Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Looks like the Seaford ‘LLC’s Are People’ Bill is dead. For now.   Wouldn’t be shocked if Rep. Danny Short is breathing a sigh of relief.  The bill was on last Thursday’s House Agenda, but wasn’t worked.  It is not on today’s agenda.  Charter changes are generally not controversial.  The legislators who have a given municipality within their districts routinely sponsor such charter changes. A form of constituent service.  In this case, though, we have a town whose residents are split on whether business entities should have the voting rights of citizens.  Legislators don’t generally like to wade into battles like this.  The bill could resurface.  But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Today, Delaware’s Masters Of The Mystic Arts, aka the barristers of the Corporate Section Of The Delaware Bar, resurface with their annual package of inscrutable bills designed to keep Delaware ahead of presumably Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.  Next to nobody will understand what’s in the package, which is the point.  As long as reprobates can continue to file LLC’s here unencumbered of the inconvenient possibility of being shamed publicly, our barely-legal machinations will continue to bankroll state government.  It’s the Corporate Section’s job to keep those machinations barely legal.

Those bills lead off today’s Senate Agenda.  I have a question that perhaps one of our barrister readers might be able to answer:  What changes from year-to-year necessitate such annual changes?  Are other states trying to get a cut of our business, meaning we constantly have to adjust to make Delaware more attractive to would-be miscreants?

By far the best bill on the agenda is SB 9 (McBride).  She and House sponsor Larry Lambert (he’s my guy!) have worked very hard to put this together, along with a lot of other dedicated citizens.  The bill:

Although lead-based paint is prevalent in many Delaware residences and causes extraordinary neurological damage in children, including seizures, behavioral disorders, developmental delays, and cognitive disabilities, Delaware does not have a comprehensive system to eliminate lead-based paint from those residences where children are still exposed to lead. This Act creates such a system, including: (1) Creating a system by which all properties where a child who is found to have high blood lead levels live are promptly screened for lead-based paint and, where that paint is found, treated to abate or remediate the lead-based paint. (2) Prohibiting landlords of properties where the State has paid for lead-based paint abatement from raising rents on those properties for a period of 3 years. (3) Taking steps to ensure that neither landlords nor local governments present unreasonable delays to the abatement of lead-based paint. (4) Creating a dedicated fund for abatement and remediation of lead-based paint hazards so that all levels of state government can be held accountable for funding lead-based paint abatement efforts. (5) Expanding the duties of the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Advisory Committee to include a plan for prompt inspection and, where necessary, abatement or remediation of lead-based paint in all pre-1978 rental properties.

Should the bill pass and be enacted, we’re talking ‘problem identified/problem addressed’.

A couple of Our PAL Val’s mental health bills are on today’s House Agenda.   One of them, HB 3, ‘provides for excused absences for the mental or behavior health of a student and requires that any student taking more than 2 such excused absences will be referred to a behavioral health specialist’.  Fine. We’ll all know that Longhurst is sincere when she introduces similar legislation to address all the people she has habitually bullied on the House staff.

There are a few House committee meetings today.  There are two important bills being considered in the Health & Human Development Committee.  HB 140 (Baumbach) ‘permits a terminally ill individual who is an adult resident of Delaware to request and self-administer medication to end the individual’s life in a humane and dignified manner if both the individual’s attending physician or attending advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) and a consulting physician or consulting APRN agree on the individual’s diagnosis and prognosis and believe the individual has decision-making capacity, is making an informed decision, and is acting voluntarily’.

HB 150 (Griffith), which I really like, ‘is the Cover All Delaware Children Act‘.  The bill:

…directs the Department of Health and Social Services to develop and operate a limited medical assistance program for children in Delaware who are not otherwise covered, including children who are not documented. A child resident in the state whose family income is low enough that they would qualify on that basis for Medicaid or CHIP coverage, but is not eligible for Medicaid or other federally funded coverage, is eligible for coverage and medical care under this Act. The coverage would be co-extensive with that provided by CHIP and Medicaid, except that it would not include in-patient care at a hospital or other healthcare facility. The Act also directs the State to submit a plan amendment to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services so that the state can take advantage of the federal CHIP option to include coverage of pregnant women regardless of immigration status.

HB 154 (Griffith) ‘creates the Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act. The Act delineates a consumer’s personal data rights and provides that residents of this State will have the right to know what information is being collected about them, see the information, correct any inaccuracies, or request deletion of their personal data that is being maintained by entities or people’.   Technology & Telecommunications.

Not a bad way to start the week.