Why Should Delaware Care?
Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public. Below we highlight a few of those meetings that are happening this week.
Update: The Georgetown Town Council canceled its meeting this week and pushed the agenda items to next month.
Below are some of the most important or interesting public meetings happening around the state this week.
- House of Representatives to consider ban on private detention centers
- House and Senate energy committees to discuss bills targeting data centers
- House election committee to consider an open primary, new campaign finance rules
- House health committee to discuss decriminalizing public use of marijuana
- Delaware’s marijuana commissioner to present to Wilmington City Council
- Dover City Council to hear final reading of restrictive panhandling ordinance
House to move forward ban on private prisons?
Despite chilly temperatures, Delaware lawmakers will trek to Dover this week to consider an array of consequential bills, including ones that would decriminalize the public use of marijuana, that would reform the makeup of the New Castle County Council, and that would impose new regulations on data centers and other big consumers of electricity.
While most of the bills on this week’s agendas will be before legislative committees, a handful will be in front of the full House or Senate.
Among those is legislation from Rep. Mara Gorman (D-Newark) that would ban private prisons in Delaware.
Introduced last year alongside a package of bills seeking to limit Immigration and Customs Enforcement CE’s authority in Delaware, House Bill 151 passed out of committee two weeks ago. If passed into law, it would prohibit the operation of private detention facilities in Delaware.
Currently there are no private prisons in Delaware.
📍 The full House of Representatives will convene at 2 p.m. Tuesday to discuss five bills, including HB 151, at Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. To watch the meeting virtually, click here.
New data center regulations?
Lawmakers in House and Senate committees will consider bills targeting the biggest land-use controversy in Delaware at the moment — data centers.
First, the Senate Environment, Energy and Transportation Committee will meet Wednesday to discuss Senate Bill 205, which would require anyone who wants to launch a business in Delaware that would use 30 megawatts or more of electricity to get an extra administrative approval — called a Certificate to Operate — from state regulators.
Later that same day, members of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee are scheduled to discuss House Bill 233, which would require Delmarva Power and other private utility companies to set different electricity rates for facilities that can draw 20 megawatts or more of electricity — which is enough to power thousands of Delaware homes.
The legislation asserts that the different rates would mitigate “the risk of costs associated with expanding infrastructure and maintaining reliability.”
📍 The Senate Environment, Energy and Transportation Committee meeting is scheduled for noon on Wednesday in the Senate Chamber within Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For information on how to participate virtually, click here. The House Natural Resources and Energy Committee will meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the House Majority Hearing Room within Legislative Hall. For information on how to participate virtually, click here.
Open primaries, new campaign finance rules and an appointed NCCo Council president?
The House Elections and Government Affairs Committee has three interesting bills on its agenda for Wednesday.
The first is House Bill 188 – the latest effort from Rep. Mike Smith (R-Newark) to allow voters who are not affiliated with a political party to case a vote in the Democrats’ or the Republicans’ primary elections.
Smith sponsored a similar bill two years ago that sparked a lively debate in committee but never progressed out of it. With the launch of an automatic voter registration system, unaffiliated voters in 2024 became the state’s second largest voting bloc, behind Democrats.
Also scheduled for the House Elections and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday is a bill that would require out-of-state political committees to register with state elections officials.
Another on the agenda would make the New Castle County Council’s president seat an appointed position rather than an elected one. To make the change, the bill would increase the number of council districts from 12 to 13 following the 2030 Census.
The New Castle County Council’s current president is Councilwoman Monique Williams Johns, who has opposed the measure.
📍 The House Elections and Government Affairs Committee will meet at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the House Majority Caucus room within Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For information on how to participate virtually, click here.
Weed in public?
The House Health and Human Development Committee could pass along to the full House of Representatives House Bill 252, which would decriminalize the use of cannabis in public places.
Smoking, vaping or otherwise consuming marijuana would remain against the law under the bill but would amount to a civil violation, with penalties of up to $50 for a first offense.
The law also does not impact a separate law prohibiting drivers from being impaired by cannabis.
📍 The House Health and Human Development Committee will meet at 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the House Chamber within Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover. For information on how to participate virtually, click here.
Marijuana in Wilmington?
On the topic of cannabis, the Delaware Marijuana Commissioner, Jossua Sanderlin, is scheduled to make a presentation to a committee of the Wilmington City Council on Wednesday.
The precise topic of the presentation is not immediately clear as the meeting agenda does not list details for the event. Still, it does include a link to an Office of the Marijuana Commissioner document that explains details of the state’s regulations for the new industry.
Legal recreational marijuana sales began last summer in Delaware but occurred only at medical marijuana facilities. Retail shops dedicated to recreational sales have yet to open in Delaware.
📍 The Wilmington City Council’s Health, Environmental, Aging & Disabilities Committee will meet virtually at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to hear the presentation from Sanderlin. For additional details, including information about virtual attendance, click here.
Panhandling in Dover
The Dover City Council will meet this week to consider several measures, including the final reading of a controversial bill that would prohibit people from standing along a roadway median to ask for money from drivers.
It would also ban drivers from giving out money. Both actions would be subject to a citation.
City council members have cited safety as a reason for the ordinance. But activists from the Delaware H.O.M.E.S. Campaign have said it amounts to criminalizing poverty.
Because it is the final reading, the Council is likely to vote on the measure.
📍 The Dover City Council initially was scheduled to meet Monday but an alert on the city’s webpage states that the current storm caused officials to postpone the meeting to Wednesday. As of Monday morning, the meeting agenda had not been updated to reflect the change. But Dover City Council meetings typically begin at 6:30 p.m. and occur at City Hall, located at 15 Loockerman Plaza in Dover.
I