An individual's housing status should not be a basis for discrimination. This bill establishes a "Homeless Individual's Bill of Rights" that provides rights to protections for individuals experiencing homelessness, including protections from discrimination while in public and while seeking access to housing, employment, and temporary shelter. This bill vests important investigatory and enforcement authority with the State's Division of Human Relations and the State Human Relations Commission, similar to their roles with Delaware's Equal Accommodations Law and Delaware's Fair Housing Act.
This bill establishes a writ of attachment of tax refunds and lottery winnings. This bill provides a procedure for interception of tax refunds and lottery winnings by the Department of Finance for judgments resulting from a breach of a residential or commercial rental agreement. This bill provides for the opportunity to contest the amount owed in regards to funds seized pursuant to a writ of attachment of tax refunds or lottery winnings. The bill directs the Department of Finance to work with the Courts to develop an electronic system relating to the collection of judgments through tax refunds and lottery winnings. The bill also directs the Courts and Department of Finance to work together and make a recommendation as to the amount of a special fee that is meant to offset the development, implementation and administration of the collection of judgments through tax refunds and lottery winnings. The Department and Finance are directed to provide a report to the General Assembly by January 10, 2018 regarding the costs of administrating this provision and an appropriate off-setting fee to be charged for issuance of the writ described herein. Sections 1 and 2 of the bill will not take effect until ongoing funds are provided to develop, implement and administer Sections 1 and 2, and until legislation is passed implementing the new fee.
Currently the law requires that any person convicted of a crime identified under the section identifying sexual offenses, or offenses relating to children and incompetents must submit to DNA testing. The DNA testing is compiled and stored in the state DNA database. As many of these individuals are prone to repeat offenses, this database has proven to be a useful crime solving tool. This bill will provide that any person arrested [vs convicted] for any of these specific crimes will now be subject to DNA testing. This bill will also require testing of any individual who is currently incarcerated and convicted of a violent felony under Title 11. Additional safeguards and protections have been included in the law to balance the state’s interest in solving crimes against the rights of the arrested individuals, as discussed and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1958 (U.S. 2013). This act shall become effective upon the receipt of a federal grant to the State pursuant to the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2012, or upon a specific annual appropriation in the Annual Appropriations Act.
This Act seeks to ensure that every public school in the State has a school nurse. This Act provides a mechanism to allow a district or a charter school that currently does not have a school nurse to receive state funds. This Act also permits a district to levy a tax under § 1902(b), Title 14, known as a “match tax”, to assist those districts that hire a school nurse as a result of this Act to pay for the local share of that school nurse.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that would require the same super-majority vote to amend a provision that results in the act's expiration on a certain date, also known as a "sunset" provision, as was required to pass the act in the first instance.
This Act makes several changes to the law governing the conduct of members of the General Assembly, as a first step to addressing the troubling ethics scores Delaware received in the 2015 State Integrity Investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity. Section 1 removes from the Code the language that exempts members of the General Assembly from the obligations of the State Employees’, Officers’ and Officials’ Conflict of Interest and Code of Conduct rules. It also eliminates a reference to Resident Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Section 2 adds to the Legislative Conflicts of Interest chapter a provision that expressly limits a legislator’s use of public assets for private or partisan political purposes.
Section 1 of this Act updates Delaware’s existing Motor Voter Program to adopt an automatic voter registration process. Currently, when Delawareans apply for, renew, or replace a driver’s license or identification card, they must choose to register to vote, update an existing registration, or decline registration. This bill would require eligible voters to instead “opt out” of having their information automatically shared with the Delaware Department of Elections for registration. Six states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar opt out policies. A portion of Section 1 (specifically, § 2050(b), Title 15) and Sections 2, 3, and 4 of this Act make technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual with no intent to change the substance of these sections.
This Act is a companion to Senate Bill No. 34. Senate Bill No. 34, in pertinent part, eliminates several aggravating factors under Delaware's controlled substances laws. This Act retains and codifies one of those aggravating factors, § 4751A(1)e.2. of Title 16, as a separate crime.
This Act addresses issues identified following the enactment of the Ned Carpenter Act, 78 Del. Laws, ch. 13, in 2011. Specifically, Sections 1 through 14 of this Act do the following: (1) Simplify Delaware’s controlled substance laws by reducing the number of weight Tiers that are used to categorize the severity of controlled substance offenses. (2) Eliminate aggravating factors, some of which may cause Delaware’s controlled substance laws to be applied unfairly, while maintaining enhanced sentencing for those who violate Delaware’s controlled substance laws within a protected school zone. (3) Provide enhanced minimum mandatory sentences for those who repeatedly commit the highest level drug dealing offenses. (4) Provide statutory guidance for the weighing and sampling procedures used at criminal trials for controlled substances. Sections 15 through 20 of this Act make conforming amendments to the Delaware Code based on changes made by Sections 1 through 14 of this Act. This Act takes effect 90 days after its enactment into law. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the guidelines of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. A companion Act, Senate Bill No. 33, codifies one of the aggravating factors eliminated by this Act, § 4751A(1)e.2. of Title 16, as a separate crime.
This bill requires a landlord to obtain from a tenant seeking to rent or renew a lease of a lot in a manufactured housing community a paper or electronic copy of the manufactured home's title or an original, signed statement from the tenant affirming that the tenant is the owner of the manufactured home and describing how the tenant obtained the home. This Act takes effect 30 days after its enactment and applies to all leases renewed or entered into after the effective date.
Under current Delaware law, every adult operating or riding a motorcycle is required to have a helmet in his or her possession while operating or riding a motorcycle and every person up to 19 years of age must wear a helmet. This Act requires that every person, regardless of age, who operates or rides a motorcycle wear a helmet while doing so. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently require all motorcyclists to wear a helmet. Of the 49 motorcycle fatalities in Delaware since 2014, just over half of the motorcyclists, 28, were wearing helmets at the time of the crash.
This bill adds the Department of Correction, Bureau of Prisons and Bureau of Community Corrections' vehicles to the list of "authorized emergency vehicles" identified in Chapter 41 of Title 21 that are afforded certain privileges when responding to an emergency.
