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Alarm Bells Ring as Delaware 'Radically' Shifts More Power to Corporate Insiders | Common Dreams

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Alarm Bells Ring as Delaware 'Radically' Shifts More Power to Corporate Insiders | Common Dreams


While Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer declared that “Delaware is the best place in the world to incorporate your business, and Senate Bill 21 will help keep it that way,” critics reiterated concerns about the corporate-friendly state legislation he signed this week.

The Delaware House of Representatives sent the Senate-approved S.B. 21 to Meyer’s desk on Tuesday in a 32-7 vote, with two members absent. The Delaware Business Timesreported that the governor “arrived in Dover to sign the measure into law less than two hours after it passed,” and “the bill signing was closed to the press.”

The bill sailed through the Delaware General Assembly despite anti-monopoly, economic, and legal experts blasting it as a “corporate insider power grab” and accusing state legislators of choosing “billionaire insiders—like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg—over pension funds, retirement savers, and other investors.”

Delaware Working Families Party (WFP) political director Karl Stomberg said in a Wednesday statement that “at a time when rank-and-file Democrats across the country are begging their leaders to stand up to” President Donald Trump and Musk, his billionaire adviser, Democratic lawmakers in the state “just gave Musk a $56 billion handout.”

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That’s a reference to Musk’s 2018 compensation package for his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, which a Delaware judge ruled against, prompting the richest billionaire on Earth to ditch the state and encourage other business leaders to do the same. Fears of a potential “Dexit” led to lawmakers’ frantic effort to pass S.B. 21.

“The Working Families Party has been standing up against this proposed bill for weeks now, and we recognize the need to fight back against corporate overreach in our government,” said Stomberg. “WFP electeds proposed serious amendments to address our concerns with the bill that would protect the people of Delaware, but the Democrats chose to side with Musk and vote them down.”

“This bill is an indictment of the failed Delaware Way, which continues to allow big corporations and the ultrawealthy like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to enrich themselves at the expense of working people,” added Stomberg.

Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company. CNBC recently revealed that “a day after The Wall Street Journal published its story on Meta considering a Delaware departure, Meyer, who was brand new to the job, convened an online meeting with attorneys from law firms that have represented Meta, Musk, Tesla, and others in shareholder disputes in the state, according to public records obtained by CNBC. Other attendees included members of the Delaware Legislature.”

“The following day, records show, Meyer invited a second group to meet with him and new Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez. That invitation went to Kate Kelly, Meta’s corporate secretary, and to Dan Sachs, the company’s senior national director of state and local policy,” according to CNBC. “The invite also went to James Honaker, an attorney with Morris Nichols, a firm that’s represented Meta in federal court in Delaware, and to William Chandler, former chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, who is now part of Wilson Sonsini’s Delaware litigation practice.”

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Just weeks after those meetings, the governor urged state lawmakers to swiftly pass S.B. 21. The Lever‘s Luke Goldstein wrote Wednesday that “the timing of the emails obtained by CNBC reveals clear motivations driving the current law which was rushed before the Legislature last month by the new governor: to let top executives off the hook for legal liabilities.”

In earlier reporting, Goldstein highlighted that “Delaware, which has long been perceived as a billionaire playground and corporate tax haven, is the incorporation home to more than 60% of all Fortune 500 companies. That means, if enacted, the wide-ranging regulatory handouts in the bill will have sweeping consequences for corporate behavior across the country.”

The Lever’s founder, David Sirota, on Wednesday lamented the limited attention the Delaware law is receiving, compared with a major national security breach involving several top Trump officials’ unsecure group chat about war plans. As he put it, “Cannot overstate how significant this is—while the national media is focused on the D.C. drama, a group of Democrats off the radar in a tiny state just radically shifted more power to the planet’s largest corporations via world-changing legislation.”

Daniel Hanley, senior legal analyst at the Open Markets Institute, said Wednesday that “the Delaware lawmakers that enacted S.B. 21 are lapdogs for corporations and Musk. How this one state came to control practically all of American corporate law is a long story, but regardless, Congress can and should take the power away.”



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Delaware

Thomas Jefferson University to run Delaware’s first medical school

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Thomas Jefferson University to run Delaware’s first medical school


Thomas Jefferson University is opening a regional campus of its Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Delaware, an effort that will result in the state’s first medical school.

Jefferson beat out three other bidders to establish the four-year program in partnership with the state. The other bidders were the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico, Spotlight Delaware reported.


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The inaugural class of 40 medical students will begin instruction in July 2028. Initially, the campus will be based at the University of Delaware in Newark, with Jefferson faculty providing instruction. A permanent home for the campus is still being finalized, the Inquirer reported.

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The medical students will receive 18 months of preclinical training on campus before receiving clinical training from healthcare providers in Delaware’s southern counties, where the state’s physician shortage is most deeply felt. That shortage is compounded by an aging population, Delaware officials said.

“Jefferson is committed to being part of the solution to Delaware’s physician shortage,” Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione said in a statement. “We are proud to help build a future where every Delawarean has access to the care they deserve. Jefferson is all in.”

The school’s creation is being supported by $157.4 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Delaware is one of three states without a Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program. Since the late 1960s, Jefferson and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine have reserved seats for Delaware students.

“Sidney Kimmel Medical College has trained generations of physicians for more than 200 years, more than any other medical college in the country,” Said Ibrahim, dean of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, said in a statement. “It is a privilege to bring our mission to Delaware’s patients and communities.”

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Jefferson has announced several expansions recently. The university is establishing a full-time doctor of nursing practice-nurse anesthesia program and several online graduate programs at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Center for Healthcare Education in Lehigh County. It also is opening a satellite respiratory therapy lab at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown.



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Delaware is getting its first medical school, with classes set to start in 2028

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Delaware is getting its first medical school, with classes set to start in 2028


Delaware officials said medical students will start their classroom instruction at UD and then do their clinical training at offices and health care systems in Kent and Sussex counties, where the shortage of doctors is most acute.

However, ChristianaCare, which has its own partnership with Jefferson, is not participating. The state’s largest health care system was part of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s unsuccessful bid to operate the school. In a joint statement from ChristianaCare and PCOM, the two organizations expressed disappointment with not being part of the consortium of higher education institutions and healthcare organizations.

“The path forward raises genuine questions about whether the school’s goals can be fully realized without ChristianaCare’s meaningful participation in its clinical training mission,” it said. “The success of any four-year medical program depends not just on an academic institution, but on a true and committed partnership with its clinical partners — one built on shared mission, mutual investment and trust developed over time.”

Students in the first class can get their tuition subsidized, covering all of their education costs, in exchange for an agreement to work in rural Delaware for five years.

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Running the medical school is expected to cost Jefferson $78 million over the next five years. The money is from a federal rural health grant through the Rural Health Transformation Program, which congressional Republicans created in the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”

The program will give $50 billion to every state over five years, though exactly the total each will eventually receive is unclear. Half of the money is to be distributed equally to states and the other half is awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services based on a variety of factors.

The state applied for $1 billion late last year to improve health care in Kent and Sussex counties. The Trump administration has so far allocated Delaware $157 million. Delaware is expected to receive at least $500 million over the life of the fund.



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