Hey, kids, wanna get your bill placed first on the House Agenda? Simple. Just get El Somnambulo (that’s me!) to predict that Our PAL Val will bury it in committee. Which is not to say that the bill didn’t deserve to be buried. We’re talking HB 40 (Briggs King), which:
creates the Grants-In-Aid Committee. The Committee is a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives. The purpose of the Committee is to view applications for grants-in-aid and to develop and recommend to the Joint Finance Committee the grants-in-aid appropriations bill.
Welp, the Controller General’s Office already reviews the Grants-In-Aid requests. Guess they’ll go through them a second time? The ‘power’ of this newly-formed committee is solely to ‘recommend the grants-in-aid appropriations bill to the Joint Finance Committee‘. Presumably, the Department of Redundancy Department will oversee this process. At least, six more legislators will be paid extra to perform this unnecessary task.
Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report. All you really need to know is that SB 1, HB 1, and HB 2 all cleared Senate committees yesterday. Won’t be long before they’re put on the Senate Agenda, and passed.
The Senate unanimously passed SB 39 (Sokola), the second leg of a Constitutional Amendment that puts an end to the annual post-midnight madness that has defined the June 30/July 1 legislative session forever. Good riddance.
Today’s Senate Agenda is light on controversy. Teachers will no doubt appreciate SB 60 and SB 61 (both sponsored by Sen. Sturgeon). As do I, as the father of a Delaware teacher.
The highlight of today’s House Agenda is HB 77 (Baumbach). This is the second leg of a Constitutional Amendment that ‘would require legislators to remain domiciled in the districts they represent for the entirety of their term of office’. For DL newbies, constitutional amendments must pass in two consecutive legislative sessions (each session being two years long) in order to become law. They must receive support from two-thirds of the members of each legislative body. They do not require the signature of the Governor. I really like this one. Hmmm, I wonder if anybody is squirming just a little bit over its impending passage. If so, you can bet they won’t vote ‘no’ and nark themselves out. But remember, we have a tipline just in case someone knows something they’d like us to know.