolutely should be passed. Like this one, which:
…removes all penalties for possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana, except for those who are under 21 years of age. Possession of more than 1 ounce of marijuana and public consumption remain unclassified misdemeanors. The Act also removes language referencing search and seizure authority. This Act also adds a provision to the Uniform Controlled Substances Act that provides that there will be no criminal or civil penalty for transfers of 1 ounce or less of marijuana between persons who are 21 years of age or older without remuneration.
No, it’s not everything we want. (Osienski has filed another bill that moves the ball even further down the field toward legalization.) But it appears to only require a simple majority, meaning it should pass. Health & Human Development.
That other bill? HB 372 (Osienski) ‘regulates and taxes marijuana in the same manner as alcohol.’ I don’t know how this bill differs from the previous bill. I know that there had been a rule in place back when I worked there that effectively prohibited a substantially-similar bill from being introduced following the failure of a previous bill. Maybe it’s been changed enough to pass muster. Maybe Osienski was able to make some changes to satisfy Michael Smith. I’d welcome any inside info. Before I move on, I want to praise a significant change that has taken place when it comes to Fiscal Notes. This is important. Up until this term, fiscal notes were only permitted to consider the cost to the state of any piece of legislation. Bills, including this one, now come both with Fiscal Notes and Fiscal Impact Statements. The traditional fiscal note still considers the cost to the state, but the fiscal impact statement considers the bill in its entirety, including the revenue-generating aspects of a bill. FINALLY! Meaning, for this bill, here are the costs. Here is the projected total fiscal impact. You will notice that there is no projection of taxes to be collected thru the sale of marijuana in Delaware, so the system is still far from perfect. It should be easy to extrapolate an estimate based on other states’ experiences filtered through our population. Suffice it to say it will be a huge sum that will exceed program costs in geometric proportions. All I can say is that Osienski must believe he has a real shot at passing this if he’s going to all this effort.
Uh-oh. It’s in the Revenue & Finance Committee. I count only 6 (out of 13) certain yes votes: Baumbach, Dorsey Walker, Griffith, Wilson-Anton, Williams, and Freel. Meaning, we need one of either Bennett (she voted yes on HB 305), Bolden (not voting) or M. Smith (not voting after promising to vote yes). If Bennett remains a yes, the bill should clear the committee. Have I mentioned recently that Bolden has no primary opponent yet? Just making sure.
Did I mention they pay me by the word here? Let’s see…at 1790 words, times zero, equals, yep, zero.
Almost forgot. There’s a Senate Agenda today.
Make that 1803 words.