E103: Delaware Legislative Outlook

Rebecca Snyder sits down with Lauren Vella, principal at Cornerstone Government Affairs' new Dover office, to discuss the changing political landscape in Delaware. From a brand-new governor and congressional leadership to special elections and key legislative priorities, Lauren breaks down what these shifts mean for the state. Delaware might be small, but there’s no shortage of big changes happening - tune in now and stay ahead of the latest developments.

Chapters

• 0:00 Delaware’s New Political Landscape
• 7:30 Legislative Priorities: Housing, Education & Budget Challenges
• 16:35 Government Transparency & The Inspector General Proposal
• 23:00 Cannabis Legalization & Its Impact
• 27:25 The Future of AI & Tech in Delaware

Transcript

0:01

Hi, I am excited to welcome to the program Lauren Villa, who's Vella. I messed it up, didn't I? It was Vella, right? Well, my goodness, sorry about that. So Lauren is here. She's with Cornerstone Government Relations and is the principal of their newly established Dover office. And so I'm really excited to have her talk with us about what's going on in the Delaware Sessions. So welcome to the program, Laura. Well, it's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. And there's a lot of change happening in Delaware. So first, it's been wonderful to start Cornerstone's office here in Delaware. I spent a long time working in Delaware State Government and most recently came from University of Delaware. So no stranger to being in legislative hall. But this session, we have a whole lot of new faces. starting all the way at the top. Yeah, the top. Exactly. So we have a new U.S. Senator, Lisa Blunt Rochester, who replaced retired Senator Tom Carpenter, who'd been in office in Delaware for decades and decades. Lisa went from being our congresswoman to now being our U.S. And Sarah McBride replaced her as our new congresswoman. And Sarah was serving as a state senator and now is part of her federal delegation making history. Everyone from Delaware is very excited to have her. represent us in DC. And we have a new governor and lieutenant governor. So Governor Matt Meyer and Lieutenant Governor Kyle Evans Gay, they were just sworn in on January 21st, so recent and very exciting with new vision, new passion for the state. So we're all looking forward to see what they do. And then because of the election of Sarah McBride and Kyle Evans Gay, we have two vacancies in the state Senate. So both were sitting state senators. so actually now how does Delaware manage those vacant seats? There's a lot of drama going on in Maryland right now because of political appointees sort of filling those seats. What is it like in Delaware? So in Delaware, when a seat becomes vacant, the leader of that chamber, so in this case, the pro tem, issues a writ of election. And then each political party will nominate a candidate. So in this case, the Democrats and Republicans have nominated people to serve. And there is a general special election now scheduled for February the 15th. Special elections are a really short window there once they're the vacancies announced and it's it's a 30 to 45 day window where that election has to be scheduled. So they're really fast and a lot of it is informing the public that there even is an election. Most voters are not expecting to have to go out to the polls in February. So yeah, so those those will be important seats to fill in the Senate. the no matter who wins, that's not going to change the balance of power in the Senate or in the legislature. So because Delaware is really, although I think there's there is a lot of diversity in Delaware, even with even with its million population, it is it is a heavily democratic legislature. And so. Correct, this is not going to change the balance of power in the Senate. I think folks expect the Democrats to do well in these races as well. you know, continue to, there's some safe blue seats in New Castle County at this point. So we don't expect too much change there, but there were a lot of changes in the House as well. We had new leadership elected to both the majority and minority caucuses. So we have a new speaker of the House, Representative Melissa Minor Brown. the new minority leader in the House with Representative Tim Dukes, so new folks with new vision, six new members were elected to the House in this cycle in 2024. There were another five new members that were elected in 2022. So about a quarter of the House are new folks that are newly elected. So that's a lot of new faces, a lot of new energy coming into the building. And that's so exciting to see. mean, just seeing those those changes shape policy over time. So you've been you've been around for a long time and in the Delaware political world. What are you seeing as those changes that are taking shape? mean, when you have the amount of change that you have, even, you know, at the federal level and of course, the new administration is shaping things as well. Like, what are you seeing as the top priorities of Delaware's legislature this year? Yeah, so the governor's race, think Governor Meyer has really shaped what that his vision is for the next four years. And I think the legislature largely agrees with that vision, which focus really being around affordable housing, improving Delaware's education system. Those are really some of the top issues that folks are talking about. Delaware is experiencing the same challenges that other states are facing with rising cost of living, you know, really putting a strain. on working families. And so that's really been something that the leaders of the House and Senate, the governor have all said is their priority. And there's a lot of unknowns, I think, that everyone in Delaware is sort of waiting with bated breath to see what happens in Delaware based on what happens federally, with the freeze that just happened in federal funding that was then halted. Folks are curious as Are there gonna be programs that Delawareans rely on that the state is now gonna have to fill and fund themselves? So, you know, the budget has been largely stable, has been, we haven't seen tax increases in recent years. You know, Governor Carney left this governor with a, you know, a nice cushion. He had a budget stabilization fund. some legislators were saving money each year in case there were any challenges. a great place to be in. So there is a cushion certainly a lot of those dollars though are one-time dollars so can get us through holes in a single year but are not recurring sources of funding. I think the eyes are also very much on the budget leaders. So as they will work through the month of February going through talking to every agency to see what the requests are but By then we may have a better sense of what's going to happen federally and what will still need to be funded. mean, the amount there's a lot of infrastructure projects that are underway that Dull Dot has been working on that were funded through the federal infrastructure bipartisan infrastructure bill. So we're going to see if those dollars are clawed back, what's going to happen to those projects here in the state. Well, and this might be one of the only times where we're all grateful that Delaware takes those long recesses. mean, like they spread their 90 day session out over six months. At least now you like you'll be in sessions still as some of those changes kind of filter through and can almost react in the moment. Yeah, you're right. So Delaware is in session from January until July 1st. So they finish, they wrap up in the wee hours of June 30th. And it is, it's 45 session days, but it's spread over that those six months of time. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of time to see what's happening. Also, it's an opportunity to get their revenue projections, right? They get, they have key meetings of DFAC, which provides the general assembly with the numbers so that they can really be making decisions based on the most recent information. And so those will be key moments for the budget makers. So Governor Myers stepping into a situation where there's a little bit of a cushion, things are stable, you don't know what's happening in the wider world, but that's life in the big city, that happens to everybody. Since this is Five Dubs, our press association podcast, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the issues that are coming up for press. And candidly, there's not a... yet. It's still early days. We're recording this on the last day of January and there's still going to be bills that filter in throughout the session. There's not a big crunch at one time really. But some of the things, I'd love to get your thoughts really on this Office of the Inspector General. So and sort of what that says about the state and sort of where they sit in terms of of transparency. For people who are not particularly familiar with Delaware, the Public Information Act or the Delaware FOIA is kind of wild because the Attorney General's office does it all. There's three counties in Delaware and every request gets funneled to one agency. And so when we think about transparency, there's not always a lot of checks and balances because you're just dealing with one entity. So tell us about this Inspector General Bill. This is Senate Bill 4 for people who are interested. Yeah, so this is a proposal that's coming from Senator Laura Sturgeon. It's a proposal she introduced last year, and she's reintroducing it again this cycle. Governor Meyer has indicated his support for the legislation. And I think the intent is really to have another entity that's filling the gap on things. And I would even take it outside of a FOIA context, but things that are not criminal, right, the DOJ is responsible for handling criminal actions. Things that might not be financial where our state auditor would be stepping in, but that might be in this maybe gray area of the public would be interested in knowing it or having some accountability. So I think that's the problem they're trying to solve, the things that it's unclear what bucket it would fall under. And We'll see how it goes. think there's, you know, there's general support for it. think folks want to make sure the details make sense so all of those existing agencies can work together effectively. You noted correctly that Delaware is really unique in how our state government operates. Most other states that are much bigger have really robust county and other levels of government and Delaware is centralized because we're a state of three counties and it in some instances is easier for the state to just handle things in that central way. So I'll give you the example of funding of our road work, right? So we don't have, know, county, our counties are paving our roads. DelDOT is paving roads across the three counties. We don't have a county prison system, we have one central system, there's no local jail, there is, know, statewide correctional system. So things like that do run through the state. Delaware's Department of Justice is incredibly unique because it is single criminal jurisdiction in the state, we don't have local DAs either. I had the opportunity to work at the DOJ for three years under Kathy Jennings administration as her policy director, so I know the agency quite well. and they do a lot of really great work. But yeah, it is a single agency. They also provide legal counsel to all of the state agencies as the Department of Justice, which is very unique for their civil division to be doing that. But yeah, I think the chances of the bill passing are fairly good. think Senator Sturgeon is working her bill and gonna do her best to pass it. Well, and it certainly is in context with other states and other jurisdictions where we're seeing this push towards inspector generals and giving them a little bit more autonomy to issue reports and make determinations because it's important for people to have trust in their institutions. And I think that's really sort of gets to the heart of you need to have a mechanism by which, you know, people, an inspector general or the public in general can say, hey, this isn't right. You know, what do we might not rise to illegal, but we still need to examine it. So that that is interesting. And so also, I just I was thinking about other other sort of context and things that we have in in states that are showing up in Delaware as well. And so Could we take a little detour into cannabis for a second? Because that is, that's something that sort of all the neighbors are doing and Delaware's jumping in as well. So tell us a little bit about how that's working. Yeah, so Delaware passed legalized cannabis and passed a sale here in the state. Representative Ed Osinski has been the champion of that work and took a lot of years, a lot of effort to finally get that over the finish line. But it is done. It is the law of the land. It is now being implemented. So it is on the administrative side of the coin and it's taken quite some time and it will take quite some time to get dispensaries set up. I think folks are optimistic that by this spring there'll be some further developments. I know there were some selection for licensure, know applications were due earlier this year or in 2024. So things are happening there but yeah it's definitely taking some time. and we are competing with our neighbors. So Maryland is certainly up and running with their dispensaries, as are some New Jersey, some other of our neighboring states. So, Deller's playing a little bit of catch up, we're, folks are excited. They're, they're working together with the, the office of, of marijuana in the state that's, that's managing this. And so we'll see, but we, we currently do have medical marijuana dispensaries that are across the state. There have been a number of municipalities that have taken individual action to either restrict having dispensaries in their municipalities. So some of the beach towns have taken that action. There's been some local decisions to not allow a dispensary to come, which... they were authorized to do under the law that they were, you it gave local control in that sense. Yeah, so there's a lot of additional layers here. like there's a lot of recreation there. And, you know, I think it's important to sort of allow your jurisdictions to say what's right for their communities. And I also feel like it's since Delaware is sort of on the tail end of this, you can learn a lot from your neighbors. You know, the advertising restrictions like in Maryland, there was a lot of ambiguity and confusion about, well, Could you advertise? And it seems like the regulations for print advertising, have to safely assume that your audience is, at least 75 % of your audience is over the age of 21. So there's been some really interesting ways that different states have kind of figured out how to allow those businesses to advertise, but still not sort trotted out to have billboards or school restricts. There's all sorts of things that go into that. so Delaware, that regulatory process is just very centralized. And I think that helps in some ways. You can be clear and speak with one voice. I think Delaware definitely learned from its neighbors and their experiences with legalizing marijuana. The bill sponsor absolutely took into consideration what happened in other states, learned lessons from Colorado, from California, from plenty of other jurisdictions that had lots more years deeper in the process. So I think that's a good thing that they took some lessons learned and made some changes in order to. present the best option for Delawareans. Delawareans have largely stated their support for legalization. This new governor is also in support of legalization. Our prior governor, Governor Carney, who's now the mayor of our largest city, the city of Wilmington, has not been in support of the bill and vetoed the bill in the last session. we would expect that City of Wilmington, their mayor is not supportive, so I would imagine that will continue during his term as mayor, but the new governor has really been a vocal supporter of this, so I think that's in line with the majority of Delawareans' views. Could you talk for a second, I think Governor Carney is such an interesting political case because I feel like he is the only person that keeps kind of going to smaller offices. Usually you go the other way, you you're the mayor and then you're the governor and so forth. Can you talk about his influence? mean, he's mayor of the largest city in Delaware, just recently out of the governor's office. What role is he kind of playing in Delaware politics in your mind. Is it an outsized role or? I think Governor Cardy has had a long history of service to the state. He served as a Lieutenant Governor. He served as a Congressman in our state. So he's had a lot of prominent roles. And I see this as just the governor wanting to continue his service to the state. He's been a lifelong Wilmingtonian. And I think he... wasn't ready to walk away from public service. So I was not surprised when we heard what his next role would be. I think Delaware has a long history of our figures having lots of different positions in our state. Tom Carper is a great example of that. People would refer to him as recovering governor. Even when he was US Senator, he still wore that hat of Delaware's governor. Yeah, but he will continue to serve an important role as a mayor and we'll see how that relationship goes with the new government. I think you're so lucky that you have such a, you have public servants with that really long history. You know, like there's, there's a lot of institutional knowledge when you, when you go from, when you're serving at all those different levels. So going back to some of the sort of what I think of almost is like regional pushes. You talked a little bit about affordable housing, education, certainly your neighbors to, to the, the West Maryland, totally looking at the governor. Governor Moore's focus is affordable housing, is education. They're battling with the blueprint. But another thing that was sweeping Maryland last year was reproductive rights and sort of shoring up Maryland as almost an abortion sanctuary state. And so we see this is House Bill 14, which is about Delaware's right to privacy. And so some on the face would be like, okay, that could be something about when you're in the media, like, is that going to be about public records? And really it's not. It feels like it's more of a reproductive access bill. But can you talk about that bill, but also the context of reproductive rights in Delaware? And if that's a, you know, is that a thing? It sure is a thing. Our lawmakers have been really focused on protecting women's reproductive rights over the past 10 years. So before the fall of Roe v. Wade, our General Assembly took action and codified Roe in Delaware in 2017. It was a really important piece of legislation that was passed, making sure we are enshrining Roe in our state law so that when what happened with jobs happened, were Delawareans were already protected. And the legislature has subsequently taken lots of steps every single year to do more to ensure not only the right to reach productive health, but also access and affordability. So we've seen a whole host of bills, Representative Minor Brown, Representative Evans Gaye were really the leaders on that issue in the last session. getting coverage for abortion care, expanding access. There's been a lot of emphasis as well on addressing maternal mortality. How are we better providing service to mothers and children as they are prenatal and giving birth? So there's been a whole lot of things. There's also been focus on improving breastfeeding options for women. So a whole host of focus. This bill is around adding a constitutional right to privacy. So it be a constitutional amendment to enshrine the legal pillars that were the bedrock of the road decision, which was around a right to privacy for your bodily autonomy in the Delaware Constitution. So looking forward to seeing how that will go. constitutional amendments require Super majority votes in both the House and the Senate while the Senate has a Super majority from the Democratic Party the house does not and would require Republican vote to support the measure so We'll see if there's any Republicans that are willing to put their name and support this I hope that there will be because again Roe is was popular it is the majority view of Americans, not only Delawareans, that women should have a right to choose what happens to their bodies. And we've seen across the country, as more states have restricted this right, the horror stories of how it's impacted women's health. Many women who are not seeking to terminate their pregnancies, but then face really scary medical scenarios and their doctors can't. perform life-saving measures on them until they get so sick that they can now take action. So, you know, I'm optimistic that we'll see action on more reproductive freedom measures over the next year. more to come on that and I hope that that's successful. Are there other, so actually I want to talk about affordable housing briefly and then I want to get to the issues that you're working on and you're excited about in this session. So affordable housing, course Delaware has the beaches but it also has a lot of really rural areas and of course Wilmington's a real live city. So what are you seeing in affordable housing? Like what's part of that conversation? Because there's a lot of different constituencies there. There sure are, I think there's a lot of views on what can be done, but certainly I think folks want to see more supply, right? We need more housing for people. have a shortage of housing. We need that housing to be comfortable. We need that housing to be, know, so not only making sure there's new, but making sure existing supply is safe for residents. We've had some instances of some really unfortunate fires and some housing that were not up to code. But I think the whole, I think as with the rest of the country, folks are grappling with what does this look like and is there gonna be the federal investment in housing? So there's been a call for increased funding at the state level for housing initiatives. We have a Delaware State Housing Authority that manages our funds there, but Largely that authority is using federal dollars for lots of programs. There's been some during COVID, there were some really helpful programs to help people pay their rent so they wouldn't get that had lost their jobs during the pandemic. there's, there's a, that tension is going to, I think, continue to be around what's going to be the investment in affordable housing. How are we going to be incentivizing more, you know, housing to go up? How are we going to make sure we're protecting tenants that they're in? You know being treated fairly there have been some recent legislation around providing attorneys or providing representation not just legal attorneys, but other representatives for Ted and stirring evictions. So we'll be seeing that program come online. That was passed last session. So there's there's a whole lot around housing how it will actually happen will be interesting and and there's a lot of overlap between not only the state's interests, but land use decisions or county decisions. We have a new county executive in New Castle County, which is our most populous county, and Marcus Henry. So he is taking over now that Matt Meyer, who was previously our county executive, has become governor. So we'll see what his vision is too and how the county is going to be in alignment with what the state's initiatives are. Sure, sounds like there's lots more to come. That's exciting. So we'll have to have you back later on in the session and see how all these initiatives are going. what are you, so you're the new principal at the newly established office of Cornerstone. What are you really, what are you focusing on this session? Yeah, so a whole lot of issues coming up before us. The one thing I think is it would be interesting for your listeners is really the AI commission. So that was established by Representative Krista Griffith in the previous session, and that commission is up and running and really focused on what is the future of AI? What's the future regulations going to look like? everyone is really interested in that. think the Mm-hmm. businesses across the country are trying to figure out how they're using AI. What does it mean for their workforce? What does it mean for their business operation? What does it mean for information sharing? What does it mean for the customer experience? And so I think everyone's trying to sort of figure it out together. So it's been an interesting opportunity where the commission is really bringing together the different sectors and people are sort of learning together. Where's the stake going to go? There's also a focus in improving the technology of the state. So one of Governor Meyer's other key areas is definitely improving how the state operates its own technology. And I worked for the state for many years. When I was with the General Assembly, we were still using Lotus Notes until about 2016, 2017, right? Like a lot of our systems are based on some old technology and it takes a lot effort and energy to change those. That was a long project, heavy investment, a lot of time and energy to get a new system that met the needs of the legislature. I think this is an exciting opportunity for folks to be really on the cutting edge and be shaping what happens next. AI is changing so rapidly. It's also, I think for stakeholders, a challenge to even wrap your head around. you know, what's the next frontier? But I think we all need to be aware and embrace it because it's here, right? We can't turn back the clock. And so we've got to figure out how to use it, how to make sure it's fair, how to make sure we're addressing bias or equity issues within the new technology. Yeah. Well, and also, and you also have the federal level kind of working on these issues as well. For news media, it's super important because oftentimes AI is being trained on our content. sort of where all that, so issues of attribution, issues of training. And yes, there's bias, there's all sorts of issues, but it's also a, who's back are you creating this technology on? And so it'll be really interesting to see, because every state seems to be having their own spin on AI. And so it's that sort of tension between this patchwork of different rules if you're a multi-state actor, but the federal government is not moving quickly on many, on some things they certainly are, but on many things they're not. So it'll be interesting to see how that comes together. Yeah, I am curious if each state, you know, does their own thing, but we've seen that, we've seen that with a lots of new technology. I we're still grappling with data privacy and with how are we, you know, becoming more, you know, more sophisticated within this digital world. When I think about like even just in your personal life and your own password management of the like millions of apps you have in them, not the accounts you have to create. You know, it is, we have a quite large digital footprint and that's sort of how are we managing that in our future state. Yeah, and I think those are really important issues because that gets right into efficiency and how you can conduct the business of the state more readily. Anything else that you're interested in right now? I feel like it's still early days, so we will see what Delaware brings. But I'm so excited to have gotten the opportunity to speak with you. Congratulations on the new office. And I can't wait to speak to you again about these issues. Thank you. I'm just really proud of Delaware. mean, we're a state of neighbors for a reason. We're a small state and everybody knows each other and everybody works quite collaboratively. I think that's something we're very proud of. People talk about the Delaware way and it has historically meant that we like figure it out, right? There might be differences of opinions, but we're gonna talk to each other. We're gonna know where we stand and we're gonna move forward. So I'm excited to see. how this, you know, the new session will go with that. But again, in Delaware, you go to the grocery store, you're going to run into five people you know, if not more. So I think it helps everyone sort of play nice in the sandbox when we have to, when we're all so interconnected. Yeah, I've always been really impressed with that ethos and just having everyone does know everyone in Delaware. It is no exaggeration. It is like a massive small town. So thank you for doing the good work that you do there and we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you.