Businesses Fail to Gain Right to Vote in Delaware City

DOVER, Del. — A proposal to give corporations and other businesses a vote in local elections in the city of Seaford, Delaware, was approved by the state Legislature just hours before the body adjourned its current session, but failed to be taken up by the state Senate in time to take effect for the next municipal elections.

Now, the city — and its businesses — will have to wait until the Legislature convenes its Winter session in January, to see if they can gain approval in the upper chamber of the Legislature, Seaford Mayor David Genshaw said.

“The drama that unfolded in the House was completely unnecessary and undeserved,” Genshaw told the Well News on Saturday. “By all appearance, this appeared to be retaliation against Seaford for the Dignity Ordinance which we passed the year before.”

The mayor was referring to an ordinance passed by the Seaford City Council in December 2021, that requires the burial or cremation of fetal remains from abortions or miscarriages that occur in the city.

Supporters of the local legislation, which passed by a 3-2 vote, have maintained that the law was simply intended to ensure the “dignified disposal” of fetal remains.

Opponents contend the ordinance stigmatizes those seeking abortions and adds an administrative and financial burden on medical facilities that provide abortion services or care related to miscarriages.

A number of state lawmakers were among those who opposed the bill, and Attorney General Kathy Jennings sued the city on the grounds the local measure was contrary to state law.

In June 2022, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled against the city, voiding the local law, on the grounds that a junior sovereign cannot enact a legislation that conflicts directly with law established by the state as the senior sovereign.

As for the current controversy, and as previously reported in The Well News, city officials in the idyllic city of just under 7,000 residents voted last spring to revise the city charter and give municipal voting rights to nonresident owners of limited liability companies, corporations and trusts.

To go into effect, however, the change needs to be passed by a two-thirds vote in both the House and and the Senate that resulted in quite a bit of drama in recent weeks, with the bill appearing on the House agenda, and then being removed, replaced and removed again.

On Thursday, with the bill still a handful of votes shy of passage and the hours left in the legislative sessions dwindling, state House Republicans vowed to hold up a $1.4 billion infrastructure bond bill if the Seaford measure was not passed by the chamber immediately.

Republican House Minority Leader Mike Ramone then went on to announce that his caucus would not vote on any bill until the Seaford bill was approved. 

If that didn’t work, Ramone was reportedly ready to demand last-minute changes to an electric vehicle mandate the Democrats wanted to pass and even to force a vote on the Seaford bill in both the state House and Senate.

“It’s all political nonsense,” Genshaw told The Well News in an email earlier this week when the drama was just beginning to unfold.

“All agree this is allowed by Delaware state law. All agree we have the right to act on this change, for which we borrowed the language from another municipality which has already done it.

“And all agree the Legislature has approved already for others. Singling out Seaford is purely political. This should have sailed through with no issues,” Genshaw said. 

After being rescinded at 7:38 p.m. Thursday night, the bill finally passed the House at 2:48 p.m. Friday by a vote of 35-6. But the infighting in the House had delayed the bill long enough to prevent it being taken up by the Senate.

Had it passed, the measure would have been in effect for the next municipal election, currently scheduled for April 20, 2024. Now, the earliest it would be able to go into effect is for the 2025 election.

Critics of the move said a yes vote in both chambers would expand corporate influence in elections overshadowing that of actual human voters who live in the state.

In recent weeks a group called the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition, consisting of some 40 voting rights organizations and advocacy groups, has been pressing lawmakers to vote no on the bill.

In a June 20th letter, the coalition said the legislation directly contradicts the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it extends voting rights to property owners, but not to those who rent property.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue