This Act removes the requirement that applicants for a marriage license state their race as part of the application process. Delaware is one of a small number of states that currently requires this information. In October 2019, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that requiring marriage license applicants to provide their race violates the United States Constitution. In Delaware, the Clerks of the Peace, who are the points of data collection, have expressed support for this Act, as has the Office of Vital Statistics in the Department of Health and Social Services. The National Center for Health Statistics ("NCHS") has not requested detailed information from states regarding marriage and divorce since 1996. NCHS only requires states to provide the total number of marriages that occur each month.
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This Act adopts the Uniform Civil Remedies for Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. This Act addresses an increasingly common form of abuse that can cause severe and often irreversible harm: the disclosure of private, sexually explicit images without consent. Much of the abuse is carried out electronically through internet websites, social media, email, or text messages, making it an interstate problem that is particularly suited for treatment by uniform state laws. This Act provides a uniform, comprehensive, clear, fair, and constitutionally sound definition of this harmful conduct and remedies for the harm it causes. Some intimate images disclosed without consent were originally created with consent or obtained within a confidential relationship. In other cases, the images were originally created or obtained without consent through surreptitious recording devices or other forms of voyeurism, or through theft, computer hacking, coercion, bribery, fraud, or force. Like many existing privacy laws, this Act applies only to sensitive content created or obtained under circumstances in which the individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Also similar to existing privacy laws, the Act includes limited exceptions for certain disclosures, including those made in the course of law enforcement, legal proceedings or education, medical treatment, or investigations of misconduct. This Act also includes an exception for disclosures relating to matters of public concern or public interest and disclosures reasonably intended to assist the victim. The Act further notes federal statutory limitations on the liability of providers and users of interactive computer services. The Act is narrowly drafted to avoid imposing liability on a discloser who lacks the requisite awareness of any of these elements: (1) that the image was created or obtained under circumstances in which the individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy or that the image was obtained through theft, bribery, false pretenses, voyeurism, or other wrongful acts, (2) that the individual shown in the image did not consent to the disclosure, or (3) that the individual shown was identifiable.
This Act creates the crime of Aggravated Strangulation. A person is guilty of Aggravated Strangulation if the person is a law-enforcement officer, and while acting within the person’s official capacity as a law-enforcement officer, knowingly or intentionally uses a chokehold on another person. Under this Act, a chokehold is only justifiable when the person reasonably believes deadly force is warranted in order to protect the life of a civilian or law-enforcement officer. Aggravated Strangulation is a Class D felony unless the law-enforcement officer using a chokehold causes serious physical injury or death to another person thereby elevating the crime to a Class C felony. This Act also makes clear that if a person is charged under this section, such a charge shall not preclude or limit the State or any other prosecuting agency from bringing other criminal charges against the person.
This Act creates the 17-person Behavioral Health Planning and Advisory Council to the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health and ensures the Council will satisfy the requirements of Title XIX of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300x-4(a)). The Act designates the Council as Delaware’s State Mental Health Planning Council under Title XIX of the Public Health Services Act (42 U.S.C. 300x). The Act also makes clear that the Council is a public body for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.
Presently, a legal process does not exist for a Delaware hospital to seek the appointment of a guardian for a non-acute patient who has been a patient at the hospital for an extended period, after having been abandoned by family. This bill authorizes a hospital to petition for a court-appointed guardian for such a patient after providing two notices to the patient, the patient's surrogate, or the patient's family if there is no surrogate, of the need to seek a guardian for the patient.
This Act ensures that the price protections for Delawareans related to price gouging put in place during the COVID-19 state of emergency do not cease immediately upon the lifting of the COVID-19 state of emergency, but instead continue for a short period of time during the COVID-19 recovery period. The COVID-19 recovery period runs until the sixty-first day following the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency. This Act is intended to set the ceiling for what constitutes price gouging during the COVID-19 recovery period. This Act is written to give the Governor flexibility to carry out the legislative will of protecting Delawareans while not regulating price more than necessary given the market needs and conditions. If additional executive orders are issued to further ratchet down or slowly ease the transition back to normal operations, those are the protections that will be in effect during the COVID-19 recovery period. Sections 1 and 2 of this Act sunset on the sixty-first day following the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency. Section 3 will not sunset to ensure that a violation of this Act occurring while the protections of this Act are in effect can be pursued after the expiration of this Act, the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency, the termination of the COVID-19 recovery period, or the suspension of the protection of this Act by the Governor.
This Senate Resolution pays tribute to Delaware's senior senator, Harris B. McDowell, III, upon his retirement from the Senate after some 44 years of exemplary service.
This Act provides for voting by mail for the 2020 primary and general elections and special elections held under the provisions of Chapter 73 of Title 15 due to the emergency caused by COVID-19, a highly contagious virus. Voting by mail is an alternative to, and not a replacement for, in-person voting, which remains an available option to those electors not voting by absentee or mail ballot. This Act establishes procedures for voting by mail which mirror the procedures for absentee voting. The Act makes clear that, like in absentee voting, no ballots can be tabulated until Election Day. The authority to implement voting by mail stems from the Delaware Constitution. Article XVII of the Delaware Constitution mandates that in order to insure continuity of State and local governmental operations in periods of an emergency resulting from disease, the General Assembly shall have the power and immediate duty to adopt measures that may be necessary and proper for insuring the continuity of governmental operations including nonconformity with the requirements of the Constitution when in the judgment of the General Assembly to do so would be impracticable. With this Act, the General Assembly finds that due to the highly contagious nature of COVID-19, and the need to protect Delaware voters and polling workers from the virus, voting by mail is necessary and proper for insuring the continuity of governmental operations, and conformity with the constraints of Article V, § 4A would be impracticable.
This Senate Resolution pays tribute and extends a fond farewell to Secretary of the Senate Joy C. Bower upon her retirement after 32 years of distinguished service to the Senate.
This bill is intended to advance sustainable energy goals and initiatives in Delaware and to restore Delaware as a leader in renewable, sustainable energy. First, this Act builds on the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards Act, which was first enacted into law in 2005, by setting new standards for the minimum percentage of electric energy sales from eligible energy resources and solar photovoltaics. Second, this bill contains the “Community Sustainable Energy Authorities Act,” which authorizes incorporated municipalities, towns, and counties and the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility to create authorities to develop, promote, and operate community sustainable energy projects.