Rep. Eric Morrison

This Act creates a new Delaware Nursing Advancement Fund (Fund) for purposes of funding a nonprofit that will maintain information and conduct studies about the nursing workforce, advance the profession of nursing, monitor trends in the nursing applicant pool, facilitate partnerships, educate the public about opportunities and careers in nursing, and distribute information about the nursing workforce. Money for the Fund will come from a $10 fee on initial and renewal applications to the Board of Nursing, as well as any disciplinary fines. The Division of Professional Regulation will make a grant award to a nonprofit to accomplish the purposes of the Fund. This Act requires a three-fourths majority vote for passage because of the requirements of Section 4, Article VIII of the Delaware Constitution.

This Act requires long-term care facilities to have insurance policies that provide a minimum of $1 million per claim/$3 million aggregate coverage each for general liability and professional liability. This Act takes effect 180 days after enactment.

This Act revises the reporting requirements for the Community Environmental Project Fund for the purpose of easing the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Controls’ (DNREC) administrative burden. The fund was created by the General Assembly in 2004. This fund is capitalized with civil and administrative penalty payments received by DNREC. The collected funds are then disbursed to organizations serving communities affected by environmental violations. Projects provided by these organizations include eliminating, minimizing, or abating pollution, improving environmental conditions that impact human health, enhancing natural resources to improve habitats, and expanding recreational opportunities.

This Act removes the requirement that certain reports to the State Aid to Municipalities for Streets Program be notarized and printed and permits reports to be submitted by electronic submission with a unique identifier. This Act also requires that the annual report that is submitted to the State Treasurer also be submitted to the Department of Transporation.

This House Substitute for House Bill No. 390 clarifies that the agencies may, in their discretion, determine the methodology to be used for bid submission, including limiting bidding to solely electronic submissions. This Act allows for electronic bidding to be conducted through a platform of the agency’s choice. Where electronic bidding is identified as the sole manner of bidding, the agency is not required to provide an anchor location for public attendance at the bid opening. The agency is then required to provide the results of the bidding in real time via an electronic remote hosting platform of the agency’s choosing. The agency must post the results of the solicitation to their website within 2 business days. Additionally, this Act clarifies that a newspaper advertisement is not required if advertisement is submitted to the electronic procurement advertising system defined in § 6902(12) of this title. Finally, this Act clarifies that the agency and awarded bidder may mutually consent to extend the time limit for a contract award. This House Substitute differs from the original bill by adding that the agency must accept paper submissions when the solicitation or request for proposal is under $500,000 but more than the amount specified by the Office of Management and Budget in their annual guidance. It includes that the centralized computer system administered by the Section of Government Support Services will serve as the State's system of record. This substitute also makes technical corrections to conform with the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act seeks to address the undue burden placed on individuals who are required to surrender their driver's license due to a medical condition. Under current law, individuals must physically surrender their license, often during already traumatic circumstances, and are then, in some cases, required to purchase a separate identification card to maintain a valid form of ID during the suspension period. This Act allows a medically disqualified individual to retain the individual's physical driver’s license for identification purposes by signing an affidavit acknowledging the individual is prohibited from operating a motor vehicle. This approach balances public safety with compassion, streamlines administrative processes, and eliminates unnecessary costs for affected individuals. This Act also makes technical corrections to existing law to conform to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act requires that a hospital create a discharge plan if a pregnant patient who is experiencing signs or symptoms consistent with labor is discharged before delivery. This requirement to create a discharge plan applies to patients discharged from either in-patient treatment or observation status and must contain all of the following: 1. Aftercare instructions and guidelines and that these instructions and guidelines were explained to the patient, patient’s agent, or patient’s lay caregiver. 2. An assessment of travel distance and time between the primary residence of the patient and the hospital. 3. Verification of reliable transportation between the primary residence of the patient and the hospital. 4. Identification of a back-up hospital or facility at which the patient may obtain labor and delivery services. This Act is modeled on the Women Expansion of Learning and Labor Safety or WELLS Act, H.R. 7830, which was introduced in Congress on March 5, 2026. The WELLS Act is named after Mercedes Wells, a Black woman who was forced to give birth on the side of the road minutes after being discharged from a hospital while in active labor. Under existing law, Chapter 30J of Title 16 provides discharge planning requirements when a patient is being discharged home after admission to a hospital. The requirements under this Act are in addition to, but can be combined with, these existing discharge planning requirements if the patient being discharged is pregnant and experiencing signs or symptoms consistent with labor. This Act also renames and reorganizes Chapter 30J of Title 16 by making existing law Subchapter I and creating a new Subchapter II with the requirements under this Act. As such, this Act makes corresponding changes to existing law to change references to Chapter 30J to the new subchapter.

This Act prohibits state agencies, counties, and municipalities from entering into nondisclosure agreements that would restrict the public from accessing information about potential or actual large-scale data center development in this State. Large-scale data centers, defined in this Act as data centers that use or are capable of using 100 megawatts of power or more, can pose significant challenges for the communities in which they are located. When nondisclosure agreements are used to shield information about proposed or planned data centers from the public, it deprives those communities of the opportunity to understand and respond to issues that directly affect them.

This Act requires that when all or part of the tenant’s rent is paid from a state fund for reentry services, a landlord must assist the tenant in completing a discharge plan to attempt to provide a warm handoff before terminating the tenant’s lease. This Act also closes a loophole in existing law that allows unlicensed or uncertified operators of residential housing to claim exemption from the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, including the procedural requirements for an eviction. Existing laws prohibit someone from losing their housing without notice because • A landlord must comply with the notice and judicial procedure under the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, Part III, Title 25. • Licensed health care providers must provide discharge planning before an individual is required to leave a residential treatment program under § 1127, § 5161, and § 3004J of Title 16. • Certified recovery homes must make a reasonable effort to connect a resident with appropriate services when terminating the resident’s admission agreement under § 2206A of Title 16. Section 1 of this Act closes a loophole in current law that allows some landlords to claim their tenants are excluded under § 5102(1) of Title 25 from the protections required before eviction under the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code without being required to provide discharge planning or connecting the resident with appropriate services. This Act revises 3 of the exclusions by using the modern terms and where possible, the applicable licensing law for this State, to prevent housing providers from claiming exclusion from the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code even if the provider is not licensed or certified to provide services. This Act does not apply to or revise the exclusions to the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code under paragraphs (4) through (6) of § 5102 of Title 25, including the existing exclusion for certified recovery houses. Section 2 of this Act creates new requirements under § 5512A of Title 25 if all or part of a tenant’s rent is paid using money from a State reentry fund. Before or with the first payment, the person responsible for payments from the fund must provide the landlord with an explanation of these requirements, contact information, and the model discharge plan. The Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), must create a model discharge plan. Then, before terminating the tenant’s lease, the landlord must assist the individual in creating a discharge plan that includes shelter or housing and provide notice that the tenant’s lease is being terminated as follows: • To the person making rent payments from the fund. • If the landlord knows that the tenant is under the supervision of the Department of Correction, to the Department of Correction and the local law enforcement agency. If a landlord fails to comply with the discharge planning and notice requirements, the landlord is debarred from receiving payments from any State reentry fund for 1 year. If the landlord is receiving payments from a State reentry fund for any other tenants, those tenants are not responsible for the share of the rent that was paid by the fund and have the option to do any of the following: • Continue the tenancy without payments from the fund. If the tenant chooses to continue their tenancy, the amount of their rent becomes the tenant’s share of the rent, calculated by subtracting the amount paid by the fund from the total rent under the rental agreement. • Terminate the lease immediately. • Terminate the lease with 30 to 60 days notice. These requirements are enforceable by the Department of Justice and also by the Justice of the Peace Court, because the contents of an eviction complaint must include a brief statement of compliance with the requirements under § 5512A(c) and copies of all required notices. Section 3 of this Act is a technical clarification to clarify that “this Code” and “Landlord-Tenant Code” both refer to the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code under Part III of this title. Both “this Code” and “Landlord-Tenant Code” are used throughout Chapter 51 through Chapter 59 of Title 25 as abbreviations of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code and under § 101 of Title 1, “this Code” could also refer to the entire Delaware Code. Section 4 of this Act makes the new requirements for reentry funds under § 5512A of Title 25 applicable to the rental of single rooms in owner-occupied buildings under § 5512 of Title 25. Section 4 also reorganizes the existing language in § 5512 because as 1 sentence, the current language is difficult to understand. This Act takes effect 6 months after enactment to provide time for DHSS and DOJ to develop the model discharge plan and for agencies, including the Department of Correction and local law enforcement agencies, to develop policies and procedures necessary to implement and respond to notification under these requirements. The new requirements under § 5512A of Title 25 apply to rental agreements entered into on or after 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 is known as “The Grace Peterson Act”.

Maddy summaryThis Delaware bill allows a staff member to attend a virtual meeting from an anchor location instead of a public body member. The change updates the rules for virtual meetings in Title 29 of the Delaware Code to include this specific staffing arrangement. It directly affects public bodies in the state by modifying how they conduct remote sessions. The legislation was passed by both the House and Senate to formalize this procedural adjustment.