Committee Agenda Report: May 17th-18th

Committee Agenda Report

Prepared By Dustyn Thompson, David Rugg, Julie McIndoe

The House is back with phone-in numbers this week!

The Senate is still doing committees with virtual access (hybrid), so the registration links are provided.

Bills coming up the week of 5/16/22:

Bill Number	Sponsor	Summary/Description	Committee	Date	Time	Registration Link
HB 419	Rep. Minor-Brown	Mirrors efforts in other states by prohibiting the knowing use of false statements about evidence, or false or misleading promises of leniency during custodial interrogations of persons under the age of 18.	House Judiciary	5/17/22	11:00AM	1-866-403-9129 Password: JUDICIARY Livestream Link
SB 144	Sen. Pinkney	Modernizes the hate crime statute and consolidates related offenses together with the hate crime statute in the Criminal Code.	House Judiciary	5/17/22	11:00AM	1-866-403-9129 Password: JUDICIARY Livestream Link
HB 444	Rep. Longhurst	Known as the James Johnson Sentencing Accountability Act, named for Representative JJ Johnson, makes significant changes to sentencing accountability in Delaware.	House Judiciary	5/17/22	11:00AM	1-866-403-9129 Password: JUDICIARY Livestream Link
SB 264	Sen. Sokola	Requires the Delaware Department of Agriculture to promulgate rules and regulations, classifying neonicotinoid pesticides designed or intended for use in outdoor applications as state restricted use pesticides.	Senate Agriculture	5/17/22	11:30AM	Register
HB423	Rep. Mitchell	Creates the Firearm Transaction Approval Program (FTAP) within the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) of the Delaware State Police and designates the SBI's FTAP as the point of contact between an FFL and the federal databases checked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes of conducting background checks for firearm purchases or transfers.	House Public Safety & Homeland Security	5/17/22	12:00PM	1-866-578-1005 Password: SAFETY Livestream Link
HB 420	Rep. Bush	Eliminates the Pre-application Land Use Process that has been in place for 20 years for very large industries/corporations. This process was created to allow for greater state agency coordination prior to development	House Economic	5/17/22	1:00PM	1-888-272-8703 Password: ECON Livestream link
HB 394	Rep. Lambert	Ensures that good time credits for incarcerated individuals are transparent and not taken away for callous reasons	House Corrections	5/17/22	1:00PM	1-800-285-6670 Password: CORRECTIONS Livestream link
SB 280	Sen. McBride	This Act requires medical marijuana compassion centers and safety compliance facilities that have 20 or more employees to have a labor peace agreement with 1 more bona fide labor organizations	Senate Health and Social Services	5/18/22	10:00 AM	Register
HB 340, HB 342, HB 343, HB 344, HB 345	Rep. Minor Brown	A package of legislation, covered below, that seeks to help with racial disparities in healthcare access and treatment. In summary, a BFD!	House Health & Human Development	5/18/22	11:00AM	1-888-272-8703 Password: HEALTH Livestream Link
SB290	Sen. Poore	Expands Erin's Law to require training and education in schools on issues related to inappropriate relationships between adults and children, such as grooming.	Senate Education	5/18/22	11:30AM	Register
SB291	Sen. Poore	Requires each school district and charter school to adopt a policy regarding appropriate relationships between school employees, contractors, coaches, volunteers, and students.	Senate Education	5/18/22	11:30AM	Register
HB 183	Rep. Hensley	Creates a process for the Commissioner of Elections to determine if a candidate or an incumbent elected official for a State or county elected office are residents of the district or area they represent or seek to represent.	Senate Elections & Government Affairs	5/18/22	11:30AM	Register
HB 395	Rep. Baumbach	Requires that legislators reside in their district at all times while serving in the legislature, no more living in a beach house with a secondary residence in district	House Admin	5/18/22	12:00 PM	1-800-285-6670 Password: ADMINISTRATION Livestream link
SB 90	Sen. Lockman	Revises both the Delaware Fair Housing Act and Residential Landlord-Tenant Code to repeal the exception to discrimination based on source of income that allows a landlord to discriminate against tenants who participate in government-sponsored rental assistance programs.	House Housing & Community Affairs	5/18/22	1:00PM	1-866-403-9129 Password: HOUSING Livestream Link
HB 252	Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton	Requires regular property tax reassessments every five years so we don’t end up in the madness we are currently dealing with on property reassessments/lawsuits	House Housing & Community Affairs	5/18/22	1:00PM	1-866-403-9129 Password: HOUSING Livestream Link
TBD	Sen. Hansen	Changes the residential solar laws in Delaware to allow for more rooftop solar in Delaware	Senate Environment	5/18/22	1:00PM	Register here
HB 389	Rep. Mike Smith	Would ensure that public schools see absolutely no financial benefit from property tax reassessments	House Education	5/18/22	3:00PM	1-888-272-8703 Password: EDUCATION Livestream link

Top Priority Legislation This Week:

Election Residency

House Bill 183 is a rather unique bill in that it is a Republican voting bill that actually has nothing to do with voters’ rights. Instead, it focuses on perhaps what some will eventually call a candidate’s right to do whatever they want, even run in a district they don't live in. Throughout the country we have seen GOP state after GOP state challenge the ability of voters to come out to the polls, vote by mail, register to vote, or vote via absentee ballot. Some of these woes we have experienced here in Delaware with GOP legislators trying to make it more difficult to vote or resist legislation to expand the ability to vote by absentee ballot or by mail in Delaware. 

This, however, is not that. 

Essentially, this bill will require that candidates or incumbents running for County or State elected office (think County Councilperson or House or Senate Rep) to submit proof to the Commissioner of Elections. The documentation that they have to provide is pretty extensive and any falsification or accusations of fraud relating to any of the documents or the information in the documents can be sent as evidence to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution. 

The bill defines “Primary residence” or “primary residential address” as a requirement that the candidate resides at that address at least 183 calendar days in the year prior to filing their notice of candidacy and requires that they actually reside in a primary residence located in the district they represent during their entire term of office.

The “Mom-nibus” Package Is Up!

HB 340, HB 342, HB 343, HB 344, HB 345 are all part of a comprehensive approach to helping reduce our horrific infant mortality rate and support moms, particularly mothers of color, in Delaware. In Delaware in 2019, 68 infants died before reaching their first birthday, an infant mortality rate of 6.4 per 1,000 live births compared to the US average of 5.6 per 1,000 live births. Black infants (12.4) were 4 times as likely as white infants (3.1) to die during the first year of life during 2017-2019 (average) in Delaware. Black mothers are also 3-4 times more likely to die during childbirth compared to white mothers. These stats should be staggering to anyone, which is why, if you have a heartbeat, you should be supporting the “mom-nibus” package of legislation from Rep. Minor Brown. 

In summary, here is what the legislation does (at a very high level):

• House Bill 340 restructures the re-named (if this legislation passes) Child and Maternal Death Review Commission to help ensure diversity, public access, and competency

• House Bill 342 ensures that incarcerated women in the second or third trimester of pregnancy and those in the 13-week immediate post-partum period are not tied down due to the high risk for injury

• House Bill 343 (and this is a big one) requires that the Division of Medicaid and Medical Assistance to present a plan to the General Assembly by November 1, 2022, for coverage of doula services by Medicaid providers

• House Bill 344 requires all healthcare workers to undergo ongoing implicit bias training

• House Bill 345 ensures that incarcerated pregnant individuals have access midwives and doulas

We could go into the details on why each of these bills are so vitally important, but we would be here all day. The synopsis found on the hyperlinked pages for each bill goes over some additional statistics and reasons that each bill is so important. We encourage interested parties to read that information. To summarize, each of these bills is needed in a big way, and passing the “mom-nibus” package would be a BFD for a state with one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in a country with one of the highest rates in the developed world.

Battle Of The Property Tax Assessments

No matter what happens with the bills we are about to cover, the fact is that Delaware is finally getting an extraordinary long-overdue property tax reassessment at long last. However, what happens next could still be influenced. For those that do not know, it has been over 30 years for parts of the state since property taxes were reassessed. In the vast majority of states, properties are reassessed every 3 to 5 years, but some localities elect to do it annually. This is vitally important because property values and thus property taxes play a monumental role in education funding and, in Delaware, the lack of reassessments have been a major driver of the massive educational discrepancies in Delaware. This was a foundational argument for the lawsuit that triggered this current reassessment in process.

Ok, now that we have that bit of background information, let’s review House Bill 389. This legislation is unbelievably ignorant and is, at the heart of the matter, a way to maintain the status quo and ensure that the lawsuit that was just won in a historic victory for education is permanently meaningless. For those that are unaware of how property taxes work, let’s just say they are complicated. However, to put it simply, school districts are allowed to make a small increase in revenue after a reassessment is completed (no more than a 10% increase). However, any increases after that reassessment-based increase have to be approved by voters in a referendum, as usual. Rep. Mike Smith wants to ensure that our severely underfunded schools continue to struggle though because he is removing even that meager allowance.

Meanwhile, Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton is taking us in the other direction by ensuring that our schools do not end up right back to where they started before the lawsuit. House Bill 252 would require that moving forward, reassessments are done no less frequently than every 5 years in each county. Legislators and other policymakers have complained over and over that property tax reassessments are a political landmine; which is why it’s been 30 years since the last reassessment. It is about time that one of them step up and just put us on a rolling schedule like every other state in the region, and most in the nation. Brava, Rep. Wilson-Anton.

Ensuring Good Time Credits Are Fair & Transparent

The Delaware Department of Corrections (DOC) has a problem with the light of day. Whether it’s the shroud of secrecy that protected Connections Community Support Program from truly egregious and deadly failures in providing inmates with basic healthcare, or the recent pilot program that will ostensibly prevent contraband by providing inmates with only scanned copies of their private mail, DOC likes to operate in the dark. Larry Lambert has introduced HB 394 that will require DOC to provide a copy of all policies relating to the accrual and forfeiture of good time to inmates. The department will also produce a quarterly written accounting of good time credit earned and/or forfeited. Furthermore, the total balance of an inmate’s accrued good time would be forfeited only in the event of a felony committed while they are incarcerated. Providing a clear understanding and accounting of how much good time an inmate has acquired and how the process works seem like no-brainers. How can you encourage good behavior if the process and the rules are not clear? Let’s hope this bill is able to move on to a full vote in the house.

Additional Firearms Background Check Process

House Bill 423 is another step toward gun violence prevention that we should support. However, it does not go far enough and should not be thought of as the holy grail for preventing gun violence.  The bill creates the Firearm Transaction Approval Program (FTAP) within the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) of the Delaware State Police and designates the SBI's FTAP as the point of contact between a Federal Firearms License and the federal databases checked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes of conducting background checks for firearm purchases or transfers.

According to the Delaware Coalition Against Gun Violence, the bill should be supported as it may, “deny certain purchasers that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) approves. However, the policy should be supported IN ADDITION TO a permitting policy (such as Senate Bill 3) and not in place of one. A compromise might be to suggest amending the proposed FTAP policy to include certain aspects of Senate Bill 3 including:

• A temporary database of handgun purchasers accessible only by law enforcement for the sole purpose of crime investigation and NOT permissible for use in traffic stops, etc.

• A comprehensive, criminal background check including fingerprinting.

• An in-person appearance before law enforcement.

These three specific components correlate to decreases in both firearm homicide AND suicide, both of which are extreme public health concerns in Delaware.”