What Is Dover Doing? A New Legislative Tracker Makes It Easier to Find Out
- Michelle Parsons, M.D., CRI Board Chair
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Most Delawareans know that decisions made in Legislative Hall can affect their taxes, businesses, schools, energy bills, health care, property, and communities.
Knowing which bills could actually affect you, however, is another matter.
With dozens of bills moving through the Delaware General Assembly, legislative language that can be difficult to decipher, and proposals changing throughout the session, following what is happening in Dover can quickly become overwhelming.
That's the problem Dover Dash was created to help solve.
Developed by longtime Caesar Rodney Institute contributor Vil Ramunno, Dover Dash is a free online tool available through CivicDelaware.com that helps Delawareans find and understand legislation that could affect their lives.
And now, CRI has made the tool easier for our readers to access.
Introducing CRI's Legislative Tracker
Visitors to the Caesar Rodney Institute website will now find a NEW Legislative Tracker within each of CRI's four Policy Areas:
Economic & Fiscal Policy
Education
Energy & Environment
Health Policy
The Legislative Tracker provides access to Dover Dash, allowing readers to move from learning about an issue through CRI's research and commentary to seeing legislation currently being considered in Dover.
Rather than asking Delawareans to sort through every bill introduced in the General Assembly, Dover Dash is designed to make the process more approachable.
Find the Bills That Could Affect You
Dover Dash takes legislation before the Delaware General Assembly and translates it into information that's easier for everyday Delawareans to navigate.
One of its most useful features is the ability to approach legislation based on who you are and what matters to you.
A homeowner may care about different legislation than a renter. A small-business owner may be watching different issues than a teacher, parent, retiree, or taxpayer.
Dover Dash helps cut through the noise so users can focus on legislation that may have a more direct connection to their lives.
Instead of asking:
“What are all the bills being considered in Dover?”
The more useful question becomes:
“Which of these bills could affect me?”
That's an important distinction.
Turning Legislative Language Into Plain English
Finding a bill is only part of the challenge.
Legislation is written for the legislative process—not necessarily for the average Delawarean trying to understand what a proposal would actually do.
Dover Dash helps bridge that gap by presenting legislation in plain English, giving users a starting point for understanding a bill before digging deeper into the official legislative record.
Users can explore pending legislation, learn what individual bills would do, and better understand how proposals moving through Dover could affect Delaware residents.
The goal isn't to tell Delawareans what to think.
It's to make it easier for them to know what their elected officials are considering in the first place.
From CRI to Civic Engagement
For years, CRI has worked to make complex public-policy issues easier for Delawareans to understand.
Providing access to Dover Dash is a natural extension of that work.
When you read CRI research about taxes, education, energy, health care, government spending, or another policy issue, you shouldn't have to go searching through the General Assembly website to figure out whether related legislation is moving through Dover.
The new Legislative Tracker helps connect those two pieces:
Understand the policy. See the legislation. Follow what happens next.
A Familiar Connection to CRI
Dover Dash was developed by Vil Ramunno, who has been part of the Caesar Rodney Institute for more than a decade in communications, editorial, events, and organizational leadership roles and continues to contribute to CRI's work.
Her experience translating complicated policy issues into understandable information helped shape the idea behind Dover Dash: make Delaware government easier for ordinary citizens to follow.
Ramunno recently joined WDEL's Rick Jensen to discuss why she created Dover Dash and how Delawareans can use it to follow legislation that could affect their lives.
Explore the Legislative Tracker
You don't need to be a lobbyist, policy analyst, or political insider to understand what is happening in Dover.
You just need a better way to find the information that matters to you.
Visit any of CRI's four Policy Areas and select Legislative Tracker to explore Dover Dash and see legislation affecting Delaware.
Or visit Dover Dash directly to begin exploring current legislation.
Government decisions affect all of us. Understanding those decisions shouldn't require spending hours trying to decipher legislative documents.
See what's happening in Dover. Find the bills that could affect you. And stay informed before the decisions are made.
We Want to Hear From You
Dover Dash was created to make it easier for Delawareans to understand what is happening in Legislative Hall—and which bills could actually affect their lives. Your experience using the tool can help make it even more useful.
After exploring Dover Dash, come back and tell us what you think in the comments below. We'd especially like to hear:
Was it easy to find legislation relevant to you?
Did the plain-language information make the bills easier to understand?
Were there profiles, topics, or features you expected to see but didn't?
Did you discover a bill that you didn't realize could affect you?
What would make Dover Dash more useful to you?
Don't be shy—we really do want to hear from you.
You can leave a comment as a guest, or create a FREE CRI site membership to join the conversation and make it easier to participate in future discussions.
Where Are the Comments?
Keep scrolling! On this page, we display Recent Posts before the comments section, so the conversation is a little farther down than you might expect.
Scroll past Recent Posts to leave your comment.
Whether you have a suggestion, found something confusing, discovered a bill you think others should know about, or simply want to tell us how you used Dover Dash, your feedback is valuable.
What would make it easier for you to understand and follow the decisions being made in Dover?
Dover Dash already taught me something I probably never would have known otherwise! I came across HB 459 — the Energy Drink School Ban Bill, which would ban the sale of energy drinks on Delaware middle and high school campuses during school hours and events.
I found this one particularly interesting because, if you know me, you know I’m a bit of a Monster addict. 😂 And apparently the habit started early—back in my school days, my drink of choice was Mountain Dew. Now I’m really dating myself!
This is exactly what I like about Dover Dash. It helped me discover a bill I wouldn't have thought to look for, but once I saw it, I definitely wanted to know…