Senate Bill 34 unanimously passed a bill that will finally repeal some shameful discriminatory laws that somehow have remained in the Delaware Code for centuries despite previous attempts to repeal them.
The bill has already been released from committee in the House and is on the fast track for a most likely unanimous passage there.
| Senate Bill 34 – Repealing Discriminatory Laws regarding Public Accommodations | Currrent Status – Senate passed 21-0. Out of Committee 4/4/23 |
| House Sponsors – Johnson Baumbach Bolden Lynn Morrison Romer Williams | Senate Sponsors – Lockman Pinkney Gay Hansen Hoffner McBride Sokola Sturgeon Townsend |
| House Yes Votes – | Senate Yes Votes – Brown Gay Hansen Hoffner Huxtable Lockman Mantzavinos McBride Paradee Pinkney Poore Sokola Sturgeon Townsend Walsh // Buckson Hocker Lawson Pettyjohn Richardon Wilson |
| House No Votes – | Senate No Votes – None |
| House Absents or Not Voting – | Senate Absent or Not Voting – None |
On March 1, 1875, the federal Civil Rights Act was enacted. Following the end of the Civil War and the adoption of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, the goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was to guarantee Blacks equal treatment in places of public accommodation and on public transportation.
On March 25, 1875, the General Assembly enacted Chapter 194 of Volume 15 of the Laws of Delaware to permit places of public accommodation and public transportation to exclude individuals “whose presence there would be offensive to the major part of the proprietor’s customers and thereby injure the proprietor’s business”. Newspaper reports from the time indicate that this law was specifically designed to “neutralize the effects of” the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
Almost 100 years later, in December 1963, the 122nd General Assembly enacted the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law, Chapter 45 of Title 6 of the Delaware Code, to prevent in places of public accommodations practices of discrimination against any person because of race, creed, color, or national origin. As part of this legislation, the 122nd General Assembly provided that “§ 1501 of Title 24, § 902 of Title 28, and § 703 of Title 26 of the Delaware Code of 1953, and all laws or parts of laws inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed insofar as such inconsistency does occur.”
Despite the General Assembly’s intent, these provisions were not repealed at the time and, with the exception of § 703 of Title 26, which was repealed in 1974 with the rest of Chapter 7 of Title 26 as part of reorganization of Title 26, have continued to persist to this day. This Act explicitly repeals § 1501 of Title 24 and § 902 of Title 28, fulfilling the intent of the 122nd General Assembly that § 1501 of Title 24 and § 902 of Title 28 be repealed as inconsistent with the purposes of the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law that General Assembly adopted.
This Act also serves to repudiate the State’s past involvement in racial discrimination that occurred in reliance on and under color of laws adopted by this State. It’s shameful that no Republican has signed on as sponsor of this bill.
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