This resolution proclaims June 19, 2017, as Juneteenth Independence Day in Delaware and encourages the people of Delaware to reflect upon the significant roles and many contributions of African Americans and to celebrate this day with appropriate activities and events.
This Act builds on some of the legislation passed by the 148th General Assembly that addressed the wage gap between men and women. When employers ask prospective employees for their wage or salary history, it perpetuates disparities in pay based on gender from one job into another. This Act prohibits employers from inquiring into an applicant's compensation history. An applicant may voluntarily disclose the information if he or she wishes to do so, and the bill explicitly permits discussion and negation of compensation expectations between an employer and applicants, so long as the employer does not affirmatively seek compensation history in the course of discussion and negotiation. An employer is permitted to seek and confirm such information after an offer, including compensation, has been negotiated, made, and accepted. The effective date of the bill is delayed by 6 months to allow employers to update their policies.
This Act is the first leg of an amendment to the Delaware Constitution to provide for equal rights. This amendment would advance human dignity and equality for all under the Delaware Constitution, and would correct a constitutional shortcoming. It subjects unequal treatment arising from historical bias to strict scrutiny, and enables courts in Delaware to establish jurisprudence concerning equal rights violations under State law reflecting Delaware values.
This bill will allow defendants serving consecutive sentences, who were sentenced prior to the amendment of 11 Del. C. § 3901(d), to be allowed to petition the court to consider applying concurrent rather than consecutive sentences. Prior to June 30, 2014 no concurrent sentencing was allowed in the State of Delaware. The bill lays out a process similar to the review process put in place after the habitual offender laws were revised pursuant to Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 163 in the 148th General Assembly. Delaware has the highest rate of incarceration of any state in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, and the fiscal costs of incarceration continue to strain the state budget. This bill provides a mechanism to review the sentences of some of the current inmate population to determine if their sentences remain appropriate under our current sentencing laws.
This resolution recognizes June 8, 2017 as League of Local Governments Day in Delaware.
This Act is the first leg of an amendment to the Delaware Constitution to provide for equal protection. This amendment would advance human dignity and equality for all under the Delaware Constitution, and would correct a constitutional shortcoming. It subjects unequal treatment based on discrimination to strict scrutiny, and enables courts in Delaware to establish jurisprudence concerning equal rights violations under State law reflecting Delaware values. Currently, while the federal and many state constitutions afford equal protection, Delaware’s constitution fails to do so.
This Act is meant to prohibit the practice of waiving certain sections of the Delaware Code year after year through the use of epilogue language in the budget bill.
This bill provides Statewide consistency in the law that protects the public from dangerous dogs and clarifies that dogs may not be held potentially dangerous or dangerous for animal control enforcement or for purposes of criminal liability based solely on breed-specific criteria. Findings to deem a dog dangerous will be based on actions of the dog, or an individualized demonstration of vicious behavior. It also prohibits municipalities from enacting breed-specific ordinances or regulations. The bill deletes outdated references to the now-defunct Dog Control Panel and replaces them with reference to the Justice of the Peace Court procedure laid out in Chapter 30F of Title 16.
In an effort to reduce overdose deaths relating to the growing epidemic of opioid addiction, this Act requires carriers to provide coverage for medically necessary inpatient treatment of alcohol and drug dependencies and prohibits carriers from imposing precertification, prior authorization, pre-admission screening, or referral requirements for the diagnosis and treatment, including in-patient treatment, of drug and alcohol dependencies. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
The denial by private and public health benefit administrators of adequate coverage for substance abuse treatment has been identified as a major source of failed treatment efforts by persons addicted to controlled substances. These denials have also been identified as a cause of the shortage of adequate treatment facilities in Delaware. This Act seeks to ensure that persons with private and public insurance coverage have the ability to insist that they receive the substance abuse coverage to which they are entitled by law and by their insurance plans. It does so by (1) allowing the Department of Justice to provide legal assistance where appropriate to persons seeking benefits from the state’s Medicaid program, traditional health plans, or from employer-funded health benefit plans (which are exempt from state regulation), (2) requiring the state’s Medicaid program and private insurance carriers to provide notice to persons who are denied substance abuse treatment of the possibility of legal assistance in challenging those claim denials, and (3) permitting the Department of Justice to use funds in its Consumer Protection Fund to offset the cost of providing medical and legal expertise to DOJ and the Department of Insurance for the purpose of assisting persons with controlled substance addictions who are seeking treatment. This Act contains a sunset provision so that the General Assembly can assess the impact of its provisions on private and public health care costs and effective treatment of substance abuse before making its provisions permanent.
