Delaware General Assembly

Signed 9/28/20

The General Assembly has ended, the current status is the final status.

12/19/19

Townsend

Sen. Hansen
Reps. K. Johnson, Baumbach

Sen. Bonini, Brown, Cloutier, Delcollo, Ennis, Hocker, Lawson, Lockman, Lopez, McBride, McDowell, Paradee, Pettyjohn, Poore, Richardson, Sokola, Sturgeon, Walsh, Wilson
Reps. Bolden, Briggs King, Chukwuocha, Dorsey Walker, Griffith, Jaques, Kowalko, Osienski, Ramone, Viola

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 13 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO MARRIAGE LICENSE APPLICATION.

This Act removes the requirement that applicants for a marriage license state their race as part of the application process. Delaware is one of a small number of states that currently requires this information. In October 2019, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that requiring marriage license applicants to provide their race violates the United States Constitution. In Delaware, the Clerks of the Peace, who are the points of data collection, have expressed support for this Act, as has the Office of Vital Statistics in the Department of Health and Social Services. The National Center for Health Statistics ("NCHS") has not requested detailed information from states regarding marriage and divorce since 1996. NCHS only requires states to provide the total number of marriages that occur each month.

82:288

34

9/28/20

N/A

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