Delaware's opt-in ask came from inside Legislative Hall this time, and only Gov. Meyer can answer it before January

Delaware is one of the states still off the roster for the Education Freedom Tax Credit (also called the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, ECCA, or §25F), and on August 17, 2026 it got its first written request from a sitting legislator to change that. State Rep. Mike Smith, a Republican who represents Pike Creek Valley, wrote to Gov. Matt Meyer asking him to elect Delaware into the program and to identify qualifying Scholarship Granting Organizations for the 2027 tax year. His caucus released the letter on August 21. “This is a no-brainer for Delaware,” Smith said in the release. “We can empower parents and help students succeed without costing our state taxpayers a single penny.” He also put his own history behind the ask: “Growing up in a full house with my Nan and cousins, I saw how every dollar mattered. A scholarship would have been an incredible help to us then, just as it will be for thousands of Delaware families now who are struggling with rising costs.”

That is a different kind of pressure than Delaware has seen so far. In May, the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington stood up a campaign and a pastoral letter aimed at the same decision, and the number now driving the conversation, roughly $40 million a year for Delaware students, has been circulating since mid-July from Nancy Mercante of the Caesar Rodney Institute. Both are outside voices. Smith's letter is the first one from inside the building where a bill would be written, which matters mostly because of what the building is doing right now, which is nothing.

Delaware's General Assembly finished its 2026 work at the end of June and both chambers are in recess. Under Article II, Section 4 of the state constitution, it reconvenes on the second Tuesday of January, which in 2027 is January 12, “unless otherwise convened by the Governor, or by mutual call of the presiding officers of both Houses.” The credit takes effect January 1, 2027. So the route Pennsylvania is trying, where six senators including a Democrat are drafting a bill to opt the state in without waiting on the governor, is not available to Delaware on this timeline. Neither is the path Tennessee and Kentucky took, where a statute named the office that handles the state's side of this. The only earlier session is one the governor calls, or one the Speaker and the President Pro Tempore call together.

The statute closes the loop. §25F(g)(1)(B) says the election “shall be made by the Governor of the State or by such other individual, agency, or entity as is designated under State law to make such elections on behalf of the State with respect to Federal tax benefits.” Delaware has designated no one. That leaves the default, and the default is Meyer. It is worth being precise about the deadline too, because it is softer than the advocacy framing suggests: the statute's January 1 date for a state to send Treasury its list of organizations is relaxed for the first year to “as early as practicable,” and the advance-election procedure is what puts a state on the roster for 2027. There is no single statutory cutoff. What there is instead is arithmetic, since an organization that is not formed cannot be listed, and a scholarship that is not funded in the first quarter is not helping a family in the 2027 school year.

About that $40 million. Neither the Caesar Rodney Institute piece nor the party releases repeating it publish a methodology, so it is worth seeing what the figure requires. At the statutory maximum of $1,700 per taxpayer, $40 million is about 23,500 Delawareans each claiming the full credit. That is a ceiling estimate of donor capacity, not a forecast, and it is the same shape of number other states have seen: the July state-by-state estimates measured eligible students rather than dollars, and Maryland's own figure of roughly $34 million came from a researcher modeling public-school districts running their own organizations. The part of the claim that does not depend on any model is the budget point, which Smith made and which is accurate: the credit is federal, the money is donated, and a state that participates spends nothing of its own. That is also why uptake, not politics, is the real constraint on what any of these numbers turn into.

Meyer has said nothing publicly either way, and nothing in August changed that. Delaware's attorney general, Kathy Jennings, is separately elected, and her office signed the brief that Massachusetts and Minnesota led supporting Colorado in the Supreme Court case whose amicus lineup tracks the §25F roster, which is about a state's power to attach conditions to privately delivered programs and is not a signal about the governor's decision here. Two of the states on that brief, Nevada and Virginia, are in §25F already. The honest read on Delaware is that the decision is open, it sits with one person, and the people asking have now been joined by a legislator who cannot introduce a bill until after the window closes.

For anyone in Delaware thinking about the organization side, the useful thing to do while the state decides is the part that does not depend on the state. Our SGO directory lists no Delaware-based scholarship organization, and if Meyer elects in, Delaware does not just join a list, it has to hand Treasury the names of organizations that meet the federal test: 501(c)(3) status, scholarships for at least ten students who do not all attend the same school, and at least 90% of income spent on scholarships. Every one of those is work that happens before a state opens a door, which is exactly what operators in Alaska and Kentucky learned when theirs opened with no filing window and a rolling review. Work through it with the free SGO builder, read how to start an SGO, and track where Delaware stands on the Delaware state page.

The thing to watch between now and December is narrow and easy to check: a Form 15714 election from Delaware, or a statement from the governor's office explaining the decision either way. Whichever arrives, it will come from the governor's desk and not from the chamber floor.