This Act expands the Video Lottery Intercept Program by requiring an operator of a video lottery facility to submit an individual's winnings from sports betting and table games to the Division of Child Support Services to satisfy delinquent child support obligations. The Video Lottery Intercept Program currently only collects video lottery winnings.
This Act is a comprehensive amendment of the Town Charter for the Town of Clayton. It sets forth detailed basis for removal from office of Mayor and Town Council and process for filling any vacancies on Town Council. The Amendment allows the Mayor and members of Town Council to participate and vote in Council meetings by remote electronic means, when unavoidable circumstances prohibit in person attendance, so long as all members can hear and speak with one another. The Act allows the Town to borrow up to an amount not to exceed 20% of the assessed value of assessable and taxable real property within the Town limits. The Act also allows the Town to purchase general obligation bonds not to exceed 20% of the assessed value of all real estate subject to taxation within the Town. The Act establishes the Town’s power to regulate orderly growth and development including subdivisions and site plans and procedures for securing financial guarantees to ensure satisfactory completion of new land development. The Act also allows the Town to adopt the assessment of Kent County in lieu of making its own independent assessment and valuation for purposes of levying town taxes. The Act specifies the Town Manager is the Town Tax Collector. The Act allows the Council, by ordinance, to impose impact fees and the purpose for such impact fees. The Act specifies the duties of the Police Chief and Town Manager. The Act specifies all appointments and promotions of Town employees shall be under the direction of the Mayor and the Town Council including hiring, termination, promotion or discipline of all employees. The Act specifies use of Town money by Town Council. The Act sets forth new election procedures, including voter qualifications, voter registration, and conduct of elections for Town elections.
This Act removes the required window for submission of a final plan from the Redding Consortium to the State Board of Education and instead requires that the State Board act on any plan submitted by the Redding Consortium within 3 months. It also allows for the Redding Consortium to submit an interim plan prior to the completion of its full plan. Finally, it provides that the Consortium’s final report may include recommendations for policies and practices for systematic reform to address the negative impacts of the Neighborhood Schools Act.
This bill increases the amount of money the Town of Laurel is permitted to raise from levying and collecting taxes from $500,000 to $2,500,000.
In 2015, the General Assembly, in Chapter 28 of Volume 80 of the Laws of Delaware, designated as subsection (d) the last sentence of § 4201(c) of Title 11 regarding attempts to commit a felony listed as a violent felony (“the last sentence”). The clear intent of the 2015 legislation was to make a technical correction, not to make a substantive change. However, the General Assembly should have designated the last sentence as paragraph (c)(2), as the intent of the General Assembly was to maintain the connection between the violent felony list and the last sentence, such that citations to § 4201(c) of Title 11 were intended to reference both the violent felony list and the last sentence. This Act makes a technical correction of this inadvertent Delaware Code designation error.
The Voluntary Assessment Center was created by legislative action in 1976 (60 Del. Laws Section 509) to allow recipients of minor traffic violations to pay the fine and costs associated with the violation without the need to appear in the Justice of the Peace Court. Section 709 (i) advises that "Payment of the prescribed fine, costs, and penalty assessment is an admission of guilt, a waiver of the right to a hearing, and a complete satisfaction of the violation." Upon payment, the Court can consider the matter closed and advise the Division of Motor Vehicles of the violation for the Division's recordance purposes. Formerly, those who were unable to pay the fine in one payment were required instead to submit to a court date (which engendered additional court costs) if only to request a payment plan - a practice that seemed patently unfair. Accordingly, in 2012, the Court established a process where the Voluntary Assessment Center could accept payment of fines incrementally. Although more equitable, this new process caused unforeseen consequences. Because the current definition of payment is the total amount due, if a person makes a partial payment but does not completely pay the balance of the fine, the Court cannot consider the matter closed. The Division is not made aware of the violation and the case remains in administrative limbo. Currently, no capiases or warrants are issued for unpaid Voluntary Assessments. Instead, the Division places a flag on an individual's license and registration. It is usually only years later when an individual goes to renew their license that they respond to the Court to complete payment. Redefining payment in the definition of this section will further streamline the Court's administrative process of maintaining the record and will report to the Division the associated data in a timely manner.
This bill updates and clarifies certain provisions that have been confusing or otherwise problematic in the Investor Protection Unit’s enforcement efforts, or have otherwise become out-of-synch with federal securities law. The term “Commissioner” is a holdover from when the Investor Protection Unit was called the Securities Unit, and is no longer the correct term. It is replaced with “Director” to be consistent throughout the Act. In order to ensure consistency throughout the Act and create certainty as the applicability of rules issued pursuant to the Act, the phrase “or any rule or order hereunder” has been added after “this chapter” where it was missing. This clarifies that the Rules and orders are enforceable regardless of which statutory provision is implicated by an administrative action. This bill provides a definition of “willful” that tracks the federal definition as used in federal law and in the 1956 Uniform Securities Act, on which the Delaware Securities Act was originally patterned. The Uniform Securities Act of 1956, as amended, explains in the official code comment that “As the federal courts and the SEC have construed the term “willfully” in § 15(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b): all that is required is proof that the person acted intentionally in the sense that he was aware of what he was doing. Proof of evil motive or intent to violate the law, or knowledge that the law was being violated, is not required. The principal function of the word “willfully” is thus to serve as a legislative hint of self-restraint to the Administrator.” Similarly, the definition of “security” is revised to clarify that an analysis of whether an instrument is a security should be a substance over form analysis, following the approach under federal law. Section 73-209, concerning false filings, was moved to new section 73-104 to clarify its applicability to the entire Delaware Securities Act. The heading of Section 73-201 was changed from “Fraud” to “Employment of manipulative and deceptive devices” to harmonize with that of a similar provision from the Securities Act of 1934. Section 73-207(d) was amended to clarify its applicability to securities exemptions. Section 73- 208(g) was removed as it is no longer effective. Various subsections of Section 73-302 were amended to establish clarity as to the timeline for registrations and to prevent the inadvertent approval of a registration under review by the Investor Protection Unit. Section 73-304(a)(6) is being revised to add additional securities regulators to the list of entities whose orders can be considered when determining whether to take action concerning a registrant or applicant’s registration status. Section 73-305(c)(1), which prohibits investment adviser fees based on a percentage of capital gains, is amended to allow for such fees if approved by a rule or order of the Director. This brings Delaware into harmony with federal practice, since the SEC has started allowing such a fee structure under certain circumstances, subject to periodic review of the policy. Section 73-601 is amended to clarify that there is no aggregation of violations when determining the imposition of fines; that a party seeking a hearing on a summary order must provide an answer in writing; and adds freezing accounts to the list of actions the Unit may take, which may be helpful in dealing with the increase in cryptocurrency fraud. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
In 1682 or 1683, the Sussex County Court, created by William Penn, created the land grant that is the subject of this Act (“Warner Grant”). As this Act describes, the Warner Grant consists of land in and adjacent to the City of Lewes largely consisting of what is now Cape Henlopen State Park. As the United States District Court for Delaware would later find, the Warner Grant created a “right of common” held in trust for the benefit the people of Lewes and Sussex County. See United States v. 1,010.8 Acres Situate in Sussex County, 56 F. Supp. 120 (D. Del. 1944). In the early 1970s, nearly 300 years after the Warner Grant was created, a dispute arose over the meaning of the Warner Grant and who had authority to enforce the right of common under the Warner Grant when the City of Lewes leased land in the Warner Grant to a real estate company for the purpose of constructing a housing development. Lawsuits were filed by members of the public and the Attorney General. Eventually, the 130th General Assembly settled that dispute by enacting Chapter 108 of Volume 62 of the Laws of Delaware to establish the Warner Grant Trust (“Trust”) and set the boundaries of the lands in the Trust, known as the Warner Grant Trust Lands (“Lands”). In light of recent proposals for the use of the Lands, the 152nd General Assembly finds that clarification is necessary as to the permitted uses of the Lands and as to how future disputes are to be litigated. To that end, this Act does all of the following: (1) Makes clear that the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (“Department”), as trustee of the Warner Grant Trust Lands, must administer the Lands for the public benefit and adhering to 3 governing priorities: (1) conservation, (2) nature education, and (3) public recreation. (2) Makes clear that the Department must administer the Lands so that a private benefit or financial gain to a for-profit enterprise or public-private partnership is not detrimental to the public benefit. (3) Provides that the Court of Chancery has original jurisdiction over disputes regarding the Lands. (4) Provides that the Attorney General must represent Delawareans in the enforcement of the Trust and, if the Attorney General declines to do so, any resident of Sussex County may sue to enforce the Trust and the Court of Chancery must award attorney’s fees to the plaintiffs who prevail in enforcing the Trust. (5) Includes a provision in the Delaware Code, § 4523 of Title 7, referencing the Department’s duties under this Act to preserve memory of this Act for future generations. Section 1 of this Act amends Chapter 108, Volume 62 of the Laws of Delaware, as amended by Chapter 99, Volume 72 of the Laws of Delaware, which contains 10 sections labelled Section 1 through Section 10. Section 2 of this Act amends the Delaware Code to create a new § 4523 of Title 7.
This bill precludes the so-called LGBTQ+ "panic" defense that seeks to partially or completely excuse or justify a defendant from full accountability for the commission of a crime on the grounds that the actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth of the victim is sufficient to explain, excuse, or justify the defendant's conduct, or contributes to or causes the defendant's mental state, or that the defendant’s reaction thereto constitutes a mental illness, mental defect, or mental disorder sufficient to excuse or justify the defendant's conduct (including under circumstances in which the victim made a nonviolent romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant or in which the defendant and the victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship). Sections 1 and 3 of this bill move the definitions for gender identity and sexual orientation currently in the hate crimes statute to the general definitions section of the Criminal Code to maintain standard definitions of these terms throughout the Criminal Code. Section 2 of this bill provides that in any prosecution or sentencing for an offense: (i) a defendant is not justified in using force against another based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; (ii) for the purposes of determining whether there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for the existence of extreme emotional disturbance or other asserted mitigating factor or circumstance, such explanation or excuse is not reasonable if it is based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth; and (iii) a defendant does not suffer from a mental illness, mental defect, mental disorder, serious mental disorder, psychiatric disorder, or other impairment affecting or impacting the defendant’s mental state relating to any questions of intent, knowledge, capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct, disturbance of the defendant's thinking, feeling or behavior, culpability, willpower to choose whether to do or refrain from doing an act, or ability to distinguish right from wrong, based on the discovery of, knowledge or belief about, or the potential or actual disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or sex assigned at birth. This bill does not preclude a defendant from availing themself of any defense permitted by the Delaware Criminal Code or other applicable Delaware law on bases other than those specifically precluded by this bill. This House Substitute No. 2 differs from the original in that it corrects the omission of the phrase “or sentencing” in § 472(a), (b), and (c).
This Act clarifies that in calculating the document fee to be paid by the owner upon the sale, transfer, or registration of a park trailer, the owner shall be allowed to demonstrate the fair market value of the park trailer through an appraisal by a Delaware dealer authorized to provide an appraisal for park trailer models. This Act also excludes furnishings, site modifications, geographical location, and other items that are not related to the actual value of the park trailer from being included in the calculation.
This Act repeals the sunset of the Focus on Alternative Skills Training Program, which provides tuition for an eligible individual to attend an approved nondegree credit certificate program that provides industry-accepted skill training and certification.
This legislation prioritizes recruitment and retention of State employees by removing the 3-month waiting period for the state to pay its share of premium or subscription charges for health care coverage under § 5202 of Title 29 for benefit eligible state employees hired on or after January 1, 2024 by revising the definition of a “regular office or employee.”
