General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., March 27, 2012

The big news broke after the General Assembly adjourned. John Atkins ‘voluntarily’ stepped down as a member and the Vice-Chair of the House Public Safety/Homeland Security Committee. Anyone who read his ‘statement’ and who has also read anything else Atkins has written, knows that Atkins did not write that statement. No matter. He has been sanctioned in a manner that fit his offense, and we still have Atkins around to provide us with fun-filled entertainment.

Thursday’s legislative session paled in comparison to the post-session announcement. However, we got a good look at the mindset of legislators from Lower Slower Delaware. (Look, I know that mindset might be overstating things a bit with this particular sample, but please bear with me.) While considering HB 49(B. Short),  which requires door-to-door salespersons to display an identification card which shall include the person’s name, employer, employer telephone number, employer address and the State of Delaware business license number, Sens. Booth, Lawson & Simpson (R’s-Lower Slower Delaware) introduced Senate Amendment 1:

AMEND House Bill No. 49 as amended by inserting between “home” and “shall” on line 4 thereof the following:

“in New Castle County”.

FURTHER AMEND House Bill No. 49 as amended by inserting between “person” and “and” on line 21 thereof the following:

“in New Castle County”.

FURTHER AMEND House Bill No. 49 as amended by inserting between “sale” and “shall” on line 39 thereof the following:

“in New Castle County”.

SYNOPSIS

This Amendment limits the scope of the Bill to New Castle County.

Yup. No gummint intrusion into the rights of rip-off artists in Kent and Sussex Counties. This is not atypical, BTW. You generally see an amendment like this a couple of times a session. No harm, no foul. The amendment failed, and the bill passed.

Today’s Senate Agenda features the following of interest to me:

SB 162(Blevins): Would permit healthcare providers in clinical settings to adopt an HIV opt-out policy in which the patient will have the opportunity to choose to be tested for HIV as part of the patient’s routine medical care.

HB 202(Q. Johnson): makes it an offense to use a handicapped plate or placard issued to another person, unless that person is also in the vehicle. The Bill aims to curb the use of handicapped parking spaces by persons who do not actually need them.

SB 151(Peterson): Requires that the Director of Lotteries be notified by the Division of Child Support Enforcement that a person is delinquent in support payments. The Bill would require that that person’s prize winnings be sent to the Division to be applied to the delinquent support. Takes the ‘reward’ out of gambling away someone else’s child support payments. Don’t know if it can change the behavior of degenerate gamblers, though. Still, I really like this bill.

Well, this should make for an interesting task force. SCR 21 creates a Blue Ribbon Task Force to review the feasibility of opening Family Court proceedings to the public. My knee-jerk reaction is, despite my belief in open government, to oppose opening up this information to the public. So much of what goes on in Family Court, including adoption/termination of parental rights, custody rights/visitation, dependency/neglect, guardianship, paternity and divorce/alimony/property division, is so intensely private, personal, and emotional, that I see little to gain and perhaps much to lose if proceedings like these are made public. Having said that, I’m OK with a task force examining the feasibility of this, as long as the Task Force membership isn’t unduly skewed, which it does not appear to be.

While the House Agenda is chock-full of interesting bills, most of them are holdovers from last Thursday’s House Agenda.

I’m hopeful that HB 9(Keeley) will pass. This first leg of a state constitutional amendment would   ‘eliminate the existing five-year waiting period before eligible felons who have fully discharged their sentences may have their voting rights restored’.  The bill, however, has a 2/3 majority required for passage. So, a couple of enlightened R’s will be needed.

HB 259(Gilligan) would basically require deadbeats who require business or occupational licenses from the State to pay up if they want to be relicensed by the State. And, no, deadbeats do not constitute a specific occupational class, although they well could.

Well, that’s it for today. A real short one. Don’t worry, though. Tomorrow is committee day, and we’ve got some doozies to discuss. Assuming they even make it to a committee agenda.