Relating To The Rules Of The House Of Representatives Of The 153rd General Assembly.
House Resolution 3 adopts the Rules of the House of Representatives for Delaware’s 153rd General Assembly. It sets the basic procedures for convening the House, conducting debate, recognizing members, maintaining quorum, handling motions, voting, and managing the daily order of business. The resolution also defines the Speaker’s authority over chamber operations, committee appointments, bill referrals, agenda-setting, subpoenas, and the signing and transmission of legislation and other official documents.
The resolution further establishes detailed rules for the legislative process, including bill introduction, fiscal notes, amendments, substitute bills, committee deadlines, petitions to discharge bills from committee, consent agendas, and final passage requirements. It also lays out the structure and duties of standing committees, the Ethics Committee, and special committees, and it includes rules governing lobbyists, media access, invited guests, gallery conduct, legislative staff, and the distribution of materials within the chamber.
A significant portion of the resolution addresses member conduct and workplace standards. It codifies rules on legislative ethics, conflicts of interest, campaign and financial disclosure, harassment, retaliation, and disciplinary procedures. It requires anti-harassment training and implicit bias/cultural competency training for members during the General Assembly, and it sets out confidential reporting and investigation procedures for harassment complaints handled through the Ethics Committee.
The resolution also modernizes House operations by authorizing remote witness participation in committee meetings and creating emergency procedures for virtual meetings during disasters or other emergencies. These provisions allow the House and its committees to meet virtually, establish quorum and voting rules for remote participation, and preserve the legal effect of actions taken in such meetings. The emergency section also addresses notice, public access, authentication, and electronic signature procedures.
Overall, HR 3 primarily affects internal House rules rather than outside statutes, but it interacts with and references several provisions of the Delaware Code, including ethics, lobbying, campaign finance, FOIA, and public meeting requirements. Its practical impact is to govern how the House functions for the new General Assembly, while reinforcing transparency, discipline, and procedural control within the chamber.
HR 3 does not create a new substantive program or amend a single external statute; instead, it adopts the operating rules that govern the Delaware House of Representatives for the 153rd General Assembly. Its effect is largely internal to the legislative branch, but it incorporates and relies on multiple provisions of the Delaware Code and Constitution, including ethics, lobbying registration, campaign finance disclosure, financial disclosure, FOIA, and emergency/virtual meeting authority. It also establishes procedural requirements that will shape how bills, resolutions, committee work, and floor action proceed throughout the session, and it sets standards that House members, staff, media, lobbyists, and visitors must follow in the chamber and committee rooms.
The overall sentiment reflected by the text is institutional and procedural rather than partisan: the resolution appears to be a routine but comprehensive adoption of chamber rules, with an emphasis on order, transparency, and modernized operations. The inclusion of anti-harassment protections, implicit bias training, remote witness participation, and emergency virtual meeting procedures suggests a generally reform-minded and administrative tone. Because there are no committee transcripts or recorded votes provided, there is no documented opposition or support in the available context, and no clear evidence of controversy in the legislative history supplied.
The most likely points of contention in a resolution of this kind are the breadth of the Speaker’s authority, the detailed ethics and conduct rules, and the emergency/virtual meeting provisions. The rules give the Speaker substantial control over committee appointments, agenda-setting, bill referrals, and chamber access, which could be viewed as centralizing power. The harassment and ethics sections may also draw scrutiny because they create confidential complaint processes, investigative authority, and disciplinary consequences for members. Finally, the virtual meeting rules and public-access exceptions could raise concerns about transparency, quorum, and how much discretion is given during emergencies, though no specific objections are documented in the provided materials.