One out of five Republican Good Governance Bills ain’t bad

Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced several bills addressing ethical loopholes, procedural fixes, or agency decision review. Here are five of these bills, and only one, the first one, is a good idea.

House Bill 341 would correctly address an obvious conflict of interest issue. The bill prohibits an appropriation for a grant-in-aid to a nongovernmental entity that employs a member of the Joint Finance Committee. You can’t sit on the JFC and grant yourself money. The bill also applies to the Bond Committee. You can’t sit as a member of the General Assembly on the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement (Bond Committee) and grant a nongovernmental entity that employs you money.

It’s just common sense. And the only reason Democrats in the House won’t bring it to the floor is because it may directly affect one of them or it will embarrass them. And if that is the case, then you are the reason this bill is needed.

HB341 – Prohibiting Self Interested Funding of Entities that employ members of the Joint Committees	Currrent Status – House Administration 3/12/24
House Sponsors – Shupe, Yearick	Senate Sponsors – Hocker, Lawson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

House Bill 20 would give House and Senate committees the ability to review state agency regulatory proposals with their scope of focus. The bill specifically requires the following:

(1) Making clear that the Registrar of Regulations is required to provide notice of each regulation proposed by a state agency to each member of the appropriate standing committee of each House of the General Assembly and to provide any comments collected from members of the standing committee to the state agency.

(2) Making clear that the Chair of a standing committee may also schedule a committee meeting during the regular session of the General Assembly to consider a rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation that impacts or is within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the committee.

(3) Requiring the Chair of a standing committee to hold a committee meeting when a majority of the members of a standing committee of either House of the General Assembly believe in good faith that the rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation impacts or is within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the committee and the committee should meet to consider the rule, regulation, or amendment to a rule or regulation.

(4) Making clear that a standing committee or joint committee may draft legislation to propose action by the General Assembly related to recommendations made by the committee.

(5) Making clear that a standing committee or joint committee may request the President Pro Tempore of the Senate or Speaker of the House of Representatives to call from recess of a special session the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the General Assembly, as the case may be.

Notice all those “making clear” qualifiers? Why are they there? Because everything this bill makes clear is already possible. An state agency makes a regulation because it is already empowered to do so by enabling legislation passed and/or funded by the General Assembly. If Representatives or Senators do not approve of a regulation promulgated under previously passed enabling legislation, they are free to introduce new legislation repealing or reversing the offending regulation and hold hearings on it.

All this oversight Republicans are demanding is already possible. What they don’t like is that they are in the minority and can’t get the majority to agree with them.

House Bill 20 – Republican Oversight of Agency Regulations	Currrent Status – House Administration 2/29/24
House Sponsors – Spiegelman, Morris, Yearick	Senate Sponsors – Buckson, Hocker, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Richardson, Wilson // Huxtable
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

House Bill 21 is redundant and yet also wildly absurd. Republicans just spent all this time in House Bill 20 making clear that already established House and Senate committees can have hearings on regulations they find objectionable if the offending regulation is within the purview of the Committee. Now, with House Bill 21, they want to create a whole new committee that would have the ability to review proposed and existing regulations at its discretion.

The bill would require that all regulations adopted by an agency between November 1 and October 31 expire at 5 p.m. on the following June 30, unless the General Assembly acts to prevent it. The committee would be required to draft and introduce a bill that removes the expiration of a regulation they deem appropriate to continue.

Talk about giving the General Assembly a lot more work to do. And talk about ensuring that state government will become even more dysfunctional than it already is. Which is probably the point.

Again, if you don’t like a regulation, introduce a bill repealing or reversing it. Get your fellow legislators to agree with you, and then you pass the bill. Get it signed by the Governor. If you fail in all this, then win some more elections on the issue until such time as you have a majority and a Governor who will sign your bill.

That’s how this works.

House Bill 21 — Republican Bill Creating the Joint Committee on Oversight of Agency Regulations	Currrent Status – House Administration 2/29/24
House Sponsors – Spiegleman, Gray, Morris, Vanderwende, Yearick // Matthews	Senate Sponsors – Buckson, Hocker, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Richardon, Wilson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

House Bill 320 is the first leg of a Constitutional Amendment to constitutionally authorize 10 days of early in-person voting in Delaware. Additionally, at least 21 in-person early voting places, with 1 being located in each State Senate District, are required. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is a good idea.

But, this Amendment says nothing about no excuse absentee voting. The Democrats’ Senate Bill 3, awaiting a vote on the floor of the House after passing the Senate 15-5, addresses that and early voting. This bill was introduced after the Delaware Superior Court ruled no excuse absentee voting and early voting unconsitutional so that Republicans can say that they are for early voting. That ruling is on appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. If Republicans are operating in good faith (hint they’re not), you can easily imagine some horse trading here where both this bill and Senate Bill 3 are passed, giving both sides credit.

HB320 – Republican Early Voting Amendment	Currrent Status – House Administration 3/5/24
House Sponsors – Yearick, Smith, Gray, Hilovsky, Ramone, Short // Matthews	Senate Sponsors – Hocker, Pettyjohn, Buckson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –

Senate Bill 242 is another Republican that seeks to make lawmaking in the General Assembly more difficult and constrained. This bill is a Constitutional Amendment that imposes a filing deadline for the introduction of new bills, specifically, the second Friday in June, which this year would be June 14.

Now, I get it, what’s the big deal, you say. It’s protecting the legislators and the public from last minute surprises. And the Amendment will not apply to annual budget, bond, grants in aid or appropriations acts. But sometimes you need to introduce a new bill to amend an older version (see how many Ss are after bill numbers on the Vote Tracker chart), and sometimes in the midst of the late session horse trading (or in the Republican mind, hostage taking), new bills are necessary vehicles. And isn’t there an easy way to get around this Constitutional Amendment? You can just amend previously filed bills that were filed before the deadline.

Senate Bill 242 — REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT RE BILL FILING DEADLINE	Currrent Status – Senate Executive 3/15/24
House Sponsors – Ramone, Gray, Hilovsky	Senate Sponsors – Buckson
House Yes Votes –	Senate Yes Votes –
House No Votes –	Senate No Votes –
House Absents or Not Voting –	Senate Absent or Not Voting –