Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Weds., January 17, 2024

You know that today’s gonna be a slow day when the only ‘notable’ scheduled activity is the passage of a resolution providing for John Carney’s State Of The State Address, which will take place tomorrow.

Well, time to make chicken shit out of chicken shit.

There is no House Agenda today.  Here are the committee highlights:

HB 267 (Dorsey Walker) ‘prohibits the Family Court from imposing a sentence of incarceration or ordering the suspension of a person’s license for failure to pay court-ordered child support unless it finds that the failure to pay is wilful and not due to an inability of the person to pay the support.’  Good bill.  Nobody benefits from imposing those punishments.  Judiciary.

HB 263 (Dorsey Walker) ‘prohibits local education agencies and charter schools from prohibiting a student from participating in a school sponsored extracurricular activity on the basis the student has an outstanding debt for unpaid school meals.’  Good bill. Nobody benefits by punishing students for this. Education. 

HB 252 (K. Williams) ‘requires that a Delaware licensed and certified teacher, who has completed ( a year-long teacher residency program), and met all other requirements, including committing to teaching in a qualifying Delaware school, shall be paid at salary step 2 for the year following completion of the program.  Education.

HS 1/HB 244(M. Smith) ‘directs phased in unit funding for every public high school in the state to have a full-time athletic trainer.’  Does this make sense, or is it just a jobs creation program for athletic trainers?  You tell me.  The other sponsors on this bill make me–suspicious.  Education.

Here are today’s Senate Committee highlights:

SB 195 (Pinkney) ‘will improve the utilization of DMOST (Delaware Medical Orders For Scope Of Treatment) forms by health-care practitioners, health-care providers, emergency-care providers, and patients and their families by creating a DMOST Program at the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS).’  This gives people more control over future health care decisions.  Health & Social Services.

SB 194 (S. McBride) ‘allows pharmacists, under protocol approved by the Division of Public Health, to provide HIV pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis treatments.’  My wife, a real award-winning pharmacist, says it’s a great bill.  I don’t dare disagree.  Health & Social Services.

SB 202 (Huxtable) ‘increases the benefits for the beneficiary or beneficiaries (of line of duty death benefits) from $200,000 to $375,000, payable in annual installments, with the maximum amount paid in any 1 calendar year being $50,000’.  Said benefits are for families of ‘…police officers, firefighters, auxiliary and volunteer ambulance and rescue company members, paramedics, and others’.  Hey, I’m all for anything that helps Sen. Huxtable win reelection.  Banking, Business, Insurance, & Technology.

The Executive Committee considers the following nominations:

MARIJUANA APPEALS COMMISSION

APPOINT:

Rev. Rita Paige (Kent Co.)

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
APPOINT:
Hon. Harvey Kenton

Dr. Meredith Griffin, Jr.

DELAWARE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
APPOINT:

Col. Joseph A. Cooke, Jr.

Gotta wonder why a former Rethug State Representative is being nominated for the State Board of Education.  But not when we note who’s Governor.

Here is today’s Senate Agenda.  Slim pickins’.

Back tomorrow when I will not preview Carney’s State Of The State.  Just don’t have the heart or interest.