---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE."
description: "This bill removes the requirement that a head or assistant head of any Division of the State Department of Justice or the Chief Prosecutor of a particular county be a resident of the State of Delaware."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "152"
identifier: "HB 53"
citation: "Delaware HB 53 (152)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Brian Pettyjohn", "Kendra Johnson", "Krista Griffith"]
version_count: 2
action_count: 12
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2023-01-18"
last_action: "2023-05-12"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/7f6c4f89-9dc4-498a-9152-f6fcbb7e96ce"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=129953"
source_hash: "b35ca17d33aba9228f6ba4a26c1a44301f7aa35e1f40240693fe049a0da323f7"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware HB 53 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.

This bill removes the requirement that a head or assistant head of any Division of the State Department of Justice or the Chief Prosecutor of a particular county be a resident of the State of Delaware.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=129953&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HB53)
2. **HA 1 to HB 53** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=130072&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)

## Votes

- SM — **39–0** (pass) · lower
- SM — **15–6** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Brian Pettyjohn — primary (person)
- Kendra Johnson — primary (person)
- Krista Griffith — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2023-01-18** Introduced and Assigned to Judiciary Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2023-01-25** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in House with 6 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2023-01-25** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in House with 6 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2023-03-13** Amendment HA 1 to HB 53 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2023-03-13** Amendment HA 1 to HA 1 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2023-03-14** Amendment HA 1 to HA 1 - Defeated By House. Votes: 8 YES 29 NO 2 NOT VOTING 2 ABSENT `amendment-failure`
- **2023-03-14** Amendment HA 1 to HB 53 - Passed In House by Voice Vote `amendment-passage`
- **2023-03-14** Passed By House. Votes: 39 YES 2 ABSENT `passage`
- **2023-03-14** Assigned to Judiciary Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2023-04-05** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in Senate with 1 Favorable, 4 On Its Merits, 1 Unfavorable `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage-unfavorable`
- **2023-05-11** Passed By Senate. Votes: 15 YES 6 NO `passage`
- **2023-05-12** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/7f6c4f89-9dc4-498a-9152-f6fcbb7e96ce`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).