General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., May 9, 2024

Here’s yesterday’s Session Activity Report.  You will note that the two bills addressing high school athletics policy cleared committee and were passed in the Senate unanimously.

Carney wasted no time in signing the bill naming the ‘Newark Regional Transportation Center after United States Senator Thomas R. Carper’.

Today’s House Agenda features  HB 200 (Longhurst), which ‘establishes a mental health services unit for Delaware high schools.’  While the irony is not lost on me that perhaps no legislator is more responsible for mental and emotional health issues among legislative staff than Longhurst, the bill is nevertheless essential.

We also have a bill that nobody would have thought of say, five years ago.  HB 316 (Romer) ‘creates a new elections crime: “use of deep fake technology to influence an election.”

Two notable bills comprise the entirety of today’s Senate Agenda.

SS1/SB 22 (Huxtable) ‘establishes the “Delaware Workforce Housing Program” (DWHP). Modeled after the Downtown Development District Program, the DWHP allows a qualified workforce housing investor to be reimbursed through a grant up to 20 percent of the capital costs associated with workforce housing units they create.’  This is what happens when you get someone dedicated to the cause of affordable housing elected to office.  Sen. Huxtable has already distinguished himself in his first term.

SS2/SB 4 (Pinkney) ‘modernizes Delaware’s probation system’.  Here are but some of the ways it does so:

…requires probation and parole officers to use the least restrictive conditions possible to enhance compliance.

…requires that a condition of probation established by a court, the Department, or the Board of Parole may not involve a greater deprivation of liberty than is necessary to meet the goals of deterrence, protection of the public, and rehabilitation of the individual on probation; prohibits a court, the Department, or the Board of Parole from prohibiting an individual on probation from using or possessing alcohol or drugs, or requiring an individual on probation to be subject to testing for alcohol or drug use, unless the use or possession of alcohol or drugs is reasonably related to the criminogenic needs of the individual.

…prohibits an individual sentenced to Accountability Level I – Restitution Only from having the individual’s probation level increased based on the individual’s reasonable inability to pay the restitution order.

…establishes standards of proof for the issuance of warrants for alleged violations and establishment of violations; prohibits incarceration for technical violations, except in certain circumstances and for certain periods of time; requires that any sentence imposed for a technical or non-technical violation be the least restrictive and imposed as a last resort.

Great bill.  Great legislator.  Times have changed for the better.  In the Senate.  Let’s hope that the House is equally receptive.

That’s a wrap.