Rep. Eric Morrison

This Act revises the Fair Housing Act to repeal the exception to discrimination based on source of income that allows a landlord to discriminate against tenants who participate in government-sponsored rental assistance programs. This exemption contributes to a lack of affordable housing in this State. There is currently a severe shortage of affordable housing for extremely low-income households in Delaware, with only 38 affordable rental units available for every 100 extremely low-income households. In addition, studies have shown that people who use government subsidies to move from high-poverty neighborhoods to communities with more opportunity have measurable health improvements and the children in these families earn more in adulthood than children who remain in high-poverty neighborhoods. Nine states and the District of Columbia have fair housing laws that protect against discrimination based on source of income that covers recipients of government subsidies.

This Senate Concurrent Resolution requests that the United States Congress propose and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to make clear that Congress and the states have the power and authority to regulate and limit the amounts of money collected and spent in elections and for referendums and ballot measures.

This Concurrent Resolution requests that the budget bill prepared by the Joint Finance Committee keep the Senior Property Tax Credit at its statutorily enacted level of the lesser of 50%, or $500, rather than lower the maximum credit amount through epilogue language, until such time as a means-tested program can be implemented.

In the 1943 decision West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 63 S. Ct. 1178, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a public school requirement that students salute the flag or face punishment violated the First Amendment of the Constitution because it compelled students to declare a belief. Under Barnette and similar decisions, current Delaware law, which requires teachers and students to salute and pledge allegiance to the American flag every morning is unconstitutional because it is coercive. State law requires teachers and students to “salute and pledge allegiance to the American flag” every day and imposes a criminal penalty on a principal or teacher who fails to require students to participate in the salute and pledge of allegiance. A New Hampshire law requiring that time be provided during the school day to recite the pledge of allegiance and which specifically provides that students not participating in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance may silently stand or remain seated while respecting the rights of students participating was found constitutional. This Act preserves the requirement that students have the opportunity to salute and pledge allegiance to the American flag each school day but revises the Code so that the requirement complies with the First Amendment of the Constitution. Specifically, this Act does all of the following: Section 1 revises § 4105 of Title 14 to comply with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by requiring schools to provide an opportunity for students to salute the flag and pledge allegiance to the American flag every day. Section 2 adds charter schools to § 4101A of Title 14 to be consistent with the revisions in Section 1 of this Act and makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Section 3 repeals the penalties imposed on a principal or teacher for failure to comply with § 4105 of Title 14. Section 4 repeals the penalties imposed on a principal or teacher for failure to comply with § 4101 of Title 14.

House Bill No. 292 of the 149th General Assembly established a 3 year pilot program (“program”) to implement the recommendations in the 2015 Autism Educational Task Force report. The pilot program revised the Delaware Autism Program toward a system where the statewide Director works in collaboration with a team of experts to provide technical assistance and training to districts and educational entities. This Act makes the pilot program permanent and revises the program as follows: 1. Requires the Department of Education ("Department") to administer the program, including hiring the Director. 2. Revises the terminology in the qualifications for the Director to include autism spectrum disorder (“ASD”). 3. Requires the Department to hire 5 training specialists instead of the current hiring requirement that is based on the number of students with an educational classification of ASD. 4. Renames the Parent Advisory Committees to clarify that they are statewide. 5. Revises the responsibilities of the Peer Review Committee to conduct reviews without a request of the Department, to include behavioral procedures in the review, and at the request of the Department, review procedures and programming for students with other educational classifications served in the program. This Act takes effect on July 1, 2021. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

Most commonly, persons accused of subsection (a) of this section – panhandling – are homeless. Transferring such matters to the Court of Common Pleas allows persons so accused increased access to social services not available to them at the Justice of the Peace Court.

This bill establishes a 2-year residential drinking water purification system pilot program to be administered through the Department of Health and Social Services with funding through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

Requesting the Division of Research, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Delaware Department of Technology & Information to cooperate in creating a detailed and implementable plan to stream audio and video of all floor and committee action of the House of Representatives and Senate; record all such material; and make these recordings available to the public via an online archive. The resolution further requests the 151st General Assembly and the governor to approve and act on the finished plan and authorize the funding needed to implement it.

This Act fully exempts county property taxes and local school taxes for a disabled veteran with a 100% VA rated service-connected, permanent and total disability or for a disabled veteran who is receiving 100% disability compensation due to individual unemployability. The 100% rating and disability compensation is determined by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. This Act sets forth the minimum requirements that a claimant in any county must meet in determining eligibility for the exemption. Each county may impose additional requirements as necessary for eligibility. The minimum requirements are as follows: (1) the disabled veteran must be legally domiciled in the State for a period of time established by the county; and (2) the property for which the exemption is sought must be solely owned by the disabled veteran (or jointly with spouse) and used as his or her primary place of residence.

This Act adopts the Agreement to Phase-Out Corporate Giveaways, under which member states are prohibited from offering or providing company-specific tax incentives or grants to an entity as inducement for the entity to physically relocate to the state from a location in a member state. Corporate incentives are among the least effective uses of taxpayer dollars to create and maintain jobs and governments should attract and retain companies based on general conditions, not based on a specific grant for a particular company. The Agreement to Phase-Out Corporate Giveaways creates a level playing field for all employers. This Act takes effect upon the adoption of the Agreement to Phase-Out Corporate Giveaways by 2 or more states. This Act is known as the “Agreement to Phase-Out Corporate Giveaways”.