Open Government Call To Action

From the Progressive Democrats for Delaware’s indefatigable Rebecca Young:

As with everything else in politics, appearances aren’t always what
is really happening on Open Government in Delaware. Let me tell you
a story my friends . . .

In January 2009 a new session of the Delaware General Assembly will
convene and during the opening day the Senate will vote to elect
their leadership and ratify their rules.

Except, they will really vote to elect their leadership and ratify
their rules in a meeting of the Democratic Caucus that will take
place behind closed doors sometime before the G.A. convenes —
probably during the week of Thanksgiving.

Now, as we have learned over the past several sessions, if Thurman
Adams is elected Pro Tem the odds are very long that Open Government
will ever see the light of day for the next two years. At least, not
without a big effort on our part. So any Senator who votes for
Thurman is voting against Open Government. It’s a sneaky way to be
for it before you are against it. We need to call them on this.
Both literally and figuratively.

Each of you needs to call your State Senator and have a conversation
about Open Government and how the Senate leadership impacts this
issue. It may be that your senator intends to vote for the status
quo but he/she can barter that vote to include a commitment to Open
Government. If he/she ran on an Open Government platform remind them
that the voters are watching. These conversations cannot be “in your
face” but rather a more sophisticated give and take. You might start
the conversation by saying “We want Open Government in Delaware and
how can we get past the Thurman road block?” The caucus could vote
for Thurman but also vote to take away the desk-drawer-veto. They
can do that. If this is the best we can get, then this is where we
should be going. Here are home phone numbers for the members of the
Democratic Senate Caucus. We need to make these calls THIS WEEK.

X-Note: Please note that those are home numbers, so be very, very polite. Yelling at a state senator’s wife or husband or leaving enraged voice mails will not help our cause.

1 – Harris McDowell – 302-656-2921
2 – Margaret Rose Henry – 302-425-4148
3 – Bobby Marshall – 302-656-7261
4 – Mike Katz – 302-540-5603
7 – Patty Blevins – 302-994-4843
8 – Dave Sokola – 302-239-2193
9 – Karen Peterson – 302-999-7522
10 – Bethany Hall-Long – 302-378-8386
11 – Tony DeLuca – 302-737-4929
13 – Dave McBride – 302-322-6100
14 – Bruce Ennis – 302-653-7566
15 – Nancy Cook – 302-653-8725
17 – Brian Bushweller – 302-382-6351
19 – Thurman Adams – 302-337-8281
20 – George Bunting – 302-539-2229 (recovering from transplant
surgery)
21 – Robert Venables – 302-856-9559