Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Imagine for a second that you support police reform. You know that a draft bill was finished in February.  You know that, despite numerous requests from numerous supporters, the draft is not being made available to you or to any other supporters.  Imagine that you and numerous others have contacted the prime sponsor of the bill only to be told by the prime sponsor that she is not, in fact, involved with the bill.

You do not have to imagine any of the above.  It all happened.  Oh, the bill? As you’d expect, it was largely written by the cops and then put into the deep freeze.  Until Friday.  At which point, the bill, and other related bills, were dumped into a massive pre-file.  Oh, and just like that, the bill will be heard in committee on Wednesday.  Which committee, you ask?  The cop-sucking House Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee.  Featuring ex-cop Franklin Cooke and Bill Bush among the members.  Meaning the Kop Kabal has the majority on the committee.  Oh, the bill?  Here it is.  Be sure to read the bill, not the synopsis, as the synopsis does not mention the overwhelming influence in the bill of a body known as the Police Officer Standards And Training Commission, which is the renamed successor to the Council On Police Training. Oh, the membership?:

The Council shall be composed of: a chairperson to be appointed by and to serve at the pleasure of the Governor; the Attorney General; the Superintendent of the Delaware State Police; the Chief of the City of Wilmington Police; the Chief of the New Castle County Police Department; the Chief of the City of Dover Police Department; the Chief of the City of Newark Police Department; the Secretary of Education; the President of the Delaware League of Local Governments; the mayor of an incorporated municipality in Kent County, to be appointed by the Governor; the mayor of an incorporated municipality in Sussex County, to be appointed by the Governor; the Chairperson of the Delaware Police Chiefs’ Council, Inc; the Chair of Public Safety Committee of the House of Representatives; the Chair of the Corrections and Public Safety Committee of the Senate; 2 members of the public appointed by the Governor, who shall not be law-enforcement officers or be affiliated with law enforcement. The Chairperson shall have had substantial practical experience in the field of law enforcement. Each public member’s term shall be for 3 years.

Anybody think that someone who alleges police misconduct has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting justice from this body? And/or getting a report made public?  No answer necessary.

To Rep. Minor-Brown: Why did you tell police reformers that you had nothing to do with the bill?  Why did you keep this bill hidden from public view since February?  Are you auditioning to be the cop-friendly successor to Captain Schwartzkopf?  Seriously, come on here and explain yourself.  Or ream me out.  I don’t care, I just want to know how this happened.

The bill itself reads in such a labyrinthine manner as to raise questions about what it will accomplish.  Yes, there’s a possibility that the bill will provide a tiny bit more transparency.    There’s also a possibility it won’t.  This entire process has been tainted with cop-stink and compromised legislator-stink. Here’s what this bill is not: LEOBOR Reform.

It’s not the only bad bill in the package.  You’ve got two ‘charge-stacking’ bills to go along with it, one of them sponsored by, yes, Captain Schwartzkopf.  Check out his contribution to the cause of ‘police reform’.  Ah, yes, the behavior is already illegal, but now we can stack the charge based on where the behavior takes place.  BTW, would any sincere legislator include this among the exceptions?:

(d) Subsection (b) of this section does not apply to the possession of a firearm in any of the following circumstances:

(3) When engaged in lawful hunting, firearm instruction, or firearm-related sports on public lands, other than those belonging to a public or private school.

Got it.  As long as you’re not on school property, you can legally ‘hunt’ while in proximity to school property.  Wonder what the hunter is hunting there…

OK, enough.  We’ll return to this package again, perhaps later in this column.

ALERT! Chamber To Water Down Key Climate Change Bill?  The bill, HB 99 (Heffernan) is at the top of today’s House Agenda.  The Chamber has not kept it secret that they’re trying to water down the bill.  From their own listing of priorities:

• HB99(Delaware Climate Change Solutions Act) – Status: On House Ready List. State Chamber Position: Working with stakeholders on a friendly amendment (pending), which is to be introduced by the sponsor.

It goes without saying that a Chamber-friendly amendment will be unfriendly to the cause of addressing climate change.  As I’m writing this, said amendment still has not been introduced.  Will anybody other than the Chamber and the sponsor get to see the amendment before it’s brought up for a vote?  We may know in just a few hours.

There’s also a bad bill on the Senate Agenda.  This one.  When you read the body of the bill, it sure looks like a special-interest bill:

(a) All projects meeting any 1 of the following criteria shall undergo a pre-application meeting and review process as set forth in this chapter:

(2) Any nonresidential subdivision involving structures or buildings with a total floor area exceeding 50,000 square feet, excluding any previously approved and recorded non-residential subdivision regardless of floor area size, or any site plan review involving structures or buildings with a total floor area exceeding 50,000 square feet, excluding any previously approved and recorded non-residential site plan review regardless of floor area size. Notwithstanding this paragraph, economic development projects are exempt from the pre-application meeting and review process, unless required by a local jurisdiction, through a memorandum of understanding between a local jurisdiction and the Office of State Planning Coordination or otherwise, or where an applicant voluntarily requests to participate under subsection (b) of this section.

The non-bolded section is currently in the Code.  The bolded section is new.  Because ‘economic development’.  Raising the question, How many ‘nonresidential subdivisions involving structures or buildings with a total floor area exceeding 50,000 square feet‘ would not or could not be considered economic development projects?  I’m going with zero.

OK, enough of the most blatant outrages.  Let’s check out the normal stuff.

Today’s Senate Agenda includes a rarity–a good bill from Jubilation T. Buckson.  I’m all for affordable housing in Kent and Suxco and this bill enables it.  I also like SB 6 (Huxtable), which seeks to protect Cape Henlopen State Park from being turned into a boardwalk-besmirched carnival site.

 HB 99(Heffernan) is potentially a transformative bill unless the sponsor allows the Chamber to eviscerate it. It…:

…establishes a statutory target 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. The Act establishes a process of regular updates to the Climate Action Plan to serve as the framework to achieve the targeted emissions reductions and develop resilience strategies for the State, creates Climate Change Officers in certain Key Cabinet-Level Departments who will assist DNREC in the ongoing implementation of the Climate Action Plan, requires State agencies to consider climate change in decision-making, rulemaking, and procurement, and requires an Implementation Report every 2 years on the progress of the State towards meeting the statutory targets.

The rest of today’s House Agenda is pretty vanilla.

There are no Senate committee meetings today.  Most of the House committee highlights are bills that have already passed the Senate.  I doubt that any of them are gonna be flagged in committee, so I’ll let you get back to the rest of your life.

Until tomorrow.