Carney on Eminent Domain
Last night I was at Legislative Hall to see the circus that is the last day of the session. I had an issue at work, so I got down there a little late and ended up just missing the eminent domain vote in the Senate. I got the lowdown from Sagacious Steve in the liveblogging thread. I later caught up with John Flaherty and Mike Matthews. While talking to Matthews the Senate went on recess. Mike got his game on.
Carney came out of the Senate and started shaking hands, etc. Matthews was on him like a hawk. When Carney was walking from one person to the next on his way to his office, Mike hit him up with the questions that you can see on DWA today.
About 30 minutes later, I caught Carney heading back in. I was a little more polite and he was a little less hurried. Whatever the reason, I got almost 15 minutes of Carney’s time. I asked him about eminent domain, specifically if he would have vetoed it if he were Governor. In fact, I asked him 3 times. What I was finally able to finesse out of him was that he wouldn’t have let the bill get that far without some allowance for urban blight/renewal in Wilmington. He was particularly frustrated by the veto statement issued by RAM’s attorney. He said that the reasons contained in it made no sense to him.
The most disturbing part of the interaction was the fact that there was a guy with him that kept interjecting himself into the conversation. I was later told that this guy was Tom Gordon’s campaign manager, Vince something. He was trotting out the caselaw in Delaware that prevented exactly the thing that the law addressed. I pointed out that that we pre-Kelo, and so it could reasonably be expected that this would overturn existing precedent. He tried to turn the tables and said that if I wanted to protect property rights, I should pay attention to the solar panel bill that the legislature was considering. This was a mistake for him. I know quite a bit about deed restrictions and this bill. He lost that argument.
Back to Carney. I am unconvinced by his position. He basically was saying that he wouldn’t have let it get to his desk, but really wouldn’t answer the binary question of “What would you do if this landed on your desk, as Governor? Veto or sign?” He was trying to be nuanced in his position, but he did it inartfully. Not a good combination.
I asked him about Markell’s statement that he would have signed te bill, period. Carney indicated that this is a reversal on Markells part. He said that there is something out there (in print) that indicates that Markell had basically the same concerns about the bill, but now he is trying to claim the glory. I’m going to follow up with the Carney campaign to see if they can produce such a document.
Bottom line, for me, is that John scored a huge win with Bluewater last week and within seven days, squandered the political capital. Also, Ruth Ann Minner cannot be gone soon enough. Is there anyone out there who still supports her?
Given this new information, I support Bill Lee.
This probably does not come as a specific shock to anyone.
You have been doing some good reporting. I have collected statements from all 4 campaigns http://delawarepolitics.net/2008/07/01/reactions-from-the-campaign-trail-to-sb-245s-veto/
We are back to even between Carney and Markell at this point. And god damn it, I want polling on this race.
LOL. It would have been a shock, Rick, if you even considered supporting Carney or Markell.
This position is pure bullshit and I’ll tell you why.
1) It means he thinks poor people should turn over their property to developers and not rich people, and
2) It allows governments to set a subjective “beautification” standard that lets them pick whatever property developers want and “presto” it is blighted.
How do I know this?
The city of Dover tried to do it to me!
From 1999 to 2003 our company’s warehouse and office was in a fairly shabby section of Dover. It was shabby but the home to five viable businesses. Nevertheless it was sought after by developers and the City of Dover and city Manager Tony DiPrima started a concerted campaign to target the area as blighted. Frequently commenting in the press that the building in the area were “abandoned.”
I went to city council meetings with pictures of the property and spreadsheets showing how much the business were contributing to the city tax base – I even had to ask one day – “How much does a company have to make to not be regarded as “abandoned” by the City manager?”
I implored him to stop calling the district blighted because even without exercising eminent domain – he seemed to be trying to drive down the property values at the behest of developers.
We wanted to stay in Dover but they created a hostile environment and we were growing so we left.
Good riddance.
…and John Carney is a fucking fraud and a loser for taking the position he is taking.
Don’t hold back, J.
He just pushed one of my biggest buttons.
You’re the man, geek! Great reporting!
Mike – I plan to do another post on your superiority in the local politics game. I was truly in awe of your knowledge and connections. I aspire to be you.
Political Capital?
Carney received no political capital from this blog as well as other bloggers who support Markell. Jason is the clearest example of this.
I truly believe Carney could discover a cure for cancer and y’all would say Markell had a position paper on it three weeks ago; therefore Markell would be a better governor.
The fact of the matter was that Bluewater was the most important local issue in the Delaware blog-o-sphere and Carney got it passed. Not your boy Markell.
Your collective memory is as short as a dog, no that would be an insult to dogs — it is short as the memory of a goat.
Melty,
FYI – Markell already put out as position paper three weeks ago on the fact that my memory is as short as a meerkat.
So in your face!
Barefoot Melt: And your longevity on this blog is as short as the lifespan of a mosquit0. No, that would be an insult to mosquitoes. More like the mayfly.
Your boy Carney was talking with the campaign manager for the sleaziest piece of dog dung in Delaware politics. ‘Nuff said.
Melty – I would also point out that I covered the political capital that Carney banked last week. I have consistently been even-handed on the Carney-Markell question. I have even heard that from the Carney campaign.
Don’t shoot the messenger. I have no agenda against Carney, I happen to like him a lot. I intend to take on Markell in the near future and will be just as even-handed.
Brainmelt – I don’t know what you have been doing here lately, but there was an orgy-fest in here last week and Carney was in the middle of it. Well, Jason wouldn’t participate, he was off in a corner, caressing his Markell poster and carefully wiping tears off of it.
Point is, your statement was about as untrue as Mike Protack having a legitimate shot at being a legitimate candidate.
Lovefest?
You mean this post from Jason.
http://delawareliberal.net//2008/06/26/on-carneys-credit-taking/
You and I sir have two different meanings of lovefest.
No surprise. Carney needed to cut the deal with the City Dems (like Mayor Baker and Norm Oliver) to get their support, and they surely insisted on opposing anything that would stop eminent domain. Also the RDC (Mike Hare now works for Buccini Pullin). Minner took the heat for her hand picked good’ol boy.
At least the poor folks in Southbridge are outside the boundary of this South Walnut Street Urban Renewal Plan. They were organized and vocal to roll this back from them, and are now forced to have to cut deals with developers where possible just to survive.
I feel sorry for Ed Osborne and the other property owners. While I doubt they will actually exercise eminent domain, they will use it to put the pressure on and make their lives a living hell until they give up and leave.
Also, there are some promised Union Jobs to build new businesses on land targeted for eminent domain, and the Unions own John Carney. Check his list of endorsements, and follow the money they control. It is not rocket science to understand Carney’s secret opposition to the bill to protect property rights from eminent domain. Ruthie just helped him out by taking the heat.
RuthAnn sold out, and now John is following here lead. She is clearly his “mentor”. Business as usual in Delaware.
Meltbrain — Bluewater was a scam and a setup from the beginning, as soon as they knew it wasn’t going away. It’s been known for months that they were going to make it look like John Croney saved the day at the end, what with his long career needing some sort of accomplishement, fake or not.
Sad thing is that the sheeple will believe that he had something to do with it, and the same poor, dirty, stupid idiots who put Ruth Ann in office will put John Croney in office, too, because they’re too stupid to do anything but what they’re told.
Melty – from your comment:
And then I’ll see your post and raise it a comment:
Perhaps Jason did not want to give props to Carney, but I surely did. The fact that Jason didn’t value the capital doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there. The fact that I gave him credit last week for BWW and then say he squandered it yesterday is completely reasonable.
Does the Chamber of Commerce, the FIRST signer on the DEEDS letter, EVER get a mention for its extraordinary influence in this matter?
Assmelt (aka Brainmelt)…are you purposely overlooking where Geek and I both take Jason out of the equation for his masturbatory love of Markell? Aside from Jason and his mess, all others were all Circle Jerky for Carney…until yesterday.
As for me, I always saw him as a tool. Deal with it.
Does the Chamber of Commerce, the FIRST signer on the DEEDS letter, EVER get a mention for its extraordinary influence in this matter?
Get ’em on record and we’ll review. I promise I’m not trying to be all lickspittle there, either, Dana. The dressing down so far has been for what’s on record from the vote and comments thereafter.
Jason out of the equation for his masturbatory love of Markell?
WTF?
That’s a bit much I think.
Meltbrain — Bluewater was a scam and a setup from the beginning, as soon as they knew it wasn’t going away. It’s been known for months that they were going to make it look like John Croney saved the day at the end, what with his long career needing some sort of accomplishement, fake or not.
Sad thing is that the sheeple will believe that he had something to do with it, and the same poor, dirty, stupid idiots who put Ruth Ann in office will put John Croney in office, too, because they’re too stupid to do anything but what they’re told.
Sir, I don’t agree with much of what you’re saying. But “John Croney?” That’s f-ing brilliant.
All I did was think back to a Randy + fAGS = RAGS moment.
Fine…
I think it weakens your endorsement of the man considerably, but we can run with that.
“Does the Chamber of Commerce, the FIRST signer on the DEEDS letter, EVER get a mention for its extraordinary influence in this matter?”
No, because we all know who made this dirty deal go down…and it weren’t the Chamber bunch by a long shot, letters of support notwithstanding.
This isn’t about trying to assign blame equally amongst any special interest with some stake in it, no matter how attenuated. It is about whose political muscle made it happen (or killed it, more accurately).
Rich Heffron doesn’t speak for the entire Chamber of Commerce and, even if he did, I have no doubt his signature or name support didn’t mean a damn one way or the other to any of the key political players. He was just a little bolstering and cover, thrown into the mix. “Extraordinary influence” of the Chamber is simply not political reality.
Buccini-Pollin, RDC, Baker Admin, and organized labor are the only relevant players.
It was Purzycki that started the whole mess (remember the emails Osborne had between RDC & city Planning Dept)….it’s time for him to go (far away).
Who engineered the demise of Bill Wier from the Renissance Corp. (lower Mkt. St.) ? With the Wier template it could be accomplished w/o a whole lot of effort.
The question still remains: Why wasn’t eminent domain used ‘up river’ (Pettinario, etc.) instead of the millions shelled out? The answer’s the same: Purzycki (Carper’s ass hole buddy).
I hope we can talk about this at DV’s bar-be-q.
“Get ‘em on record and we’ll review. I promise I’m not trying to be all lickspittle there, either, Dana. The dressing down so far has been for what’s on record from the vote and comments thereafter.”
Notice whose signature is #1. There is a reason for that and it is not because as Tyler seems to be suggesting that the Chamber was a bit player in this affair.
It’s just that there ‘s a prejudice to think that role is appropriate for the CC but when unions lobby, it’s just a bunch of undeserving uneducated working stiffs acting in inappropriately and above their station. Slaves and indentured servants still struggle to be fully accepted as equal members of the American compact.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgrfjsw8_648cjjxgtzt
“It is about whose political muscle made it happen (or killed it, more accurately).”
I wonder whose political muscle has fixed it so that no bridge in DE, even middle sized ones across marshes, has been built by union labor since the DE Memorial Bridge or how even last year when a labor contractor had the lowest bid for inlet bridge in Sussex, the contract was awarded to the HIGHEST NON-UNION bidder.
Even when yours truly helped to get that stopped, the contract went up for bid again instead of going to the lowest bidder.
“No, because we all know who made this dirty deal go down”
No we don’t. We weren’t in the backrooms. We only know what the fashionable theory is about how it all went down.
“Rich Heffron doesn’t speak for the entire Chamber of Commerce and, even if he did, I have no doubt his signature or name support didn’t mean a damn one way or the other to any of the key political players.”
That has to be one fo the most astonishing statements I’ve ever read. The CC’s view “didn’t mean a damn one way or the other to any of the key political player?” Since when? When did they become impotent and frivolous in the corporation state?
“He was just a little bolstering and cover, thrown into the mix.”
How do you KNOW that?
>>“Extraordinary influence” of the Chamber is simply not political reality.<<
Whoa, truly astonishing. I don’t think you share my planet. The CC doesn’t have extraordinary influence? Truly astonishing.
Dana, I honestly believe the CoC’s influence, if any, is largely diffuse, unfocused, and indirect. I have yet to see evidence where the Chamber has ever exerted or even possessed the type of muscle to move the process as you suggest. I can’t see where the CoC has ever been the tip of the spear that killed broad civil rights legislation in service to very narrow and particular interests, as we have seen happen with this eminent domain bill.
Seriously, I have never heard of any legislation being moved or halted, or of election support being brokered by the raw power of the CoC.
Conversely, I don’t think anyone would deny the substantial (and arguably disproportional) influence organized labor exerts over the legislative process, whether by having a group of very powerful water-carriers at their behest or by the tacit (or stated) threat of retribution at election time.
I simply don’t view all this through a zero-sum lens of “business interests vs. labor interests” in relative competition over the power pie. I think each does their thing. Sometimes their interests coincide, sometimes they diverge.
The bottom line is that organized labor interests seek far more immediate, substantial, direct benefits in using their relative muscle in little old Delaware’s political system…and they usually get what they want.
If the CoC can even be said to speak monolithically for its constituents (which would be any business who decides to voluntarily join it), its actions certainly do not derive direct, immediate monetary benefits owing exclusively to its members, relative to any other businesses who are not in the CoC, for example.
The same is not true of the organized labor lobby in Delaware. While it certainly claims to serve “labor” interests, it really only serves the interests of labor as organized under their specific umbrella. The implication that unions somehow represent the best interests of anyone in Delaware who “labors” is a bit much to swallow.
In short, whatever strength and influence the CoC may actually have, it pales compared to that of organized labor and certainly does nothing to diminish that of organized labor, which constitutes a politically well-connected and specifically-interested segment of a vastly larger element of society you might call “working people”.
But to the essence of it, I would equally decry the CoC’s “extraordinary influence” if I believed it had any. That I deny its existence is not in the slightest bit an attempt to cover for it or defend it.
No, because we all know who made this dirty deal go down…and it weren’t the Chamber bunch by a long shot, letters of support notwithstanding.
*
thank you Tyler.
Tyler,
The min wage bill never was brought up for a vote in the Gen. Ass. Here’s an important & telling distinction. The CoC wanted it killed in committee but the unions wanted it passed.
Both the unions and CoC wanted the veto on ED sustatined and it was. You really think the unions played the decisive role?
The locus of most power is w/ the CoC. That’s why during a major recession, w/ people hurting, and the cost of energy resources skyrocketing–in spite of all that the CoC was able to get the min. wage bill killed and labor’s full court press on it did nothing.
I think it is just easy to think that (forgive me Al) Mascitti and Jensen say it must have been primarily labor’s efforts that it’s true. Blaming labor is almost cliche.
Now, labor did have the wrong position on this matter about ED in my view. I think they should have a different one. But they have as much right to be a Leg Hall advocating for their membership’s interests as CoC (which no one ever questions).
Dana –
Thanks for getting out something that I was clumsily hinting at over at DWA.
Let me say that I saw the second source for Mike’s “The unions got to them” line of attack. The source was indeed a regular water carrier for CoC, FWIW.
Prevailing Wages
Collective Bargaining
Gross Receipts Tax Increase
LLC Fee Increase
Corporation Fee Increase
The CoC got their asses kicked in the General Assembly this session, often at the hands of labor.
The CoC doesn’t threaten legislators because they don’t have the power to defeat them at the polls. Labor does. They do the threatening, as they did here and other times this year. It’s why they’re so successful in Dover.
Hube has Bill Lee’s reaction.
“The right to own property is one of the most basic civil rights in our nation. This administration has usurped that right, and endorsed an atmosphere where anyone’s property rights can effectively be sold to the highest bidder,”
I never implied that the political capital owing to organized labor is somehow limitless. Perhaps if they had spent more of it on min. wage this year, instead of on killing SB 245, they would have done something for low-wage workers.
But we know unions are not made up of minimum wage workers, and this time the labor lobby chose to stump for the immediate development big bucks for their members, rather than a boost for the least paid of their laboring brethren and sistern.
Jason,
I’d be happy to include you on the press release list. It seems only fair that you should make fun of us directly, rather than having to source Hube. Fire me an email.
Brud Lee