Dear Lt. Governor:
At the Delaware Liberal Inaugural Ball, you asked bloggers to help keep you honest, to keep your feet to the fire. Well, Mr. Denn, I am happy to oblige.
On Monday, you held a press conference with representatives of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce as well as the AFL-CIO and you asked the General Assembly to proceed with caution. Let me stop there for a moment, business leaders and union leaders getting together and agreeing on something? Why does this make me a bit uneasy? Business and unions have been at odds for so long and now they agree that amendments are needed for the eminent domain legislation. But I digress and I don’t expect you to speak for business and union leaders.
However I imagine you can speak to what you said. You asked the General Assembly to take the extra time to shape a compromise (WDEL). What is that you don’t like about the current legislation? What type of amendment(s) do you and the leaders of business and unions want?
To the untrained political eye, it could seem that the office of the Lt. Governor might be representing developers and not representing the wishes of the people of Delaware. Please let me know why I am wrong.
Sincerely,
nemski
Below the fold is the Lt. Govenor’s response.
A quick note prior to getting to Lt. Gov. Denn’s response. In a further email exchange, Denn commented on a 10-10 tie in the Sente. The Lt. Gove. wrote later, “Just so you know, Senator Venables believes that the bill requires a 2/3 majority rather than a simple majority for passage, so I am not sure that my vote would be determinative if it were a 10-10 tie. That’s something I would have to rule on if it came up.”
And now without delay, the Lt. Governor response:
Happy to explain. First of all, the reason that the business and labor communities agree that we should be careful with respect to what type of bill we pass is the dire employment situation in Delaware. I am not sure it has sunk in on people how bad things are. Our state unemployment rate in December, 2007 was 3.8%. Our unemployment rate in December, 2008 was 6.2%. That is a staggering increase—a 63% increase in unemployment in our state over just a twelve month period. So that is the backdrop.
As far as Senate Bill 7 is concerned, if it comes up for a vote as currently written and there is a 10-10 tie, I’ll vote for it. But I think there are potential amendments that could preserve the core purpose of the bill without placing Delaware quite as far out of the regional mainstream as it would place us. Under Senate Bill 7, no private property could be taken for economic development purposes–even if the property owner were paid its full market value–if the property were literally uninhabitable or completely abandoned. The municipality would have to prove on top of all those facts that the property was also a danger to public health or public safety. By contrast, a number of the regional coastal states with whom we are competing for jobs–New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island–have no restrictions on eminent domain at all, and others such as Maryland have minimal restrictions.
So the bottom line is that I would like to see if it is possible to put together an amendment to the bill that protects the type of property owners that I think it was intended to protect, without going so far that we deter potential new employers from moving their physical headquarters here. Senator Venables, the chief sponsor of S.B. 7, has been very receptive to amending the bill for that purpose. If an amendment can’t get worked out, so be it–but the job situation is so critical that I think it would be irresponsible for us not to try. Not for developers, but for the increasing number of people in our state who are or are about to be out of work.
Hope that helps. It was good to meet you at the event over the weekend.