General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., April 9, 2025
Some tidbits from yesterday’s Session:
Only Claire Snyder-Hall voted against Rep. Bolden’s incumbency protection bill. It’s never passed the Senate, but with Cruce and Seigfried replacing no votes from McBride and Gay, who knows?
Here is (a) how you turn a good bill into a far-less good bill and (b) how lobbyists earn their money. The bill in question is HS 1/HB 62 (Ross Levin), which purports to protect residents from having their utility service cut off. Which is what the bill did. Now just check out the sponsor’s amendment and the ways that it eviscerated the bill’s stated intent:
This Amendment makes the following changes to HS 1 to HB 62: 1. Requires the utility company to measure the daily temperature from an airport in the same county as the subject dwelling, rather than a location within 50 miles of the subject dwelling; 2. Requires the electric company to make 2, rather than 3, documented attempts to contact the account holder prior to termination of services during the heating season; 3. Changes the term “adult occupant of the dwelling unit” to the “account holder”; 4. Increases the Heat Index (determining when electric utilities may be shut off) from 90 degrees to 95 degrees; 5. Removes the requirement that written notice during the heating or cooling season be sent via First Class mail; 6. Changes the Act’s effective date from 60 to 90 days after its enactment into law; and 7. Authorizes a utility company to shut off utility services on a weekend if the utility company provides facilities for payment and restoration of services on weekends.
In other words, an amendment written by the utility lobbyists and passed in the (by now) disgraced tradition of Delaware Way compromise. Didn’t stop 12 Rethugs from voting against it. Won’t stop the lobbyists from trying to further weaken the bill in the Senate.
For reasons that they probably even can’t explain, Reps. Morris and Vanderwende cast the only no votes against ‘requir(ing) that school board meetings have a means for the public to view and provide comment remotely’. I’d like to see a cost/benefit analysis to determine whether drone legislators can be replaced by robots. At least the robots wouldn’t get pensions.
Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report. Sen. Darius Brown is now the designated floor manager for all the annual corporate law legislation in the Senate.
It’s committee day in the House, so no Agenda. Here’s today’s committee schedule:
…limits circumstances in which personal identifiable information about applicants or holders of driving privilege cards may be released to those instances where the Delaware Attorney General gives specific approval or where the request for information is in a valid court order. It also amends existing provisions relating to disclosure of driver and motor vehicle information to limit the disclosure or re-disclosure of citizenship or immigration status information and related sensitive personal information. Judiciary.
HB 91 (K. Williams) ‘makes a student who is ineligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch under federal law due to household income eligible for a free school breakfast and lunch if that student’s household income is at or below 225% of the federal poverty level.’ The current Delaware standard permits the free meals if the household income is at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. Education.
HB 95 (Lynn) ‘prohibits the Department of Education, public schools, and operators of companies that hold digital student data from sharing student information with immigration enforcement agencies without permission from the DE AG. Education.
Today’s Senate Agenda is short and non-controversial.
The End-Of-Life Options Bill will be considered in today’s Senate Executive Committee meeting. Barring any defections, which I don’t expect, the bill will pass in the Senate over the next two weeks and will be signed into law by Gov. Meyer.
Other Senate committee highlights include:
SB 91 (Sturgeon) ‘requires schools that receive federal funding ensure students, staff, and faculty are protected from sex-based discrimination and sex-based harassment. The Act further requires schools to communicate to students, through their website, the existence of Title IX administrators as required by federal law’. Assuming, of course, that Trump doesn’t unilaterally do away with Title IX. Education.
SB 78 (Sturgeon) basically consolidates all anti-discrimination education statutes under one catch-all statute. Education.
Last, but certainly not least, is SB 75 (Paradee), which ‘limits the restrictions a county may impose on the operation of marijuana establishments’, and then enumerates the restrictions which cannot be imposed. In other words, it tries to eliminate a lot of the gimmicks that counties and municipalities are using to essentially kill the industry before it’s born. Great bill. Elections & Government Affairs.
That’s a wrap.
“Now just check out the sponsor’s amendment”
Passed by a cowardly voice vote. As a non-insider I’m not sure – How is it determined when to use a voice vote rather than a roll call? I imagine voice vote is default unless someone insists on a roll call.
Correct. The Senate requires roll calls on all amendments.
In the House, anyone can call for a roll call, but stuff like that is generally worked out in Caucus. You never know, there might have been some utility-friendly D’s like, say Bill Bush, who said they’d vote against the bill if it wasn’t watered down.
How is it “incumbency protection” when dozens of other states hold their primaries just as early or earlier? Challengers in those states manage to knock off entrenched incumbents.
All an earlier primary date will do is move the calendar back six months — challengers would need to get started sooner to have the same runway. They’ll adjust quickly. If anything, a primary during session might help them because a challenger can knock doors and do voter contact while an incumbent is stuck in Dover in session.
If anything, the current system protects incumbents — of the opposite party. By having an eight-week general election after the primary, any challenger who knocks off a same-party incumbent has less than two months to broaden the universe they target to win the general.
Think primary in Mike Smith’s district. You fight for months to win the Dem nomination and then have eight weeks to sprint after Smith in the general, while he just sits back for those six months and knocks GOP and independent doors.
Nearly every Rep (including the progressives who are held up as paragons of virtue here) voted for this bill. Maybe that says something.
I’ve written this before. No doubt you’ve read it. But you’ll be you.
The earlier primary means that candidates would be knocking on doors when it’s colder, wetter, and there is less sun, reducing their campaigning window.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are very few competitive districts other than primaries. The primary in most cases becomes the general.
As far as being ‘stuck in session’, the later primary is of more benefit to a challenger as the incumbent presumably is ‘stuck in session’ until June. You of course know that incumbents are hardly ‘stuck in session’ in April, not with a six-week Joint Finance Committee break. Most of the legislative schedule is back-loaded.
There was no D primary in Mike Smith’s district, but then you already knew that. So, please cite me one example where the late primary hurt the D survivor. Just one will do. Best I can do is when Gigi Gonzalez defeated Renee Taschner, but that was a case where Taschner and her husband, who were party insiders, ‘cut’ Gonzalez by rallying the cops and blue-collar unions against her. That is literally the only recent one I can come up with.
I’ve only heard one decent argument for moving the primary, and it came from a ‘volunteer’ for Val (meaning they HAD to volunteer, or else), and that’s that climate change is making the summers more brutal and making it harder on volunteers. But that’s why campaigning evenings and after work are great tools–tools not available should the primary be moved.
So, let’s turn this around–why SHOULD the primary be moved? Asked and answered: Incumbency protection.
Surprised to see all the WFP candidates voting for it given the need for time to run in primaries.
I agree that April is too early but the status quo of September primaries is much too late.
I’m with the Val volunteer, this climate change induced summer might have been fine in tree lined suburbs was an absolute nightmare to canvass in and to get people out to canvasses for in the city (where DSA was running most of our slate) and it’s only gonna get worse every cycle. Scorching grassroots campaigns out of existence is incumbency protection, whether intentional or not.
From Shyanne Miller’s facebook –
Gary Steelman
Peggy J. Ostrom Schultz it won’t pass because Bryan Townsend doesn’t like it. There are 2 reasons to oppose it: 1. an incumbents that loses a primary will become a lame duck during session, 2. having to campaign during session will be disruptive. —- my own reason is that I like to campaign during summer when the days are long and voters are more likely to want to talk.
…
My response: Horrible initiative that serves incumbents only and allows for an extended representation of LAME DUCK Remainder of the House or Senate term of a losing primary candidate incumbent in Delaware’s one party DEM state. Right?
There’s a sense that this will very much advantage the DE GOP to escape the trap we have them in now with the candidate decisions happening so late in the year.
I would add that even if a D incumbent wins a primary in a non-competitive district, they will spend the rest of the legislative session under no obligation to do the will of their constituents.