BREAKING NEWS: Parties Try Last-Minute Cash Grab in General Assembly!
The D’s and R’s have finally found something they can both agree on. I had previously written about HS 1 to HB 128, a candidate and party cash grab which was removed from the House Agenda once it was exposed.
Guess what? They’ve got another bill they plan to work under the cover of darkness of June 30 and July 1. And, while they won’t fund $$’s for road building, ‘leadership’, including ‘mortal enemies’ Greg Lavelle and Patti Blevins, are united in crushing any insurgent candidacies under something called a ‘Party Building Fund’. No, it’s not for buildings.
Ladeez and gentlemen, let me introduce to you SB 155, which is sort-of a Delaware version of Citizens United.
The bill creates a new fund for political parties. Here’s the key sentence:
No political party may make any expenditure from its building fund except for the costs of telephone and other communications services and the rental or purchase of equipment, office supplies, or an office or building.
Wrap your heads around the phrase ‘the costs of telephone and other communications services’. As the tipster who alerted me to this last-minute maneuver pointed out, we’re talking ‘carpet bombing in close elections, call centers in Utah, the purchase of a party’.
‘The purchase of a party’, you ask? Did I mention that individuals can donate as much as $20,000 apiece exclusively to this Party Building Fund? Over and above any other donations they make? And, no, I didn’t make up that name, it’s right there in the bill.
This bill, which was just introduced on June 24, can easily be worked under suspension of rules in both houses and be on its way to the Governor tomorrow. With no committee hearings or public debate (or at least public debate that anyone will be awake to hear). Which is precisely the way that John Daniello and Charles Bouvier de Flanders want it.
Call your legislators and tell them to stop making a mockery of our political system. Do it today. Wednesday will be too late.
Legislation needs a killer amendment. Something like “all contributions must be matched, dollar-for-dollar, by a contribution to the Delaware Infrastructure Maintentance and Improvement Fund.”
mediawatch for Governor!
El Som, the genesis of this bill was not as nefarious as you paint it.
The Sussex Democratic Party rents as its headquarters a building in Georgetown. We have had an opportunity to purchase the building and opened an account for that purpose. In soliciting funds from elected and party officials, we soon discovered that such contributions are subject to campaign contribution limits. While this currently applies to us, it would also apply if any political party sought to purchase or build a headquarters. The purpose of the bill is merely to allow a political party to create a building fund, outside of campaign contribution limits, for the sole purpose of financing and operating a building for its operations.
It’s interesting that this bill emerged after the demise of a bill (HS 1 to HB 128) that would have allowed contribution limits to parties to increase from $20,000 to $30,000 — and it has the same sponsors. There is no way the two bills are unrelated.
Mitch, please.
“No political party may make any expenditure from its building fund except for the costs of telephone and other communications services and the rental or purchase of equipment, office supplies, or an office or building.”
That’s a loop hole the Koch brothers could drive a truck through. A truck full of attack ads.
I am aware of plans and discussions for both bills this year. Why they waiting until the last minute to introduce one or both, I don’t know. Filing bills at the end of a session does make people suspicious. They should have been filed early so people could discuss the reasoning. Sometimes bills are filed at the end of June in the odd year with the intention of debate and possible vote the next January. There are lots of bills, many of them “good” like Same-Day Registration, that were filed late, and hopefully can be passed in 2016.
Haven’t you done enough damage, Mitch? Trini Navarro, now this?
What Jason said.
The wording of the bill opens us up to all sorts of tactics deliberately designed to subvert the will of the people and to make a joke out of the notion of fair elections.
I mean, more of a joke than the notion of open elections have already become.
Mitch,
I wish our elected officials could be as diligent in writing legislation that meets the financial and infrastructure needs of our state as they appear to be in satisfying the financial and infrastructure wishes of their party elders. Govern responsibly first, take care of your self-interest later.
The insidiousness of this is that, with regard to elections, is turns Delaware a large media market. Our small media market status has protected us from a lot of the raw sewage that passes for political “speech” in New Jersey and PA.
Adios to all of that, mi amigos.
We have elected officials who are “diligent in writing legislation that meets the financial and infrastructure needs of our state…”. There are good bills filed to address those needs. The problem is getting the votes to pass such legislations. Tax bills-such as those raising income tax rates for higher income persons-require REPUBLICAN votes in the Senate-and none are forthcoming. Same with increasing fees.
Legislators are NOT limited to a certain number of bills filed. You can have bills for all types of issues without the loss of others.
And–I am happy to debate Trinidad Navarro’s qualifications at the proper time. If I didn’t think was qualified and a consumer advocate, I would be running. My ego and love to do that job are trumped by the need for someone more electable than I.
I can’t believe Mitch (whom I respect) is buying into this complete bullshit.
He has become Donald Sutherland in the last scene of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’
The one, perhaps, the ONLY issue where D’s and R’s can find common ground this year is when it comes to putting an even fatter finger on the scale against honest elections.
Mitch: I DO have a question for you: Do you believe that this bill should be pushed through this week, or do you believe that the bill should at least be delayed until it can be discussed openly?
Thank you, Jason, I think.
El Som-I see no reason to push this bill-or the one raising campaign contribution limits-this week. Proponents of both should make their cases and testify on committees. There are good reason for both and the public has a right to be skeptical.
Tomorrow needs to be devoted to passing a budget that reduces painful cuts to non-profits and local and county governments. That means finding a way to bring in additional funding with the needed Republican votes-but without giving in on their demand for Right to Work.
@Mitch: Nice try, but the only reason people will have to vote for someone who doesn’t know insurance is that he’s not Karen Weldin-Stewart. I see no reason to further Trini Navarro’s political ambitions.
This is what I mean by telling you to stop before you do more damage. You mean well, but It hasn’t worked out.
Take the vote and let the GOP answer for it.
Meanwhile the JFC is withholding that $36 million from the S&P settlement to fix the FY 2017 budget. El Som, when was the last time a DE Legislature withheld a big pile of money to fix the budget for the next group of legislators?
Meanwhile the JFC is withholding that $36 million from the S&P settlement to fix the FY 2017 budget. El Som, when was the last time a DE Legislature withheld a big pile of money to fix the budget for the next group of legislators?
You shouldn’t need El Som to tell you this: next year’s legislators will be the same as this year’s legislators. And, thanks to the wonders of redistricting gerrymandering, the group that gets elected in November 2016 will be pretty much the same as the one that’s there now. So, they’re keeping the $36M in their own piggybank, ready to fund a special interest to be named later rather than people/agencies/programs that have demonstrated needs.
We definitely need independent redistricting reform.
Alienating every local politician will turn out to be an even worse move than alienating the voters who supposedly would turn out the incumbents for balancing the budget honestly.
Geezer’s got that nailed.
Not saying they would all run, but in New Castle County alone, you would have a dozen lawmakers with proven campaign ability — the members of county council — who could make the real estate transfer tax issue a focal point of a bid to oust some incumbents from the GA.
That might be all it takes to get some folks to vote for Dave Tackett.
It is a good bill. All it does is keep donations in line with inflation. It does nothing more.
Other than the budget, no bills introduced in the last couple weeks of the session should be voted on. Legislators suspend the rules and bills don’t go through committees, public input is limited and the chance of ( I’ll vote for yours, if you vote for mine ) is more likely to happen. Every year this happens and it needs to stop. Public input is needed for everything in Dover, good or bad. They represent us or do they? Libertarian Candidate.
So wait this bill means we could be stuck with politicians like Carper, Castle, Biden, Markell?
oh noes! I can’t imagine what this could mean for the people that serve us
Please explain to me how this even remotely matters?
No On This Bad Bill & Mediawatch:
The FY ’17 Budget goes into effect on July 1, 2016. Before the 2016 election.
JFC is (I think) wisely holding the money back b/c they know that, if the Honorables couldn’t get their shit together during the off-year, they’re definitely not gonna raise revenues in any meaningful way during an election year.
BTW, the News-Journal reports that the General Assembly has caved on the realty transfer tax. Which blows a $21 mill hole in the budget.
Maybe they’ll have to tap those settlement $$’s more to cover the shortfall.
The budget that was passed is a joke, our elected officials should be ashamed of themselves!!!