A Legislative Reform Package for 2012

I have written a lot about the questionable and, let’s face it, downright unethical and, in some cases, corrupt practices that enable legislators to place their personal and financial fortunes ahead of the public interest. It is hard to deny that the Delaware General Assembly is overrun by institutional corruption.

Let me make clear what I do and don’t mean here. I do not claim that, as a group, Delaware’s state legislators are corrupt. The majority of them weren’t even there when the corruption was institutionalized. Although…believe it or not, 12 of the 21  current State Senators were serving back in 1997. Along with the ringleader of ethical bankruptcy, Nancy Cook, who, aided and abetted by dozens of willing and allegedly unwitting co-conspirators, *cough*Roger Roy Uncle Thurm Terry Spence Fill in the Blank *cough*, turned a part-time position into a jackpot that always pays off.

The News-Journal, especially Chad Livengood, have done a superb job of unearthing much of this institutionalized corruption, although the News-Journal Editorial Board has been slow to either (a) recognize and/or (b) admit that there’s much of a problem in Dover. Keep in mind that that Editorial Board, regardless of current composition, has been an integral part of the Delaware Way for decades.

While the articles have been great, the impact of those articles is yet to be determined.  Many legislators are hoping that all of this goes away.  We must not let that happen.

Institutionalized legislative corruption hurts the public.  Special interests can and do run rampant. Double-dipping legislators do their employers’ bidding, even when that bidding runs contrary to their constituents’ interest. State dollars are siphoned  en masse to undeserving legislators, past and present.

Only grassroots involvement by the public can force the General Assembly to reform itself.

2012 is an election year, the first election after all 62 state legislative districts (41 in the House and 21 in the Senate) have been redrawn following the Census.

I can think of no better time to hold legislators accountable for their actions. If there is one thing legislators as a group fear, it is their own political demise.

Here is my proposal for legislative reform to be enacted during the upcoming 2012 legislative session:

SALARY/PENSION REFORM:

1. Put an end to the phony alleged $7334 in ‘expenses’ that legislators currently receive, hidden from the public. Either they get the money as salary, or they don’t. There’s a reason why this has been hidden. Legislators don’t want the public to know that they make over $50,000 a year for a part-time job. But they do.

2. Base legislative pensions on their official salary, with the $7334 taken out. It is bad enough that legislators lie to you about what they make. They shouldn’t get a double boost by having their pensions based on it. Especially since it’s never been listed as salary.

3. Completely eliminate either the $7334 in ‘expenses’ or the 40 cents a mile for ‘reimbursement’. Legislators are in essence being reimbursed twice for the same alleged expense. Plus, the State Constitution appears to permit either, but not both.

4. Cap pre-1997 legislators at their current pension levels. No less of a constitutional expert than Roger Roy (snark intended) claimed that the 1997-98 General Assembly could not do this b/c you’d be allegedly taking away promised benefits. Nonsense. The 93 current and former legislators who see their pensions fattened every time a legislative fat cat retires are not ‘promised’ 23% increases. Since we’re not talking about taking away accrued benefits, although I wish we could, there is no further promise. Cap the bleeping pensions and shut off the gold-plated spigot for those in office on or before 1997.

A BRIEF ASIDE: Speaking of Roger Roy, some agency, either the AG or the Feds, should investigate just how a state legislator who had his hands all over Bond Bill and transportation funds could somehow create and also run a quasi-governmental agency (Transportation Management Association) that accessed both state and federal funds. Look, I like Roger Roy and so do a lot of people. And that’s a big problem with the Delaware Way. Since so many have their own scams going, they look the other way when one of their own has a successful scam going. Plus, Roger virtually never, if ever, campaigned against a D. He and Bob Gilligan had such a great relationship that, if you go back and take a look at the pre-2000 Representative District maps, you’ll see some of the most impressive gerrymandering you could ever conjure up. This is comfortable corruption that needs to be cleaned up.

And now back to the ongoing screed, already in progress:

5. Tie additional salary to actually showing up. As serial bloviator Colin Bonini has already demonstrated, he gets paid for his work on the Joint Sunset Committee even when he doesn’t make the 5-mile drive from his home to Dover for the meetings, which is often. Simply pro-rate this additional income based on how much you show up. Simple as that.

REGULATION OF DOUBLE-DIPPING:

6. Pass HB 75. Sponsor Pete Schwartzkopf has said that he just didn’t have the support. We even saw some of our progressive friends abandoning this bill, allegedly b/c some of them might want to become bus drivers or adjunct professors. Or both. We need to help them regain their ‘courage’, or perspective. We need to put pressure on our elected representatives and senators to garner that support. Did I mention that 2012 is an Election Year? HB 75 puts an end to double-dipping going forward. I really shouldn’t have to say anything more.

7. Freeze current legislators/state employees at their current level of state employment. One of the General Assembly’s dirty little secrets is that legislators move up quickly in their state positions because of the clout that they can use to secure both dedicated financial windfalls and favorable public policy outcomes for their agencies. The answer, although not perfect, it to freeze them at their current positions, or lower. Legislators can then make a choice. If they want to advance at their ‘full-time’ job, they can give up their part-time legislative one. They can have one or the other, but not both. And they shouldn’t  benefit from doing their agency’s bidding, which often runs counter to what should be the public interest.

8. Insist that every legislator that has a state job reveal their official hourly work records. While it may or may not be possible to push through legislation requiring this, and while the Beaudhisattva may be unwilling to come to his senses, public pressure in an election year can be very effective. If we can succeed in applying that pressure, we can ensure that legislators have a choice: ‘Release the records, or refuse to release the records and face the electoral consequences.’ Hey, some organizations could even use this criteria in their endorsement standards. The very idea that Tony DeLuca, Joe Booth, and other pigs at the public trough can get away with withholding this information just ain’t right. It’s up to us to turn over the rocks and shine the floodlights on them.

LOBBYING REFORM:

9. Pass the Delaware equivalent to the Maryland lobbying law NOW! Here’s what we know: Maryland has one of the strongest lobbying laws in the country. Ironclad reporting laws. No lobbyist-funded dinners or gifts. Penalties. Delaware has one of the weakest. Next-to-no reporting laws. Lobbyist perks a way of life. This one is a slam-dunk. We don’t need no steenkin’ task forces including lobbyists to rewrite the laws concerning lobbyists, which, believe it or not, has actually been proposed. Post-Chris Tigani, legislators need to be put on notice that this kind of easy corruption must end and must end now. I think that Sen. Peterson suggested that we should move right to the step of considering the Maryland statute, and I agree. The stench of Tigani can be cleaned off the legislators only by enacting strong lobbying reform. An Election Year is just the year to force their hand. Finally, while we’re at it:

10. Put an end to the practice of having paid lobbyists serve on task forces. By definition, they represent their employers, not the public. Just this past year, the Generous Assembly created a task force to rewrite law pertaining to taxes on communications (COMCAST, Verizon), and specifically put lobbyists for the industry on the task force. Their rationale?: ‘They know the system’. Yes, they created it to collect as much as they possibly can from the consumers. Precisely the reason why they should not be allowed anywhere near such working groups. BTW, this has been going on since I’ve been in the Delaware General Assembly, to the public’s detriment. In fact, my very first year in Dover in 1983, Rep. Dave Brady and others had crafted a strong ‘Workers’ Right to Know’ bill, which would have alerted workers to the toxicity of materials that they came in contact with. The bill passed the House. On the last day of session, Sen. Herman Holloway created a ‘Task Force’ to write such a bill, and (and here’s another dirty little secret) weighted the task force so heavily towards the chemical industry that the DuPont Company essentially wrote the ‘Workers’ Right to Know Bill’. Suffice it to say that the workers had the right to know a lot less under the ultimate bill.

Well, there you have it. My proposal for legislative reform for 2012. These are solely my proposals and are not in any way set in stone. It’s a very rough draft designed to encourage additional ideas, proposals, debate, discussion, modification, etc. My goal is, through any and all of those genuinely interested in making government more responsive, to help facilitate an agenda we can hone and present to the members of the Delaware General Assembly, ideally before they go back into session. I want any and all of you who believe that this is important to have your input. I welcome you without regard to political affiliation.

I merely believe that the spotlight that has been exposed on the Delaware General Assembly requires public action to enact meaningful change. I will do my best to help, with many others, to create a grassroots movement to try to effect this change. I suspect that we’ll begin to create both public and on-line forums to build this coalition (more to come, this is what’s known as a ‘tease’). Won’t you please consider joining and bringing both your ideas and commitment to this enterprise? And, yes, by ‘you’, I also mean legislators.