Summary: House Bill 10 updates certain grammatical and formatting aspects of the Constitution, including removing all unnecessary gender specific language from the Delaware Constitution. This is the second leg of a Constitutional Amendment and requires a 2/3 majority to pass.
Analysis: Our legislature has in other places inappropriately removed gender-specific language – for example, last year’s session included a bill to replace the term “maternal depression” with the broader definition of “perinatal mood and anxiety disorder.”
Yes, HB 10’s synopsis does clarify that it will only update the Constitution’s language to be gender neutral, unless “it could only apply to one gender.” However, given the previous example, it is clear that the Legislature’s understanding of what can only apply to one gender is not in line with actual biological reality. If that were true, the term for “maternal depression” would have never been neutralized.
Lets be watchful for how this may show up in practice.