Sen. Margaret Rose Henry

This bill removes two out-of-date sections of the Division of Motor Vehicles' code. The first section to be deleted relates to a prohibition against a person displaying any card, sign, insignia, etc. of the Delaware Automobile Association unless they are a member of that Association. DMV believes the Association no longer exists as a separate entity. The second section relates to requirements for any vehicle provided by a railroad company that is used to transport railroad employees. DMV advises this section has never been enforced to anyone's knowledge.

There is a growing body of research regarding the detrimental effects to an individual and to society relating to the collateral consequences of arrests and criminal convictions. To name just a few, a criminal history is a significant barrier to obtaining and advancing in a job, finding housing, and gaining additional skills or education. Inability to participate in society in these basic ways contributes to Delaware’s high rate of recidivism and lowers the overall productivity and efficiency of the State. One way to relieve these consequences is to allow for the expungement of records if (1) an arrest did not lead to a guilty disposition or (2) an isolated conviction has been followed by a significant amount of time spent staying out of trouble with the law. At present, Delaware allows adults to petition to have a record expunged in only 2 circumstances: (1) if the arrest or charges never led to a conviction and (2) after a pardon is granted for certain misdemeanor offenses only. This Act allows for mandatory expungement (meaning the expungement must be granted if the petitioner meets the criteria) through the State Bureau of Identification if: (1) a person was arrested or charged but the case was resolved in favor of the petitioner; (2) after 3 years for a single violation; (3) after 5 years for a single misdemeanor. In all cases, a person is eligible for expungement if the person has no prior or subsequent convictions (with an exception for status offenses such as underage alcohol consumption). Allowing expungements for arrests without convictions and minor, isolated convictions through an application to the State Bureau of Identification will ease the burden on the Courts and the Board of Pardons. This Act also gives the Courts the power to decide if a petitioner deserves an expungement, a process called discretionary expungement, if the person seeking the expungement has maintained an otherwise clean record and (1) 1 year has passed since conviction of a violation; (2) 3 years have passed since conviction of a misdemeanor; or (3) 7 years have passed since conviction of a felony or since release from confinement, whichever is later. In all cases, a person is eligible for discretionary expungement if they have no prior or subsequent convictions (with an exception for status offenses such as underage alcohol consumption and for Title 21 driving offenses other than driving under the influence). The person must demonstrate that the failure to grant the expungement would constitute manifest injustice. The Act also creates an avenue for automatic expungement of a person’s criminal record after a pardon has been granted. This new provision for automatic expungement does not limit the Governor’s authority to limit the right to an expungement as a condition of the pardon in any individual case. This Act strikes the Title 10 provisions related to expungement of charges for adults in Family Court and consolidates all provisions relating to expungement of adult records in Title 11. It also makes some conforming changes to cross-references in Title 4 and Title 16. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Finally, implementation of this Act is delayed for 180 days to allow State agencies to prepare necessary procedures and forms.

This Act adopts the Uniform Law Commission’s Revised Uniform Athlete Agents Act (“Revised Act”), revising Chapter 54, Title 24 of the Delaware Code, which is based on the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Athlete Agents Act (“Uniform Act”). In the early 2000s, Delaware and 42 other states adopted the Uniform Act. Delaware’s version of the Uniform Act included a Board of Athlete Agents Examiners (“Board”), which was sunsetted by the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee in 2012 and removed from the Delaware Code by Senate Bill 184 of the 146th General Assembly (78 Del. Laws, c. 376). In addition to removing provisions related to the Board, Senate Bill 184 also removed provisions requiring athlete agents doing business in Delaware to be registered and subject to administrative oversight. In 2015, the Uniform Law Commission adopted the Revised Act to enhance protections for student athletes and educational institutions, create a uniform body of athlete agent registration information, and simplify the registration process. The changes made to the Uniform Act by the Revised Act became necessary as athlete agent tactics have become more advanced and the industry has become more sophisticated. The need for the Revised Act is highlighted by a recent FBI investigation into athlete agent activities related to the college basketball programs at a number of Division I schools. The Revised Act provides additional safeguards for student athletes by requiring that athlete agents be licensed and that agency contracts contain specific notice provisions. The Revised Act has been enacted by 11 states, with 3 of those enactments occurring this year, passed both chambers of the Minnesota legislature, and is currently being considered in the North Carolina legislature.

This Act creates a Prescription Opioid Impact Fund (“Fund”) through a prescription opioid impact fee (“Fee”) that is assessed on manufacturers of prescription opioids as follows: 1. The fee is based on the total of the Morphine Milligram Equivalent (“MME”) in each manufacturer’s products dispensed in Delaware, based upon data already reported to the Prescription Monitoring Program (“PMP”). The PMP data contains the mandatory reports by pharmacists of every prescription opioid dispensed in the State. The PMP data does not include prescription opioids administered in hospitals, provided directly to patients by hospice, or dispensed by veterinarians. 2. The fee is assessed against manufacturers who exceed a threshold of MME dispensed each quarter. 3. The Fee is assessed as follows: • One penny per MME for a prescription opioid dispensed and reported in the PMP. • One-quarter of a penny per MME for a prescription opioid that is a generic. The money in the Prescription Opioid Impact Fund must be spent on the following activities: 1. Opioid addiction prevention. 2. The following opioid addiction services: • Inpatient and outpatient treatment programs and facilities, including short-term and long-term residential treatment programs and sober living facilities. • Treating substance use disorder for the under-insured and uninsured. • Emergency assistance relating to prescription opioids, including purchasing Naloxone. 3. Research regarding opioid addiction and treatment. 4. Administrative costs of implementing the Fee and Fund, up to 15% of the amount in the Fund. The Addiction Action Committee will award grants and contracts from the money in the Fund, based upon priorities developed in consultation with the Behavioral Health Consortium. A standing subcommittee of the Addiction Action Committee that does not contain any State employees will make the recommendations regarding the awards of the grants and contracts. This Substitute Bill differs from Senate Bill No. 176 as follows: • Adds additional whereas clauses to further explain the background for the Fund and Fee. • Gives responsibility for the Fee to the Secretary of State instead of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services, because the PMP and the Controlled Substances Act are under the Secretary of State. • Removes the ability to use the funds from the Fee for Medicaid, and restricts appropriations to specifically-listed activities. • Prohibits using the Fund to supplant existing State funding. • Permits a manufacturer to challenge an invoice for a prescription opioid impact fee through the existing appeal process under the Controlled Substances Act. • Gives responsibility for appropriating funds from the Fund to the Addiction Action Committee. • Lowers the amount of the impact fee for generic drugs. • Establishes a minimum threshold before manufacturers are assessed the Fee. • Removes the restriction on raising prices to consumers because the Fee is unlikely to materially increase the price of prescription drugs because those prices are set on a national basis. • Provides explicitly that the Attorney General may recover interest and reasonable attorney fees and costs in a successful lawsuit to enforce this Act. • Clarifies that the Secretary of State develops the rules and regulations for implementing the Fee. And the Addiction Action Committee, with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services, develops the rules and regulations for implementing the Fund. • Revises the reporting requirements on how money from the Fund is spent. • Provides clear permission to share the PMP data with the Addiction Action Committee, Secretary of State, and Attorney General for the purposes of administering and enforcing this chapter.

In light of the Delaware Supreme Court’s decisions in Schadt v. Latchford and Lemos v. Willis, this Act amends the City of Wilmington’s Home Rule Charter to authorize Wilmington City Council to determine the following: (1) Whether and to what extent the duty to design, construct, repair, and maintain City alleys, footways, and sidewalks may be delegated to responsible parties. (2) Whether and to what extent responsible parties have the duty to remove and dispose of snow or ice from city sidewalks.

This Act creates the crime of wrongful use of voter registration information. Delaware has no specific statute that addresses such a situation. Currently when there is a request for voter registration, the Department of Elections requires the applicant to sign a form with a sworn statement that the applicant will not use it for commercial solicitation or any other purpose not related to the electoral process. The applicant may be charged with perjury if they violate their affirmation. Nearby states Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have stronger restrictions. This act would allow a fine that would be equal to 100% of funds received from any use of the information or $1,000, whichever is greater, and makes it a class A misdemeanor.

This Act authorizes the Department of Transportation to use automated speed enforcement (ASE) systems to enforce speed restrictions within work zones on highways. The purpose of this Act is to increase safety for construction and maintenance workers on highways.

This Act strengthens the role and responsibilities of the Provider Advisory Board in regard to the implementation and enforcement of The Delaware Child Care Act.

This Act prohibits the manufacture, sale, offer to sell, transfer, purchase, receipt, possession, or transport of assault weapons in Delaware, subject to certain exceptions. One exception relevant to individuals is that the Act does not prohibit the possession and transport of firearms that were lawfully possessed or fully applied for before the effective date of this Act; although for these firearms there are certain restrictions relating to their possession and transport after the effective date of this Act. This Act is based on the Firearm Safety Act of 2013 (“FSA”) passed in Maryland in the wake of the tragic slaughtering of children on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The FSA’s assault weapons ban was upheld as constitutional on February 21, 2017, by the full membership of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in the case of Kolbe v. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2017). The names Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Parkland, among others, have become synonymous with tragic killing of innocent, unsuspecting Americans of all ages and backgrounds, amidst a framework of federal and state laws that have permitted the purchase of weapons designed for the battlefield — not for our schools, our theaters, our places of worship, or our homes. Safety — both for the general public, as well as members of Delaware's law-enforcement community — is the objective of this Act, as it was for the FSA. And, as with the FSA, a primary goal of this Act is to reduce the availability of assault weapons so that when a criminal acts, he or she does so with a less dangerous weapon and less severe consequences. Relying on United States Supreme Court precedent from District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), as well as the holdings of its sister circuits, the full Fourth Circuit concluded that the assault weapons banned by the FSA are not protected by the Second Amendment. The Fourth Circuit was convinced that the banned assault weapons are among those arms that are “like” “M-16 rifles” — “weapons that are most useful in military service” — which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach. The Fourth Circuit concluded that Maryland had presented extensive uncontroverted evidence demonstrating that the assault weapons outlawed by the FSA are exceptionally lethal weapons of war. The Fourth Circuit also concluded that the evidence showed the difference between the fully automatic and semiautomatic versions of military-style weapons is slight. Further evidence considered by the Fourth Circuit that motivates this Act is as follows: (1) Like their fully automatic counterparts, the banned assault weapons are firearms designed for the battlefield, for the soldier to be able to shoot a large number of rounds across a battlefield at a high rate of speed, and that their design results in a capability for lethality — more wounds, more serious, in more victims — far beyond that of other firearms in general, including other semiautomatic guns. (2) The banned assault weapons have been used disproportionately to their ownership in mass shootings and the murders of law-enforcement officers. (3) The banned assault weapons further pose a heightened risk to civilians in that rounds from assault weapons have the ability to easily penetrate most materials used in standard home construction, car doors, and similar materials, and that criminals armed with the banned assault weapons possess a “military-style advantage” in firefights with law-enforcement officers, as such weapons allow criminals to effectively engage law-enforcement officers from great distances and their rounds easily pass through the soft body armor worn by most law-enforcement officers. (4) Although self-defense is a conceivable use of the banned assault weapons, most individuals choose to keep other firearms for that purpose. (5) Prohibitions against assault weapons will promote public safety by reducing the availability of those armaments to mass shooters and other criminals, by diminishing their especial threat to law-enforcement officers, and by hindering their unintentional misuse by civilians. (6) In many situations, the semiautomatic fire of an assault weapon is more accurate and lethal than the automatic fire. Finding this evidence and these conclusions by the Fourth Circuit to be strongly persuasive of the applicable framework of constitutional rights, and firmly believing that promoting the safety of the Delaware public and Delaware law-enforcement is a paramount function of the Delaware General Assembly, Delaware legislators file this Act in the name of public safety and with adherence to core constitutional principles.

This resolution proclaims June 19, 2018 as Juneteenth Independence Day in Delaware and encourages the people of Delaware to reflect upon the significant roles and many contributions of African Americans and to celebrate this day with appropriate activities and events.