---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 19 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO HEARING OFFICERS WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR."
description: "This Act removes the 5-year term limit imposed upon hearing officers appointed by the Secretary of Labor. It also removes the political party affiliation rule when considering new candidates for the hearing officer position."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "152"
identifier: "SB 239"
citation: "Delaware SB 239 (152)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Edward S. Osienski", "John \"Jack\" Walsh", "Russell Huxtable"]
version_count: 2
action_count: 11
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2024-03-13"
last_action: "2024-07-17"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/11310880-4dd6-4664-8a1b-4655df9b5732"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=141041"
source_hash: "3b22279e98984b216d344417beba191b23422eb991a7e3a758824741e229c532"
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 SB 239 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 19 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO HEARING OFFICERS WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

This Act removes the 5-year term limit imposed upon hearing officers appointed by the Secretary of Labor. It also removes the political party affiliation rule when considering new candidates for the hearing officer position.

## 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=141041&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB239)
2. **SA 1 to SB 239** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=141305&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)

## Votes

- SM — **20–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **40–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Edward S. Osienski — primary (person)
- John "Jack" Walsh — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2024-03-13** Introduced and Assigned to Labor Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2024-03-20** Reported Out of Committee (Labor) in Senate with 2 Favorable, 2 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2024-03-27** Laid On Table in Senate
- **2024-05-07** Amendment SA 1 to SB 239 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2024-05-14** Lifted From Table in Senate
- **2024-05-14** Amendment SA 1 to SB 239 - Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `amendment-passage`
- **2024-05-14** Passed By Senate. Votes: 20 YES 1 ABSENT `passage`
- **2024-05-15** Assigned to Labor Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2024-06-11** Reported Out of Committee (Labor) in House with 1 Favorable, 7 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2024-06-25** Passed By House. Votes: 40 YES 1 ABSENT `passage`
- **2024-07-17** 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/11310880-4dd6-4664-8a1b-4655df9b5732`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).