Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Busy, busy busy.  No time to waste.

Unless you’re the House. In which case, you can consider legislation designating the official dinosaur and reptile of Delaware.  To be fair, these bills are likely both the products of school projects.  You know, ‘how a bill becomes law’. The dinosaur designation certainly is.  In that case, the Shue-Medill Middle School.  A lot of research went into that bill.  The Official State Reptile will only reign for a year.  I can understand.  Who wants the designee to suffer from Reptile Dysfunction?  Had Steve Smyk really wanted to demonstrate how a bill becomes law, he would have explained the facts of reptilian lobbyists to the kids. But, I digress.  As did the House Agenda.

Otherwise, it’s a solid agenda, save the final approval for legalized theft for the Ft. DuPont Project.

I’m a big fan of HB 205 (Lambert), which :

establishes the Delaware Expanding Access for Retirement and Necessary Saving (“EARNS”) program to serve as a vehicle through which eligible employees may, on a voluntary basis, provide for additional retirement security through a State-facilitated retirement savings program in a convenient, cost effective, and portable manner. The EARNS program will be designed to serve small businesses who are unable to offer retirement plans to employees due to the cost and administrative burden. Because there are documented wealth gaps in Delaware, disproportionately impacting women and people of color, a state-facilitated savings plan aims to alleviate barriers small employers face in offering options, close the wealth gap among low to modest wage earners and keep Delaware competitive with neighboring states by attracting talented workers to Delaware. A state-sponsored savings plan, funded by employees, facilitated by employers, and overseen by the State, will offer one solution to the quickly emerging crises stemming from generations of workers without adequate savings.

Rep. Lambert worked closely with State Treasurer Colleen Davis in crafting this bill.  Rep. Lambert is my representative.  Rather than submitting tons of bills, he works exceedingly hard on a relatively small number of bills that have outsized impacts.  He’s a serious legislator.  I’m so glad we didn’t lose him in redistricting.

HB 293 (Baumbach) ‘requires that meetings of public bodies that are open to the public must provide an opportunity for public comment.’  Good.  However, ‘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.’  Bad. It’s time to introduce a constitutional amendment to eliminate this, and other exemptions, the General Assembly gifts upon itself.

Today’s Senate Agenda features likely final approval for SS1/SB4 (Sturgeon), which ‘requires the Department of Education to maintain and publish a list of evidence-based, reading instruction curricula for grades kindergarten through 3. Each curriculum on this list must align with the essential components of literacy, known as the “science of reading” and use high-quality instructional materials.’  The House Amendments that were added are ‘friendly amendments’.

I have a question about SB 286 (Hansen), which:

…assembles New Castle County resources under “one roof” to focus comprehensively on persistent, and in some cases legacy, neighborhood problems, thereby promoting the possibilities of successfully resolving systemic neighborhood problems. Summary of the Act: • The Act provides for creation of a Neighborhood Improvement District (a “NID”). • Creation of a neighborhood district provides a source of funding for enhanced services in neighborhoods that are especially in need of such services, including, for example, district-wide snow removal, district-wide trash collection, and maintenance of open space. • A primary, but not exclusive, source of funding for the enhanced services is a special assessment on non-exempt properties located within the NID, the primary beneficiaries in the neighborhood.

My primary question is “Will this limit these districts to those willing and able to ante up for additional services?”  Answer appreciated.

Only bill of interest to me in today’s Senate Committee meetings is SB 264 (Sokola), which ‘requires the Delaware Department of Agriculture to promulgate rules and regulations, that will not become effective until July 1, 2024, classifying neonicotinoid pesticides designed or intended for use in outdoor applications as state restricted use pesticides, creating a list of chemicals that belong to the neonicotinoid class of chemicals, and banning the retail sale of neonicotinoid pesticides to the public for outdoor applications.’ Agriculture.  Here’s why ‘neonicotinoid pesticides’ should be banned:

Three neonicotinoid insecticides likely harm all of the country’s 38 protected amphibians and roughly three fourths of all other endangered plants and animals, according to long-anticipated studies released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Neonicotinoids are the most popular insecticides used in the United States. Hundreds of studies have shown they play a major role in population-level declines of bees, birds, butterflies and freshwater invertebrates. Today’s draft biological evaluations represent the first time the EPA has evaluated the chemicals’ potential to harm the nation’s most imperiled plants and animals.

“Now the EPA can’t ignore the fact that these popular insecticides are wiping out our country’s most endangered plants and animals,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Neonicotinoids are used so widely, and in such large quantities, that even the EPA’s industry-friendly pesticide office had to conclude that few endangered species can escape their toxic effects.”

In other words, pass this bill!

Highlights from today’s House Committee meeting schedule:

HB 419 (Minor-Brown) ‘mirrors efforts in other states by prohibiting the knowing use of false statements about evidence, or false or misleading promises of leniency during custodial interrogations of persons under the age of 18. Any statement elicited from a person in violation of this section is inadmissible in any subsequent juvenile delinquency or criminal court proceeding.’  The police can’t lie to coerce confessions?? What ever will they do? Great bill. Judiciary.

HB 420 (Bush) looks like a sop to developers.  You know, another one of those bills that cuts ‘bureaucratic red tape’ to enable unfettered development.  (Didn’t Bryon Short and Quinn Johnson already effectively shred any remaining protections for the public?)  Anyway, the bill ‘assists in expediting the process for economic development projects in the State of Delaware with some exemptions from the PLUS process. A project located in Investment Level 1 or 2 under the Strategies for State Policies and Spending that is consistent with local zoning and any local comprehensive plan that will create full-time jobs is exempt from the pre-application process unless required by the local government or requested by the applicant’.  The co-sponsors don’t fill me with confidence that public concerns will be addressed. Business Lapdog Committee.

HB 394 (Lambert) ‘provides that the Department of Correction must provide a copy of all policies relating to the accrual and forfeiture of good time to inmates, as well as a quarterly written accounting of good time credit earned and/or forfeited. The requirement that all accrued time must be forfeited upon conviction of any crime within custody, the complete forfeiture will apply only to commission of felonies. Forfeiture of good times for rule violations is changed to apply only to Class I disciplinary violations.’  In other words, it removes a lot of arbitrariness from the good time process. Corrections.

In other words, I’m done for the day.