General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., May 17, 2016

I’m back from Oregon, and I see that I didn’t miss much.

The General Assembly is currently in collective thumbs-twiddling mode.  I now understand why they took a week off recently.  It’s not like they have nothing to address (like minimum wage), it’s just that they’ve chosen not to address much of consequence. Cowardice in an election year, who’dathunkit?

Can we just talk about minimum wage? Please?  While places across the country are passing $15 an hour minimum, idiot/legislators like Andria Bennett and Quin Johnson turn up their noses at a far less ambitious proposal by accepting Chamber talking points w/o even looking on their own at how higher minimum wages have impacted communities that have implemented them.  Plus, if one of them should ‘falter’ and eventually go against the Chamber, there is always the no-longer-running-for-Congress business lackey Bryon Short waiting to deep-six the proposal. When it comes to minimum wage, Delawareans did better when the R’s controlled the House than they do now.

As to the notion of raising taxes on Delaware’s wealthiest, I wrote about this last year. If it wasn’t even gonna be considered in an off-year (thanks, Pete), it certainly isn’t gonna be passed in an election year. The General Assembly made the decision to give more to the 1%, hence the corporate bailouts that were rushed through in January.  More and better Democrats are few and far between in Dover.

Here are what passed for highlights last week:

Gov. Markell signed SS 2/SB 130 (McDowell).  Look for Claymont to be the first to take advantage of this excellent bill.

The Senate passed HB 220 (Lynn), which “enables the prosecution of animal fighting under Delaware’s Racketeering and Organized Crime statute.”  The bill now goes to the Governor.

The Senate also passed SB 242 (Henry), which ‘eliminates the financial bar to voter registration and makes technical changes to bring the chapter into conformity with § 2, article V of the Constitution of this State, which no longer requires a 5 year waiting period before a person convicted of a non-disqualifying felony may register to vote.’  While this is merely a technical follow-up to already-enacted legislation enabling convicted to felons to vote once they’ve served their time, four Rethugs nevertheless voted no: Bonini, Hocker, Lawson, and Pettyjohn.

The Senate also passed HB 61 (Hudson), which ‘requires that all public meetings of the boards of education of public school districts, vo-tech school districts, and public meetings of charter schools’ boards of directors be digitally recorded and made available to the public on the districts’ and charter schools’ websites within seven business days’. The bill now heads to the Governor.

The Senate passed the ‘Work A Day, Earn a Pay’ public works jobs program bill by a 13-7 vote.

Did I mention that legislators are collectively twiddling their thumbs?  When that happens, you get bills like this.  That’s right–Maypole Dancing as the Official Dance of Delaware.  I might point out, and I think I’m pretty safe in saying this, that Maypole Dancing isn’t even the most popular form of pole dancing here (well, if you include Philly in your definition of ‘here’).  You want to bring yet more ridicule on an institution? Introduce more bills like this.  Me? I live for ridicule, so keep ’em coming. Wait, the bill’s even weirder than you might think.  Maypole Dancing would be the official dance of Delaware for only one year:

“Section 2.  This Act shall take effect upon its enactment into law.

Section 3.  This Act shall expire 1 year after its enactment into law.”

Sometimes, the jokes just write themselves.

Here’s today’s House Agenda.  HB 373 (Bolden)  ‘amends the definition of family to make spouses and couples gender neutral’.  SB 217 (Blevins)  consolidates animal control enforcement activities at the state level by:

reassign(ing) the responsibility of dog control and dangerous dog management from the counties of this state to the Delaware Division of Public Health Office of Animal Welfare, and updat(ing) procedures for handling dangerous and potentially dangerous dog hearings for a more fair and equitable process. The bill also reassigns the responsibility for stray livestock response from the Delaware SPCA to the Delaware Department of Agriculture, with support from animal welfare officers of the Department of Health and Social Services.

Today’s Senate Agenda is a big fat pot of nothing. As has been most of this year’s legislative activity. Unless, of course, you’re a serial corporate polluter extorting the state for millions.

Back tomorrow with committee previews.