General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., June 9, 2022

The Senate didn’t pass the Budget Bill yesterday, and it’s not on today’s Agenda.  Good. Gives us the weekend to scour the Epilog Language.

The House Administration Committee released both HB 450 and HB 451 from committee yesterday.  HB 450, the assault weapons ban, is on today’s House Agenda.  I’ll be especially interested to see how Reps. Williams and Matthews vote.  Neither are on the bill as sponsors, and they both helped weaken legislation that would have limited the size of magazines on assault weapons.

Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report.

In addition to HB 450, today’s House Agenda features some outstanding women’s health bills from Rep. Minor-Brown.  To be specific, HB 340, HB 342, and HB 343.  It’s a plus to have some legislators with healthcare and social work backgrounds in the General Assembly.

Also, we have the first leg of a Constitutional Amendment which might as well be called the Dave McBride Residency Act.  The bill ‘require(s) legislators to remain domiciled in the districts they represent for the entirety of their term of office’.  Bipartisan sponsorship, but with some notable exceptions.  The bill requires a 2/3rds majority to pass, so I’ll be looking with some interest at the roll call.  Especially since Kop Kabal pariah Paul Baumbach is the prime sponsor.

The Kop Kabal has actually signed off on a gun bill.  You can tell by the sponsors.  HB 423 (Mitchell) ‘creates the Firearm Transaction Approval Program (FTAP) within the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) of the Delaware State Police and designates the SBI’s FTAP as the point of contact between an FFL and the federal databases checked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes of conducting background checks for firearm purchases or transfers’.  Hey, it gives the cops control of the process, so of course they support it.  Not that it’s a bad bill.

Today’s Senate Agenda is devoted exclusively to Senate bills.  I know that there’s been some ‘rope-a-dope’ going on with a piece of legislation dealing with manufactured home communities.  Sen. Ennis and  Dover City Councilman Fred Neil (who has apparently given up on ‘searching for the dolphins’) have pushed for two amendments sponsored by Rep. Kowalko to be added to the bill.  Resulting in what appears to be a stand-off.  Still, you rarely see a bill synopsis that admits it’s a word-for-word copy of another bill.  Such is the case, though, with SB 317 (Walsh).  I quote: ‘This Act is identical to Senate Substitute No. 1 to Senate Bill No. 9, which establishes new formulas that a community owner is allowed use to increase rent in a manufactured home community.’  Two identical bills making their way thru the General Assembly? Strange. But it’s first on the Agenda today.

Time for a digression.  Fred Neil’s ‘Dolphins’ is a great song.  But I prefer the Billy Bragg version.  Here it is:

Who doesn’t like the occasional digression?

We discussed both SB 300 and SB 13 yesterday.  Good bills, good sponsors.  Some nice incremental environmental steps in SS1/SB 134 (Paradee), which ‘prohibits a food establishment from providing consumers with a single-service plastic coffee stirrer, cocktail pick, or sandwich pick or with ready-to-eat food or a beverage in polystyrene containers. SB 134 also prohibits food establishments from providing single-service plastic straws, unless requested by a consumer.  Nice, but incremental.  Incremental, but nice.

SB 305 (Hansen) ‘establishes a statutory requirement of greenhouse gas emissions reductions over the medium and long term to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on the State, establishing a mandatory and regularly updated plan to achieve those emissions reductions and develop resilience strategies for the State, and requires State agencies to address climate change in decision-making and rulemaking.’  Seems like a great bill.  Problem is, it depends on compliance from various administrative agencies.  In my experience, passive or active resistance from said agencies is rarely countered by legislative or judicial action.  What was it that Andrew Jackson said? “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

Might as well end with another sort-of digression:

Those are the famous words uttered by President Andrew Jackson in relation to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s 1832 decision in Worcester v. Georgia to strike down a Georgia law that imposed regulations on the comings and goings of white people in Native American land.

This ruling was foundational in establishing the general idea that Native Americans have some degree of sovereignty in their interaction with U.S. governments. The words and actions of President Jackson in relation to the opinion is a historic event exemplifying the ever present debate over state and federal power and the role of the courts in our modern times.

To quote Fred Neil’s lyric from ‘Dolphins’: “Some things will never change.”