Why Should Delaware Care?
Lawmakers are required to advertise proposed constitutional amendments in print newspapers. A recent legislative push to change that requirement has been billed as smart fiscal policy by legislative leaders, but some news outlets say it would be a detriment to government transparency.
As Delaware lawmakers consider removing a requirement that they advertise proposed state constitutional amendments in local newspapers, some news outlets and a regional industry group have decried the move as a blow to government transparency.
But the lawmakers who sponsored the bill – all members of Democratic leadership – rebuffed those claims, calling their legislation, House Bill 321, a fiscally responsible way to curb state spending.
Delaware is the only state in the country in which amendments to its constitution are not directly voted on by residents. Instead, proposed amendments must receive a two-thirds vote by the legislature in two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly — sessions that are separated by an election.
In order to ensure Delawareans are informed of proposed amendments, the state requires the legislature to buy ads about them — often called public notices — in local newspapers no less than three months prior to Election Day.
House Bill 321, described as a cost-saving measure, would shift that public notice away from paid newspaper ads and onto the legislature and the Department of Elections websites, both government-run forums.
In an editorial published late last month, The News Journal condemned the legislation, saying it would take “a new wrecking ball to transparency in the First State.” The editorial board of Delaware’s largest newspaper called on lawmakers not to pass the bill, and for Gov. Matt Meyer to veto the legislation should it make its way to his desk.
“In a state where one-party rule has been reality for decades, it’s galling that leaders of both houses of the General Assembly would make a move on transparency,” the editorial board wrote.
Spotlight Delaware’s publisher and editor-in-chief also penned a joint letter opposing the bill earlier this week and calling for Meyer to veto it, should it pass the Senate.
But House and Senate Democratic leaders defended their bill, both during a May 7 committee hearing and in subsequent interviews with Spotlight Delaware.
“No it doesn’t save a tremendous amount of money, but we are trying to be fiscally responsible and also make sure that there is reasonable access.” Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola (D-Newark) said during that May 7 hearing. “The access the public has to the state website is not behind a paywall, unlike the others that might be contracted to have these kinds of notices.”
The legislature has spent about $25,600 on proposed constitutional amendment advertising over the past 10 years, Sokola said.
Richard Puffer, chief clerk of the House of Representatives, said that figure works out to about $1,600 per amendment. That advertising money is paid to The News Journal, The Daily State News and the Cape Gazette — state law requires the ads be printed in a newspaper in each county.
House Bill 321 has already passed through the House and a Senate committee. It now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
How did we get here?
Puffer, along with Secretary of the Senate Ryan Dunphy, first presented the public notice change during a Joint Legislative Council meeting in December 2025.
House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown then introduced the proposal as HB 321 in March. There was no debate about the bill among lawmakers when it was first considered in the House Administration Committee. It also passed the full House without debate on April 22.
The bill passed the House as part of what’s called a consent agenda, a group of bills that are usually considered non-controversial and voted on all at one time. The consent agenda does not receive any debate on the House floor. Only Rep. Bryan Shupe (R-Milford), who has previously owned and operated newspapers and media outlets, voted against the slate of bills, a vote he took because of his opposition to HB 321.
The News Journal published its editorial a week later, sparking a much livelier discussion about the bill when it was heard in the Senate Executive Committee on May 7
Both Sokola and Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend defended the bill against the critiques leveled by The News Journal’s editorial.
Townsend rejected the editorial board’s transparency argument, citing newspapers’ financial stake in the game and their ability to far more prominently feature proposed constitutional amendments through news coverage than in public notice ads.
“If you want to talk about transparency, and that’s a reason to oppose this, then let’s talk about how the amount of public awareness on these issues is greatly enhanced not by a little, tiny ad published in the back of the newspaper, but by articles your reporters can cover on the front of the newspaper,” Townsend said.
He called on news outlets to invest in developing reporters and lawmakers to make themselves available to talk with journalists when approached as ways to bolster transparency.
Rebecca Snyder, executive director of the Maryland, Delaware, D.C Press Association, acknowledged it would be disingenuous to discount that newspapers have a financial stake in maintaining public notice ads, but she said the state does not have a stellar track record for maintaining government transparency.
She pointed to the state’s largest university and ways in which businesses transact with the government as areas where transparency is lacking.
“I think that it is a larger issue, and reducing it only to dollars is a red herring on the importance of the issue overall,” Snyder said.
The Senate Executive Committee ultimately voted to advance HB 321. It now awaits consideration by the full Senate. If passed, it would proceed to Gov. Matt Meyer’s desk to be signed into law.
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