Looks like another ‘low-hanging fruit’ day in Dover. Meaning, little of consequence with virtually no conflict.
Although–every week brings us closer to the end of Speaker Pete’s reign, assuming he is true to his word. Anybody with some inside skinny is welcome to hit up our tip line. Time for me to start asking around.
But, I digress. For now.
It’s kinda early in session for a Consent Agenda, but the Senate is running one today. A consent agenda consists of bills deemed non-controversial to the point where they all can pass with one roll call. Any member may object to a bill being on a consent agenda, and it will be automatically removed to be considered individually. Here is today’s Senate Agenda. I’m not crazy about HB 102 (Bush), which ‘expedites the issuance of a temporary entrance permit for commercial and economic development projects’, but it passed the House unanimously. Other than that, looks like smooth sailing.
The House Agenda features one notable bill, and it’s a good one. HS1/HB 83(K. Williams) ‘requires every public school and charter school to provide students enrolled in kindergarten with an oral health screening by the last student attendance day of each school year’. Funding is provided through the Division Of Public Health’s ‘Smile Check Program, so no additional burden will be placed on schools or families.
Only two House committee meetings today. Two non-controversial bills in Labor, and one bill removing outdated language from the Code in Public Safety & Homeland Security. However, now is as good time as any to catch you up (especially newbies) on how the Division Of Forensic Science became the wholly-owned subsidiary of the State Police rather than an independent agency. This piece, crafted by a writer who enjoys my utmost respect, spells it out. With a coda. A brief excerpt:
The forensics will now be under the purview of the state cops. What could possibly go wrong? My prediction: Evidence will still disappear. It will just be different evidence. If a cop has been alleged to have done something wrong, how can anyone trust the cops to ensure that the evidence is preserved? History teaches us that we can’t. And now Rebecca Walker will be reunited with her cop buddies and will have access to that evidence.
Once again proving that, with the Delaware Way, there is no justice. Just casual corruption that rewards the corrupt who play the inside game.
BTW, Rebecca Walker beat those charges against her. Her defense? What she did was merely due to incompetence, not malice:
At the conclusion of a trial that began last week, Superior Court Judge Francis “Pete” Jones ruled Thursday that Walker was not guilty of three misdemeanors: falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing, and official misconduct. Walker had opted for a bench trial instead of having a jury render a verdict.
Prosecutors from the state Division of Civil Rights and Public Trust had charged Walker a year ago with the offenses, saying they occurred while she was deputy director of the Division of Forensic Science from 2015 through 2020. The indictment said Walker claimed in official documents that some employees passed breathalyzer tests when they had not received the tests.
Malik said the verdict shows that Walker never “made any intentional false entries in the employee alcohol testing records … and had not gained any benefit from the alleged false entries.”
Malik added that his client was merely sloppy in recording that some employees had been tested even though they had not received the breathalyzer.
For the tests she did conduct, Walker “would later record the results, and it appears that she wasn’t doing it contemporaneously,” Malik said. “So our position was she probably wrote this down after she did it, and she made some mistakes entering.”
Oh. Walker has since ‘fallen up’ to the position of Director Of Nursing for the Division Of Public Health. Hopefully, she has given someone else the responsibility of entering records.
Hope you learned something new today…