Dover — Mark Catrona of the Division of Legislative Services asked Legislative Council on Jan. 30 to approve release of the second leg draft of House Bill 430, a set of technical corrections to the Delaware Constitution that would apply gender‑silent drafting and resolve drafting inconsistencies. Council members approved the request on a roll call.

Catrona said the measure follows Senate Bill 97, which implemented "gender‑silent" drafting techniques in the Delaware Code, and that House Bill 430 would apply the same approach to the Constitution. He said drafters also identified technical inconsistencies — punctuation, capitalization, naming conventions and section headings — that accumulated over more than a century of amendments and drafting practices.

Why it matters: The draft seeks editorial and technical uniformity in the constitutional text. Catrona said the goal is clarity for drafters and readers and to avoid confusion where pronouns have created ambiguity in cross‑references.

Supporting details: Catrona credited code revisers who reviewed the Constitution for gender‑silencing and technical corrections and said some section headings currently used were added by the Code Revision Commission in the 1950s rather than through a constitutional amendment process.

Outcome: The motion to release the second‑leg draft passed on a roll call that recorded 10 yes votes.