Republicans Have Been Busy

Republicans are not content with just sitting in the minority in both chambers and voting no. They have introduced several bills giving us a window into their priorities.

Republicans have been raising a stink over the last few months over some imaginery yet imminent state regulation that will ban all gas vehicles in the state in the next year, supposedly. They have been busy holding meetings up and down the state trying to gin up some outrage, because that is what they do best.

So Senate Bill 96 will prohibit the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) from promulgating rules and regulations restricting the sale of fuel-powered cars, trucks, and SUVs in Delaware.

I think every Republican in the General Assembly is a sponsor on this one:

SENATE BILL 96 – REPUBLICAN BILL PROHIBITING DNREC FROM MAKING REGULATIONS RESTRICTING THE SALE OF GAS FUELED VEHICLES	Currrent Status – Senate Environment, Energy & Transportation 4/19/23
House Sponsors – Ramone, Briggs King, Collins, Dukes, Gray, Hensley, Hilovsky, Morris, Postles, Short, Shupe, Smith, Spiegelman, Vanderwende, Yearick	Senate Sponsors – Pettyjohn, Buckson, Hocker, Lawson, Richardson, Wilson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

And if that weren’t enough, House Bill 123 will require DNREC to obtain the permission of the General Assembly before promulgating any regulations restricting the sale of fuel-powered cars, trucks, and SUVs in Delaware. Isn’t that logically inconsistent? The first bill bans such regulations, presumably forever, and the second bill says DNREC must ask permission in order to make such a banned regulation.

Again, all the Republicans that exist are sponsors.

HOUSE BILL 123 – REPUBLICAN REQUIREMENT THAT DNREC OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO MAKE ANY REGULATION OF GAS FUELED VEHICLES	Currrent Status – House Natural Resources & Energy 4/20/23
House Sponsors –	Senate Sponsors –
House Yes Votes – Ramone, Briggs King, Collins, Dukes, Gray, Hensley, Hilovsky, Morris, Postles, Short, Shupe, Smith, Spiegelman, Vanderwende, Yearick	Senate Yes Votes – Hocker, Buckson, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Richardson, Wilson
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

Senate Bill 79 is a bill that I actually don’t have a problem with, if it applied only to Executive ROW offices of Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner, Auditor and Treasurer. It is a term limit bill, and it makes sense for there to be term limits for executive offices, since we already have them for Governor. But it also applies to legislators, and I don’t like term limits for legislators.

This bill establishes a two term limit for Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner, Auditor of Accounts, and State Treasurer, a four term limit for Senators (which, given that some Senators only serve two year terms around the turn of the decade due to the census reapportionment, could mean that the limit is 12 to 16 years), and a seven term limit for Representatives (a 14 year limit).

It is a Constitutional Amendment, which means that this bill will have to pass both chambers by a two thirds majority this session and then again in the 2025-26 session.

It is unfortunate that Democrat Sean Lynn is a sponsor on this bill.

SENATE BILL 79 – TERM LIMITS	Currrent Status – Senate Executive 4/6/23
House Sponsors – Ramone, Gray, Smith // Lynn	Senate Sponsors – Buckson, Pettyjohn
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

Senate Bill 85 gets rid of concealed carry permit requirement in Delaware. Because that is what we need, in an era of mass shootings every day and a violent radical right determined to install a fourth reich in the United States, is more armed crazies carrying their guns in public to compensate for what they lack down below.

SENATE BILL 85 – ENDING CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT REQUIREMENT	Currrent Status – Senate Judiciary 4/19/23
House Sponsors – Collins, Morris	Senate Sponsors – Lawson, Buckson, Richardson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

Senate Bill 118 is yet another page out of the Republican naming things playbook, where you take the Estate Tax and call it the Death Tax, here they take the reinstitution of the Death Penalty and call it the Extreme Crimes Protection Act. LOL.

This bill revises Delaware’s death penalty statute to ensure its compliance with the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida, and by the Delaware Supreme Court in Rauf v. State.

In accordance with these cases, this Act requires that before a death sentence can be imposed, a jury, unless waived by the defendant, must first unanimously determine all of the following:

• (1) That at least 1 aggravating circumstance exists.
• (2) Which, if any, statutory and non-statutory aggravating circumstances alleged by the State exist.
• (3) Whether all of the aggravating circumstances found to exist outweigh all of the mitigating circumstances found to exist.

This bill requires that the jury or Court determining the appropriate sentence must make the required findings beyond all doubt. This heightened standard is greater than the usual criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. The beyond all doubt standard recognizes that even after finding the defendant guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt it is possible that a juror or the Court may still harbor residual or lingering doubt as to the defendant’s guilt and that the existence of such doubt, whether held individually or collectively by a jury, or by a Court, is sufficient to preclude the imposition of the death penalty.

This bill also revises Delaware’s death penalty statute to comply with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Hall v. Florida, interpreting standards set forth in Atkins v. Virginia. This bill adopts the term “intellectual disability” used by the United States Supreme Court. This bill recognizes developing trends in death penalty jurisprudence and the American Bar Association’s Resolution 122A (2006), of August 8, 2006, by prohibiting the imposition of the death penalty upon a person who has been found “guilty, but mentally ill”, as defined by § 401 of Title 11 of the Delaware Code. This bill narrows the scope of some of the most commonly used statutory aggravating circumstances – those applicable in cases involving defendants with previous convictions for violent felonies and murders committed during the commission of other enumerated felonies. Several other statutory aggravating circumstances have been combined to eliminate duplication, eliminated entirely, or otherwise clarified.

SENATE BILL 118 – EXTREME CRIMES PROTECTION ACT – BRINGING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY	Currrent Status – Senate Judiciary 5/9/23
House Sponsors – Short, Spiegelman, Yearick	Senate Sponsors – Buckson, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Wilson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –