This bill provides for election day registration for presidential primary, primary, special, and general elections whereas currently the deadline is the fourth Saturday prior to the date of the election. Moreover, same day registration at polling places will be permitted with submission of an application along with a copy of a current and valid government issued photo identification or a current government document displaying the name and address of the person registering to vote. The effective date is January 1, 2022.
This Act increases the $2,000 pension exclusion otherwise available for military pensioners under age 60 to $12,500, providing an incentive for military retirees under age 60 to locate in Delaware. This Act is effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2022.
This Act is a substitute for Senate Bill No. 101. Like Senate Bill No. 101, this Substitute creates a right to counsel for tenants in evictions and other landlord-tenant actions. Approximately 18,000 eviction cases are filed each year in the State of Delaware, and while 86% of landlords are represented by an attorney, agent, or business manager, only 2% of tenants have representation. The disruptive displacement that accompanies eviction proceedings create significant costs for state and local government related to shelter funding, education funding, health care provided in hospitals instead of community-based providers, transportation costs for homeless youth, and foster care. Evictions and disruptive displacement also have significant, well-documented, and long-lasting effects on the lives of individuals and families, including poorer physical and mental health, increased risk of homelessness, increased risk of employment loss, loss of personal property, damage to credit standing, and relocation into substandard housing. Further, evictions fall disproportionately on Black and Latinx families, who have also been the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis. Section 1 of this Act establishes a right to counsel for covered individuals with household income below 200% of the federal poverty guideline for evictions and other landlord-tenant actions. A Coordinator for the program will be appointed by the Attorney General. The Coordinator will contract with legal services providers for the provision of representation in proceedings covered by this Act. Section 1 also requires the Coordinator to work with community organizations to do outreach and education regarding the right to counsel. And, landlords must provide notice of the right to counsel at periodic designated intervals in the tenancy and in eviction proceedings. Section 2 of this Act creates a monetary floor for initiation of eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent – no action may be filed where the amount of rent owed is 1-month’s rent or less than $500, whichever is greater. It also provides that a landlord may not initiate or continue eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent if the tenant pays and the landlord accepts all rent due. Finally, it creates a right of redemption for a tenant who pays all back rent, costs, and fees before eviction. Section 3 of this Act authorizes the creation of a residential eviction diversion program modeled after the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program. Section 4 of this Act provides COVID-19-specific relief in an action where execution was stayed based on a finding that the stay was required in the interests of justice. Section 5 of this Act is a severability clause. This Substitute differs from Senate Bill No. 101 as it does all of the following: (1) Includes representation by non-attorneys in the definition of “legal representation”, if the Rules of the Supreme Court are amended to permit the representation. (2) Removes the provision for representation in proceedings related to the reduction of a housing subsidy. (3) Makes clear that legal representation is provided as it is available and that an individual does not have a cause of action if it is not available. (4) Provides examples of circumstances in which a designated organization may decline representation. (5) Provides that the Right to Counsel Coordinator (“Coordinator”), with appropriate funding from the General Assembly, shall contract with designated organizations to provide the services required under the Act. (6) Requires the Coordinator to include the Justice of the Peace Court’s experience with the Act in the Coordinator’s annual report. (7) Removes events that require a landlord to provide a tenant with a brochure about legal representation available to tenants. (8) Makes technical changes to make clear that an action for possession based on unpaid rent may not be brought if the amount of rent owed is less than 1-month’s rent or less than $500, whichever is greater. (9) Changes the time for the application of the tenant’s right of redemption to before the writ of possession is posted. (10) Changes one of the possible deadlines for implementing the residential eviction diversion program to 270 days after the effective date of the Act. (11) Provides that the Residential Eviction Diversion Program is to be established and implemented by the Justice of the Peace Court or the Court’s designee, which may be the Right to Counsel Coordinator. (12) Expands the exemption to participation in the residential eviction diversion program to include when threats of substantial or irreparable harm to the landlord’s or other tenant’s person or property and cites the appropriate provisions of the Delaware Code relating to proceedings based on irreparable harm. (13) Changes what a landlord is required to do once the Twenty-Seventh Modification of the Declaration of a State of Emergency for the State of Delaware Due to a Public Health Threat expires or is not renewed. (14) Makes Sections 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8 of this Act effective 120 days after the Act’s enactment and makes the effective date of Section 3 of the Act (regarding the residential eviction diversion program) contingent on funding. (15) Requires the Coordinator to provide the General Assembly with a copy of the first annual report to determine if additional funding is needed to address the fiscal impact of the Act on the Justice of the Peace Court.
Currently, there is a manufacturer of firearm magazines in Georgetown that employs nearly 90 workers and produces 30, 20, 15, and 10 round magazines. This Act excludes a person who manufactures a large-capacity magazine from the application of the law if the person manufactures the large-capacity magazine with the intent to sell the large-capacity magazine, or offer the large-capacity magazine for sale, to a person outside of this State. The Act also excludes a person who ships or transports the large-capacity magazine for a person who manufactures a large-capacity magazine for sale to a person outside of this State. The enactment of this Act is contingent on the enactment of Senate Substitute No. 1 for Senate Bill No. 6.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that would update the minimum voting age in the Delaware Constitution from twenty-one years to eighteen years.
This Act is named for Keshall “KeKe” Anderson. KeKe was an innocent bystander who was killed in a 2016 shooting involving a firearm purchased through a straw purchase. In 2019, in a lawsuit by KeKe’s family against the dealer of the firearm involved in her death, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s decision interpreting § 1448A of Title 11 of the Delaware Code to grant a firearm dealer full immunity from liability, even if the firearm dealer is negligent in selling a firearm to a straw purchaser. See Summers v. Cabela’s Wholesale, Inc., 2019 Del. Super. LEXIS 156 (Del. Super. 2019), aff’d, Summers v. Cabela’s Wholesale, Inc., 2019 Del. LEXIS 524 (Del. 2019). The repeal in Section 2 of this Act means victims and their families may seek relief from courts and juries instead of being denied their day in court. Section 3 of this Act provides a cause of action to enable firearm manufacturers and retail dealers to be held accountable when they knowingly or recklessly take actions that endanger the health and safety of residents of this State through the sale, manufacture, distribution, and marketing of firearm-related products.
This Act clarifies various aspects of the State’s unclaimed property laws, specifically: (1) Section 1 specifically exempts property owed to non-Delaware government entities and payment or credit arising under the 2022 Delaware Relief Rebate Program, Chapter 290 of Volume 83 of the Laws of Delaware. (2) Section 2 clarifies and confirms current practice that a holder under examination or in the voluntary disclosure program shall retain records from ten years plus the dormancy period to present day until completion of the examination or voluntary disclosure agreement. (3) Section 3 clarifies and confirms current practice regarding the timing of the liquidation of securities and the mailing of written notice to owners to eliminate litigation risk for the State. Under current practice, the State Escheator liquidates securities and mails written notice to owners relatively contemporaneously in weekly batches. Practically, however, at times liquidation may precede the mailing of notice by several days. However, because a claimant’s recovery is determined by the date the claim is filed relative to the date of notice, the claimant’s recovery is not impacted by this change. Because owner addresses reported by holders are often incomplete or have obvious errors, this Section also allows, but does not require, the State Escheator to take reasonable steps to update, correct, or validate owner addresses to make delivery of the written notice more likely, and limits liability for the State Escheator for any such actions or lack of actions. (4) Section 4 clarifies and confirms current practice regarding the timing of the liquidation of securities and the mailing of written notice to owners. (5) Section 5 clarifies how to determine the value of claims for securities property by clarifying a date certain for the statutory 558-day period to begin when the date of notice cannot otherwise be determined or when notice is not required or sent. (6) Section 6 clarifies and confirms current practice that the time for a claimant appeal to the Tax Appeal Board, where the State Escheator has paid the claim, begins to run on the initial issuance of payment, and is not reset or tolled by the re-issuance of a check. This Section also expressly permits the State Escheator to pay claims on a pro rata basis for property received before August 1, 2022, or resulting from a bankruptcy proceeding, when the reported amount of property exceeds the remitted amount, and expressly prohibits holders from relying on this Section to engage in this practice prospectively. (7) Section 7 clarifies and confirms current practice that the time for a claimant appeal to the Tax Appeal Board, where the State Escheator has paid the claim, begins to run on the initial issuance of payment, and is not reset or tolled by the re-issuance of a check. (8) Section 8 makes changes to allow the State Escheator to issue a notice of examination to any holder who has failed to respond to requests made pursuant to a verified report or compliance review or to complete a verified report or compliance review. This Section also makes changes to clarify and confirm current practice that a “reason to believe” standard does not apply to inquiries under § 1170 of Title 12. (9) Section 9 allows the State Escheator to issue a notice of examination to any holder who has failed to respond to requests made pursuant to a verified report or compliance review or to complete a verified report or compliance review under § 1170 of Title 12. (10) Section 10 responds to feedback received from the professional finder industry and clarifies and confirms current practice that the State will not disclose the exact amount of claimable property until a claimant’s rightful ownership of the property has been established and permits finder agreements to reflect this fraud prevention measure. (11) Section 11 states that Sections 1, 8, 9, and 10 of this Act take effect on enactment. (12) Section 12 states that it is the intent of the General Assembly that Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of this Act apply retroactively to any claims, examinations, voluntary disclosure agreements, or litigation pending as of the effective date of this Act. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act defines machine gun as it is defined under federal law. Defining machine gun makes clear the types of weapons prohibited under Delaware law, including an auto sear, or “glock switch”, which transforms a semiautomatic gun into a machine gun. Additionally, this Act prohibits a person from making a destructive weapon, including a machine gun. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act raises the threshold limit requiring a building and loan association to obtain federal deposit insurance from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000. This threshold limit was last increased in 2019. The State Bank Commissioner does not oppose this change. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act is identical to Senate Substitute No. 1 to Senate Bill No. 9, which establishes new formulas that a community owner is allowed use to increase rent in a manufactured home community. The requirements under this Act will be in effect for 5 years, during which time the current requirements for rent increases in manufactured home communities will be suspended. Under current law, rent increases in manufactured home communities have frequently been the subject of arbitration hearings and lengthy court cases. This Act seeks to dramatically reduce or eliminate these disputes by providing a choice of 3 methods that a community owner can use to establish the amount of a rent increase. In addition, when rent is increased based on 1 of the new calculations, this Act establishes clear standards and requirements, including documentation that requirements have been satisfied. This Act applies to rent increases when notice is provided beginning the 1st day of the month following its enactment into law, and remains in effect until 5 years after its enactment. Under § 7052 of Title 25, rent in a manufactured home community can be increased in an amount greater than the percentage increase of the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the preceding 36 months if there have not been health or safety violations that persisted for more than 15 days, the rent increase is directly related to operating, maintaining, or improving the manufactured home community, and the rent increase is justified by 1 or more of the factors listed, which include capital improvements, changes in taxes, utility charges, insurance costs, operating and maintenance expenses, repairs, and market rent. Rent increases under § 7052 are subject to additional requirements and the dispute resolution process under § 7053 of Title 25. Under this Act, § 7052 will not apply to rent increases while the new methods for calculating rent increases are in effect. Under this Act, a community owner may increase rent based upon the increase in the CPI-U for the preceding 24 months, based on market rent, or by agreement with a homeowner for a period of more than 1 year. In addition, a community owner may increase rent based upon the increase in the cost of specific expenses. Increases based on market rent or these additional expenses are subject to the requirements and dispute resolution process under § 7053. This Act requires that in order to increase rent, there cannot have been a health or safety violation that continued for more than 15 days as calculated under § 7051A of Title 25 or if there is a health or safety violation, the community owner must provide a surety bond or letter of credit in an amount sufficient to fund 100% of the rent increase in addition to written documentation of how the violation will be corrected by a specified date. If the violation is not corrected by that date, the surety bond or letter of credit will be used to refund the rent increase to homeowners. This Act also creates a limited eligibility lot rental assistance program for homeowners whose incomes are between 40% and 55% of the county median household income that applies to rent increases. Specifically, this Act does all of the following: Section 1. Moves definitions of the terms “CPI-U” and “market rent” to § 7003 of Title 25 because the terms are used in more than 1 section. This Act also updates the definition of “CPI-U” to reference the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington region. Section 2. Adds detailed notice requirements to § 7051 of Title 25 that require written notice of a rent increase at least 90 days, but not more than 120 days, before the first day the increased amount of rent is due and that this notice must be sent to each affected homeowner, the homeowners’ association, if one exists, and the Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Authority (DEHMRA). Section 3. Revises § 7052 so that it applies to rent increases that occurred or were noticed between the date § 7052 was enacted and the effective date of this Act. It makes corresponding changes to the subsection designations and repeals the definition of “market rent” because that definition will be in § 7003. Section 4. Establishes the requirements for rent increases for the 5 years after this Act takes effect, by creating the following: • § 7051A of Title 25, which establishes the prerequisites regarding health or safety violations that must be satisfied before rent can be increased including the requirement that if a health or safety violation has continued for more than 15 days as calculated under § 7051A of Title 25, the community owner must not only document that the violation will be correct by a specific date within 1 year, but must provide DEHMRA with a surety bond or letter of credit in an amount sufficient to fund 100% of the rent increase. If the violation is not corrected by that date, the surety bond or letter of credit will be used to refund the rent increase to homeowners. This Act clarifies that “violation” includes requirements under federal, state, or county laws and that if the community owner does not correct the specified date, the rent increase does not take effect. • Creates § 7052A of Title 25, which establishes the following 3 ways that a community owner may establish a base rent increase: 1. Based upon the increase in the CPI-U for the preceding 24 months. 2. Based on market rent 3. By agreement with a homeowner for a period of more than 1 year. • This Act also clarifies that § 7052A continues to apply to rent increased under the section after the section sunsets, revises the definition of the “24-month CPI-U” to mirror the language in § 7053 of Title 25, and clarifies the language explaining the rent increase calculation if based on a 24-month CPI-U that is equal to or below 7%. • Creates § 7052B of Title 25, which establishes the requirements under which a community owner may add an additional rent increase to an increase under § 7052A. The requirements include the specific allowed expenses that can be the basis of an additional rent increase, the time periods that are used in the calculations, the calculation used to determine if an additional rent increase is permitted, and how the dollar amount of an additional rent increase is calculated. A community owner must provide documentation of the cost of each of the allowed expenses on a website and must provide paper copies for review at the management office and upon request by a homeowner. Section 5. Makes the following corresponding changes to § 7053: 1. Repeals notice provisions that will be in § 7051 and applicable to all rent increases in manufactured home communities. 2. States that this section is applicable to rent increases under §§ 7052, 7052A(d), and 7052B of Title 25. 3. Revises subsection (j) so it includes the standards under §§ 7052A(d) and 7052B, if applicable. Section 6. Makes a technical correction to § 7054 of Title 25 so that it references § 7053 of Title 25 where it provides the deadline to appeal a decision of an arbitrator. Section 7. Revises the lot rental assistance program by doing the following: • Revises § 7022 of Title 25, the current lot rental assistance program, by doing the following: 1. Expands eligibility by requiring residency in the home for 5 consecutive years, instead of prior to July 1, 2006. 2. Increasing eligibility to households with income that is equal to or less than 40% of the county median income, from the current 30%. This Act also updates which agency that determines the county median household income. 3. Repealing subsections that are being transferred to a new § 7022A of Title 25 because the provisions also apply to the new limited eligibility lot rental assistance program. 4. Making technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. • Creates § 7022A of Title 25, which has the requirements that apply to the lot rental assistance programs under both §§ 7022 and 7022B of Title 25. These requirements are transferred from § 7022A with only technical corrections. • Creates § 7022B of Title 25, which creates a limited eligibility lot rental assistance program for homeowners whose incomes are between 40% and 55% of the median household income that applies to rent increases. Under this program, a homeowner’s rent is calculated on a sliding scale based on the amount of the household’s income. This Act also does all of the following: 1. Expands eligibility for the limited eligibility lot rental assistance program to lot rent increases that take effect after the effective date of this Act. 2. Revises the eligibility requirements to correct a drafting error. 3. Requires residency in the home for 5 consecutive years to be eligible. 4. Corrects which agency determines the county median household income. 5. Clarifies how rent is calculated under the limited eligibility lot rental assistance program. Sections 8 through 10 require that if any of the following find a violation of a health or safety requirement in a manufactured home community, notice must be provided to local and state elected officials, the Department of Justice, and the Authority: 1. A county government. 2. The Department of Health and Social Services, for drinking water. 3. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. In addition, Sections 8 through 10 make technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual, including the correction of an internal reference in § 122(3)c.E. of Title 16. Section 11. Makes this Act effective on the first day of the month following its enactment into law.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that will modernize the bail provisions within the Delaware Constitution and clarify the power of the General Assembly to define either certain offenses for which, or circumstances under which, pretrial release on bail may not be available. The current provision allowing that only “capital offenses” are not bailable first appeared in its present form in the Delaware Constitution of 1792. At that time, “capital offenses” included many more offenses than the term does today. For example, manslaughter, rape, robbery, burglary, and assaults with weapons were capital offenses, and therefore included as crimes for which a court could order pretrial detention. Thus, over time, other crimes that the Framers intended to include as those for which bail might be restricted no longer are. Today, a Delaware state court judge cannot order preventive detention in any non-capital case. Instead, the judge can only attempt to set the bail so high that a defendant cannot make it, which means that any defendant, no matter how dangerous and no matter the circumstance, can obtain release if the defendant can fund the bail—even if that defendant poses a certain flight risk or a known threat of harm to the public or to a specific person, such as a witness or victim. This Act is one step toward completing a pretrial release-detention continuum requiring specific evidence-based detention decisions that seek to maximize public safety and minimize pretrial detention for those less serious crimes for which it is not required. Upon enactment of the second leg of this constitutional amendment, § 12 of Article I of the Delaware Constitution as proposed will do all of the following: (1) Retain the express declaration of a general right to have bail set in a criminal case. (2) Provide that the crimes for which bail may be withheld are capital murder, where the evidentiary proof is positive and presumption of the accusation great, and other identified felony offenses determined by and under procedures prescribed by law where the evidentiary proof for the need of detention is clear and convincing. (3) Ensure that one condition precedent to bail being withheld in non-capital cases is a finding that no bail condition or combination of bail conditions other than detention will assure the safety of any person or the community, that the person will appear for future proceedings, or that the detention is necessary to prevent the person from obstructing or attempting to obstruct justice. This constitutional amendment, by itself, would not allow that a person charged with a non-capital crime could be held without bail. Rather, no person could be subject to a detention hearing in a non-capital case until the General Assembly revises Chapter 21 of Title 11 of the Delaware Code and the General Assembly and courts “prescribe by law” the specific felonies, circumstances, and procedures under which detention without bail may occur. With this change, though, Delaware can progress toward the type of modern bail system that has been increasingly adopted by our sister states through amendment of their state constitutions, when needed, and the development of statutory procedures that provide, in appropriate cases, pre-trial detention without bail. And this change does so by adopting the standards favorably recommended by authoritative sources including the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the National Center for State Courts, the American Bar Association, and the numerous state legislatures and court systems that have studied pretrial detention and retained or incorporated them in their own state constitutions and laws. Any legislation subsequently enacted or court procedures adopted under the passage of the second leg of this constitutional amendment would have to require individualized, fact-governed decision-making by any court considering preventive detention to pass muster under the United States and Delaware State Constitutions.
This Act updates the synthetic cannabinoids listed on Schedule I of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act by using broader language so that new synthetic cannabinoids created after the enactment of this Act fall within this definition without needing to be specifically listed. This Act requires a greater than majority vote for passage because § 28 of Article IV of the Delaware Constitution requires the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to give jurisdiction to inferior courts and possession of a controlled substance is a misdemeanor under § 4763 of Title 16.
