Sen. Gerald Hocker

This Act, modeled on similar laws in Virginia and Maryland, requires a health-care provider to provide notice to a patient at the time blood is drawn to perform a laboratory test for Lyme disease that explains the limitations of the test and instructs the patient to see their health-care provider if the patient continues to experience unexplained symptoms. This Act is consumer and patient friendly.

This bill clarifies that Delaware law enforcement may enter into agreements to provide mutual assistance to other jurisdictions.

This Act is identical to Senate Bill No. 127 from the 149th General Assembly, which was passed by the Senate and reported out of the House Administration Committee. This Act corrects an inadvertent error in Delaware law that has permitted people younger than 18 years of age to vote in final-stage elections. People must be 18 years of age or older to be eligible to vote in a final-stage election such as general elections, special elections, school board elections, and school district referendums. However, people younger than 18 years of age can vote in any preliminary election, such as primary elections, if they will be 18 years of age at the time of the final-stage election.

Unmanned aircraft systems are capable of introducing contraband into detention facilities without undergoing correctional officer inspections. This bill seeks to prohibit the use of unmanned aircraft systems (drones) to introduce contraband into detention facilities. This bill makes it a class F felony to deliver or attempt to deliver contraband by use of a drone.

This bill allows our wounded warriors or similar veterans' organizations who have been honorably discharged from the armed forces of the United States and have at least a 60% service-connected disability to be able to obtain a license to hunt, trap, and fish in this State without charge.

State economic development officials pursue economic development opportunities that, if realized, would have significant impact on Delaware's future economic health and competitiveness. Such situations frequently require expeditious action and the need to enhance Delaware's transportation infrastructure on a timeline and schedule that is outside the 6 year Capital Transportation Program. To meet these challenges, this Act establishes the Transportation Infrastructure Investment Fund to provide economic assistance for renovation, construction, or any other type of improvements to roads and related transportation infrastructure in order to attract new businesses to Delaware, or for the expansion of existing Delaware businesses, when such an economic development opportunity would create a significant number of direct, permanent, quality, full-time jobs.

This Act expands the permitted uses of unclaimed electric cooperative capital credits to include investments in energy services for low income members and energy efficiency, renewable energy, battery storage, electrification and emerging energy technology programs. The bill also amends the annual reporting requirements to include an itemization of the amount allocated each year to low income assistance, energy efficiency and renewable technologies, and non-profit donations.

The purpose of the Bill is to update the existing beekeeping code to better reflect current practices.

This Act makes necessary changes to Delaware’s election laws based on the State’s purchase of new voting devices and establishes auditing requirements for the voting devices. The new voting devices will function differently than the existing voting devices and so election law must be updated to conform the law. The new voting devices allow each voter to view a paper ballot with the voter’s selections under glass for the voter to approve before pressing the final button to vote. This Act requires the Department of Elections (“Department”) to audit the results of primary, general, and school board elections and establishes the procedure to be used by the Department. This Act also requires the Department to adopt regulations to govern the procedure to be used if an audit reveals a discrepancy. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill enables a key component of the Take Care Delaware program, a partnership between law enforcement and schools to adopt a trauma-informed approach to children who have been identified at the scene of a traumatic event. The Take Care Delaware program, which will start as a pilot, operates by a police officer or emergency-care provider alerting a child’s school about the child’s presence at a traumatic event that the police officer or emergency-care provider responded to. In order to avoid violations of the State Bureau of Investigation’s dissemination statute and the Victim’s Bill of Rights in Title 11, this bill creates a narrow exception to both statutes that allows police officers and emergency-care providers to send the child’s name to their school district or charter school so that the child’s teachers can ensure the child is handled in a trauma-informed way. The Take Care Delaware program is based on the national “Handle With Care” model and includes training and other best practices for law enforcement and schools to prevent and mitigate the negative impact of childhood exposure to trauma.