Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 24, 2018

The House and Senate leadership teams may well be the most ineffectual that I can remember.  In fact, I’m struggling to think who comes in second.  This is not me settling scores. This is a recognition of just how poorly they have mismanaged what should have been slam-dunk legislation to prevent mass carnage via deadly weapons.  Just read this account in the Delaware State News.

I hardly know where to begin. Is it PAL Longhurst’s snit that just won’t go away on the bump stocks bill (over one month and counting)? Is it Speaker Pete asking President Pro-Tem McBride to hold up the bill raising the age limit for purchasing deadly weapons? Is it McBride putting Sen. Townsend’s ban on assault weapons in a committee with too many gun supporters? It’s each and every one of them and a whole lot more. It’s Speaker Pete and his PAL Val insisting that they, and only they, should sponsor these bills. It’s McBride putting together a committee that is hostile to gun legislation. It’s disastrous leadership all around (we haven’t even gotten to the self-dealing Nicole Poore or the legislative zero that is John Viola).  Suffice it to say that their collective ineptitude will inevitably lead to people dying. Worst. Legislative. Leaders. Ever.

Here is Thursday’s Session Activity Report.  Who knew that child marriage was a partisan issue?  Turns out it is. HB 337 (K. Williams), which prohibits marriage of individuals under the age of 18, passed on a straight party line vote. Interesting. Oh, and let the record show that three Rethugs voted against providing public union employees with ‘a clear and established procedure and time frame during which they may revoke their membership in an employee organization’.  This bill only becomes necessary if the United States Supreme Court, packed with that Judge Gorsuch, deals a death blow to public employee unions. The three Rethugs who want to totally screw AFSCME members?: Briggs King, Collins, and Postles. The worst of the worst.

Remember what I wrote about Pete ‘n PAL insisting on running the gun bills? Here’s what happens when someone who is capable sponsors legislation. Rep. Bentz marshaled an extremely complicated bill through the House, one which develops procedures to remove dangerous weapons from those who are a threat to themselves and others.  The bill passed unanimously in the House and is the lead item on today’s Senate Agenda. 

Rethugs are at it again.  HB 92 (Williams) ‘provides that every member of the General Assembly or person elected to state office shall disclose as part of their financial disclosure if they have received more than $10,000 in the last 10 years due to the sale of land, development rights, an agricultural conservation easement, a forest preservation easement or any other type of easement to the State of Delaware, any county, any municipality, any public instrumentality, or any government agency or organization’.  Only Rep. Collins voted no in the House.  The bill is on today’s Senate Agenda. So, of course, R senators have filed three amendments to, let’s be honest, use on political brochures.  All three are outside the scope of the bill, and aren’t intended as serious legislation, since, of course, they could easily have been introduced as separate bills. 

 Today’s House Agenda features a bill that hasn’t even been introduced yet. It regards ‘the proposed lease of Diamond State Port Corporation property’.  It will be introduced and debated today. Meaning, it’s not yet available to view.  Just thought you’d want to know.

Other than that, I see little of controversy on the Agenda. HB 140(M. Smith)  ‘formalizes a uniform, collaborative response protocol for the development of a Plan of Safe Care for infants with prenatal substance exposure and their affected family or caregivers’.  Federal law requires the development of such a protocol. 

HS 1/HB 319 (B. Short) ‘creates a benchmark for determining when a treatment or service is no longer experimental or investigational. When Medicare determines that a treatment is safe for its population, commercial insurers in Delaware may no longer deny coverage on that basis. This bill will remove inconsistencies for properly-evidenced treatments between payers’. 

HB 322 (Potter)  ‘lowers the mayoral age requirement from 30 to 25. This change makes the Mayor’s age requirement consistent with that for City Councilmen. Under the City ‘s Charter, if the Mayor resigns, dies or is unable to perform his/her duties, the Council President takes the Mayor’s place. This succession would prove problematic if the Council President does not meet the age requirement for Mayor’.   Of course, you could just as easily introduce a bill requiring that the President of City Council be at least 30 years of age, but whatever.

BTW, Rep. PAL Longhurst could bring up the amended bump stock at any time under a Motion To Suspend Rules. You would think that, by now, she would understand that you can’t browbeat senators the same way that you browbeat staff.  She is, however, if nothing else, both a serial browbeater and a very slow learner.