Not a promising start
Even though the start of the official session is still a few days away, the Delaware General Assembly is already at work.
First off, Happy New Year and welcome to 2025!
The 2024 election put our state in a somewhat unique position: when the smoke cleared, there was no immediate turnover in Senate personnel. None of the ten incumbents who ran lost, as all but two were unopposed in the General Election anyway. (The closer of the two was here in Sussex County where Russ Huxtable sadly retained his Senate District 6 seat over a spirited opponent, Kim Hoey Stevenson. He won by 8.7%.) The other eleven got to sit this election out because their terms don’t expire until 2026.
Because of that, the Senate got together the week before Christmas to set up their rules. One of the two departing members, Tim Sarah McBride, was present before heading off to Congress, while Lieutenant Governor-elect Kyle Evans Gay (aka Abortion Barbie) was absent, not that it mattered. (Neither of them was on the ballot in 2024; thus, they retain their Senate seats until their formal resignations to move on. Both special elections have Democrat and GOP nominees, but no formal date.) The Democrats had quite enough of a majority to ram through the rules they desired, and this is something I wanted to point out.
Senate Resolution 2 set the rules for the upcoming Senate session, and four of the six remaining Republicans had helpful amendments that were shot down by a predictable 14-6 vote, with Gay being absent. Here are the six rule amendments:
This Amendment requires all legislation in a standing committee to receive a recorded vote to release or table the legislation.
This Amendment requires gubernatorial appointments to initially be referred to the standing committee with jurisdiction over the state agency to which the nominee is appointed. For example, this means that the nominee to be the Secretary of the Department of Transportation should be reviewed by the Environment, Energy & Transportation Committee, while judicial nominees should be reviewed by the Judiciary Committee. If released from the initial standing committee, the nomination would then be considered by the Executive Committee.
This Amendment requires that each member of the public be provided with at least 2 minutes to provide testimony to a standing committee.
This Amendment prohibits the Senate from considering a bill or resolution on the same calendar day that the bill or resolution is reported out of committee, unless the leadership of the Senate minority caucus consents.
This Amendment requires that the desks on the floor of the Senate, other than for Senate leadership, are to be assigned by the Secretary of the Senate based on a member's Senatorial district number rather than by the President Pro Tempore as provided by Senate Rule 14(e). The goal of this Amendment is to seat Senators of different parties together rather than separating the Senate Chamber into a majority side and minority side.
The General Assembly, like its counterparts in many other states is a time-limited legislature. The General Assembly’s regular session is restricted to run from the second Tuesday in January to June 30, but operationally the General Assembly is meeting to consider legislation less than 50 days during each regular session. The ability to consider a large volume of bills is not necessarily compatible with restricted session time. At least 24 state legislative chambers impose limits on the number of bills that may be introduced by their members in an effort to reduce the number of bills entering the legislative process and allow legislators more time to consider and debate the complex issues facing their states. This Amendment limits the number of bills introduced by Senators to 5 bills each regular session, which would add up to 10 bills for this General Assembly. The Amendment provides for exceptions for certain bills and for a process to request a waiver of the bill introduction limit by filing a request with the Senate Rules & Ethics Committee. The Amendment requires the Secretary of the Senate to keep records on and issue a report by November 1 of each year containing the following information: (1) The number of bills introduced by each member. (2) The number of bills introduced by a member under each exception to this rule. (3) The number of members who have reached the maximum number of introduced bills.
Number 1, proposed by Senator Eric Buckson, is prime material for people like me who look at recorded votes. Of course, Democrats hate accountability so they’re not going to make it easy to find out who voted to approve a bill out of committee with a “yes” vote and who moved it along “on its merits.”
The second amendment, from Senator Brian Pettyjohn, makes sense as the committee with jurisdiction should have that opportunity. In the grand scheme of things, it’s less of a big deal than #1 but it would be nice to have that extra accountability.
Amendment #3, which comes from my Senator Bryant Richardson, comes because people who deign to speak before the Senate should have the opportunity to make their point. I believe the current rules are one minute, and if they don’t like what you have to say (as is usually the case) that microphone is cut off mid-sentence right at the 60-second mark. That’s a problem.
The fourth one, from Senator Dave Lawson, is sort of an inside baseball one. In general, the bills from the DGA are single-subject and not lengthy so I’m not worried about 1400-page behemoth omnibus bills. But I’m sure Democrats have tried this with bills they believe are important for granting themselves more power.
Senator Buckson put out Amendment #5, which seems petty at first. But I can see why the Democrats like the arrangement they have, since it’s psychological manifestation of the power in the General Assembly - 15 desks on one side and six on the other. But I bet the Democrats would bitch if the situation were reversed and the Republicans would roll over to get along.
Finally, as a matter of record-keeping, I might like the last proposal by Senator Buckson, but I don’t think there should be an arbitrary limit on such things.
Because there is turnover in the House, on the other hand, they haven’t formalized their rules - but they have prefiled a number of bills. Bearing the moniker of House Bill 1 is a bipartisan push to have a state-level Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Delaware. They then skip designations to House Bill 21, one of 15 other prefiled bills that are placed in numeric order from 21-35.
The most important prefiled bill, though, was allowed to keep its designation from the previous session. House Bill 140 - the assisted suicide bill - will be back as promised, but this time with a governor who probably won’t veto it.
While the House sponsor last time, Paul Baumbach, retired at the end of the last session, the bill was pushed ahead by our favorite drag queen representative, Eric Morrison. Out of those who didn’t return to the House, we lost three “yes” votes of the 21 (Baumbach, Pete Schwartzkopf, and Valerie Longhurst), two “no” votes out of 16 (Sean Matthews and Michael Ramone, the former being one of just two Democrats who voted “no”), and one who didn’t vote because she was one of the four absent. (Sherry Dorsey Walker.) There will need to be a full-court press on the newbies to thwart this bill when it comes up for a vote.
I used to have a nickname for Maryland’s General Assembly session, which is limited by state law to 90 calendar days: the “90 days of terror.” It’s different in Delaware as they veer in and out of session a couple times during the period leading up to June 30, and they’ve been known to go beyond that date if the budget wasn’t complete. I suppose the thought is that our state needs twice the time to damage freedom, but I look at it as twice the time to bring it back. On that latter note, get cracking.
And again, Happy New Year! Let’s hope it’s a prosperous one for liberty-loving patriotic Americans.
Until next time, you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.