General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, March 27, 2025
Looks like the Honorables are gonna make a swift getaway. The General Assembly will not meet next week as Bond Bill deliberations will instead take center stage. As often is the practice on getaway days, the House and Senate will run truncated, and non-controversial, agendas today.
Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report. Bottom line, a lot of good bills made it out of committee, none of which are on today’s Agendas. Most notable we have a series of bills designed to, among other reforms, address the cluster-bleep situation in the Christina School District:
A package of five education bills that will mandate stronger transparency and oversight rules on Delaware school boards are headed to a vote of the state’s House of Representatives.
And two of those bills would directly address the biggest controversies in Delaware schools recently – the Christina School District Board of Education’s violations of open meeting laws last year, and questions around whether one of its board members now lives abroad.
In a statement, House Democrats said the bills “would ensure greater accountability and oversight for school board members while giving the public more opportunities to participate in school board meetings.”
Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-Bear) said her two bills are in response to Christina Board of Education Member Naveed Baqir’s physical absence from the district.
Last year, the Newark Post reported that the Delaware Department of Justice was reviewing claims that Baqir no longer lives in the United States.
Wilson-Anton’s bills – House Bill 82 and House Bill 83 – would require that school board members live within their district’s footprint, and would require them to attend meetings in person, with exceptions only for health reasons or military deployments.
Baqir has only attended one Christina School Board meeting in person during the past 13 months. He has said he lives in Pakistan to attend medical school and care for family.
The Inspector General bill also cleared the Senate committee. Looks like there is across-the-board bipartisan support for the bill.
Ho-kay, here are today’s Agendas: House. Senate.
Perhaps of most interest is HB 36 (Morrison), which basically consolidates all of Delaware’s non-discrimination laws. Even though the bill isn’t necessarily substantive, you could still see some Rethugs vote no because ‘woke’. I also like HB 67 (Osienski), which places limits on unscrupulous towing practices.
Perhaps you’ll find other items that interest you. Feel free to share.
Meyer is presenting his budget “reset” this morning, you can view on his Facebook. Very surprising they’re budgeting off of many items that would require legislative approval… and not for spending, but for revenue to use.
For example, while the budget is technically legislation, his announcement of new tax brackets at $125K, $250K, and $500K seems like it would have to be a separate bill. It was not clear if these values are based on adjusted gross income, are for families or individuals, etc.
Also increasing taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco, DelDOT (probably gas taxes) and DNREC also will be increasing revenues. He of course had his Budget Director present these increases.
Major increases and changes in Education and Medicaid. $12M increase in affordable housing stock.
Apparently in addition to the rainy day fund and the stabilization fund, they want to set aside $21.9M in case of federal cuts. Stabilization fund is fully maintained.
They also decreased the estimated spending in the Bond bill… Bond hearings are next week.
I’m glad to see the new proposed tax brackets. We used to have a progressive tax code, but starting with duPont, then Castle and Carper, we shrunk the number of brackets, meaning lower taxes on Delaware’s highest earners.
Very nice inside read on what’s really going on in real time. Play by play of complicated politics. You get it right here like a baseball game.
This afternoon in the Senate, the Republicans talked for almost a full hour about their resolution on the Vietnam War. And Democratic members listened and clapped and understood.
But during the Trans Day of Visibility Resolution, the Republicans left. Literally refused to see the people just asking to be visible. Only Senator Richardson stayed, but you know what, I respect that even if his speech was horrendous. But still – Senators should not get to hide their hate and pretend like they just were absent. We all know what that meant.
If you never listen, you’ll never have the opportunity to learn. And if you can’t vote no to someone’s face, you shouldn’t be there to begin with.
What is their resolution about the Vietnam War? That it was a good idea?
This one:
https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=141990
You could describe it as veteran visibility.
FFS, they had to yammer on about that for an hour? Fucking useless lumps of flesh, aren’t they? The Republicans, not the veterans.