Showdown at the D(elaware) W(ay) Corral
Classic western. The stoic sheriff up against the outlaws who ‘run this town’. Score one for the outlaws.
Nothing says Delaware Way more than former State Democratic Party Chair (He’s a duPont! He’s our duPont! Let’s make him chair! He can raise almost as much money as the Republican duPonts!) Rick Bayard openly lobbying on the House floor on behalf of Harrington Raceway and against the Democratic governor’s legislation. Aided and abetted by Rethug Bill DiMondi, who is the Chair of the Delaware State Fair and chief protector of Harrington Raceway, the outlaws proved they had the biggest…guns yesterday. Which is precisely what they meant to prove.
The problem is that the outlaws don’t care who they destroy to maintain hold on their ‘town’. That includes state employees; the people most likely to fall through the safety net as vital services are cut; the taxpayers who will have to ante up even more to pay for the racinos’ greed, and virtually everyone in the state who is not ‘cut in on the action’.
The Defenders of the Delaware Way are an amoral and greedy band of outlaws. They thrive in a subterranean culture of campaign contributions, clandestine meetings in legislators’ offices, deal-cutting, and buying influence. Virtually all of the non-legislators (i.e., lobbyists) among them made their bones in some Party function at one time or another before cashing in their ‘integrity’ for filthy lucre. Examples abound: party chair (like Delmarva Power’s Joe Farley and the aforementioned Bayard), national committeemen (Comcast’s Rhett Ruggerio and the late uber-lobbyist Ned Davis, who turned his lobbying business into a family boiler-room operation); scads of former legislators (Wayne Smith, Roger Roy, Joe Petrilli, Phil Corozzi, and the Delaware Way poster boy, as long as it’s a big poster, Bobby Byrd), and those who worked in state or federal government (Big Oil’s Gary Patterson, Valero’s Spiros Mantzavinos, lobbyist Rebecca Batson Kidner (the first person ‘bulo ever heard call Thurman Adams ‘Uncle Thurm’), and many many more.
Regardless of what the issue happens to be, this time it was the racinos, they all have a stake in seeing the Delaware Way triumph, even at the expense of the people of the state.
This is not meant to discourage people. Rather, ‘bulo believes that, for the first time, the battle against the Delaware Way has been joined. It is not that Jack Markell yearns to ‘defeat’ the Delaware Way. Rather, in order to bring progressive government that works to Delaware, the influence of these powerful forces must be significantly reduced. There is only one way to do that–and that is grassroots involvement. Threats/bribes from unsavory lobbyists notwithstanding, legislators respond most strongly to ongoing constituent contact. One call is good, continuing contact is essential.
This battle can and must be won, for the well-being of the state and its citizens. It will be long and hard. There will be setbacks along the way. But, if you want to take the town back from the outlaws, it is the only way.
Tags: Delaware, Delaware Way
So Jack Walls and Brad Bennett are voting for the sort term interest of the racinos?
John Kowalko also seems to have misgivings based on his comment at DWA.
Hear, hear.
So is there a road map for this battle for the Delaware Way?
And — I want to know how this legislature is going to fill the gap that is left without this projected revenue? This budget problem is serious and there are no easy fixes to this. Absolutely none. If the Legislature does not have the cojones to face down these racinos (with their MASSIVE subsidy from taxpayers), they won’t be making any of the other tough choices, either.
What part of the bill forced it into a 3/5 vote?
The revenue sharing change?
The sports gambling?
Kicking the racino lobbyists in their ass?
????
‘Bulo’s pretty sure that any legislation with a serious fiscal impact (he’s not sure what the threshold is) is a 3/5 vote.
It pays to have insidery deliciousness a la ‘Bulo. Call to action noted.
Hmmm…well, there are three RSmitty Bills in my head. None have the zest and zeal of the language of an actual bill, but the RSmitty Synopsis may be enough to get minds thinking. Bottom line, I think a la carte may have helped this wounded and abused dog. BTW, sports gambling was a red herring, you will see that was eliminated from the suite of RSmitty Bills:
RSB1 – Table gaming with live dealers (training, jobs, new demand) note: what barriers are there to table games…is it state law or federal?
RSB2 – One new location, off track…the racinos may bid to operate location as well…open bid process…this venue also to offer OTB parimutuals (more jobs for new locale)
RSB3 – Revenue-sharing change
On table games, we would need a constitutional amendment. The slots are called “video lottery terminals” to conform to the constitution, which allows no gambling except for lotteries.
Smitty,
Do you think that’s a way to get a bill through, break it up into smaller bills and pass them?
Easy… table games become….
“lottery tables”
It’s not that simple, Jason. Slot machines can be programmed to pay out in a lottery-style fashion (I don’t know the details, but this is what I’ve been told). You can’t do that with table games, the odds of which are fixed by the rules of each particular game.
Geezer is right and I certainly would not do this to get those pathetic “video” tables, which already exist.
Fine, call the dealers “lottery agents” if you must, but allow the live action. It will require jobs and you will have demand…particularly week-end demand. I’ve often been pissed trying to go to AC on a week-end with the crowds there, at the tables. Plenty of room at the slots, though!!!!!
It’s not that simple, ….but almost.
Every player gets a card swiped and if they don’t win back at least 90% of what they play it gets put back in their account. (What’s the slots payout rate fixed at?) It would take everyone longer to go broke, but broke they would go.
My direct, common sense problem solving powers are Kowalkoian.
Cool. Jason appears to be against the RSmitty Suite of Bills. They have merit!!! WOO!!! 😉
I’m 100% down with the Smitty bills. I’m a co-sponsor.
psst…that’s “Double Down.”
“All politics are local”..Tip O’Neal (D) MA. (RIP)
I firmly believe this….look at our local governments and you will see they mirror the state government.
Politically it is easier to make a dent in a smaller sub division than to take on an entire state. I caution you not to set yourselves up for a fall…start with something you can actually win.
Those with the ‘power’ will begin to see the writing on the wall. The ‘shot gun’ approach will not work.
BTW Welcome to community activism….there is not too much lower than a political loss nor higher than a political win (gain).
I can’t figure how the cause of legalizing sports betting somehow translates into a fight for the good new way.
Just because those who lobby against the bill are, well, lobbyists, doesn’t make the bill a good one.
This is an interesting post. While I agree the Delaware Way exists and has its serious negative points, I think you are missing the fact that the biggest players in its cast are, in the face of this economic crisis with no clear way to fix it, resorting to cannibalism. In any other “normal” year, Speaker Gilligan does not chide the former party chair and leader of the democratic wing of the duPonts in open session for lobbying on the floor. In any other year, Pete Schwartzkopf does not lose a peach of a summer camp job for proposing legislation. In any other year legislators would not be talking about how much the state employee cut is going to be, but whether there would be one at all. And these are just the public items.
What this really adds up to in my view is that there has been a subtle shift in the political undercurrent that has long supported the Delaware Way. It was once the duPonts and Dupont itself. It has also been unions (at least upstate).Yet another period it was corporations and banks. Now we are seeing the gambling interests flex their muscle, testing to see if they are ready to become the biggest bulls in the ring. And they just might end up being just that.
“Money years” in the legislature are years where money is the prime topic – usually that there is not enough of it – and the politics of finding the right balance dominates. They often tend to be years where risk is greatest for everyone and the potential for fledgling interests to come to the fore is also high. But even with those new interests coming to sit in the panthenon the “Delaware Way” is not extinguished, only altered.
Your call to arms may well be heeded. It may actually make something of a difference in this year. There is no doubt that public input, openness and transparency has gained a greater foothold in all things political in this state over the past several years. However, you’d be foolish to think that this state can ever be a paradigm of apolitical virtue of some sort. Just by engaging, you are becoming a part of the Delaware Way.
Just ask John Kowalko, and before him folks like George Bunting and Phil Cloutier and Andy Knox and on and on, back to Bob Gilligan and Bill Oberle and even before them. All of them were “reformers” in some way and all of them learned a serious lesson of governance. You change – at least a little – when you get to Dover or you get nothing. That doesn’t mean these folks have abandoned their moral compasses, but they all learned to get the change you want, even if it is incremental, you have to be willing to play along while you hold your nose sometimes.
I remember a post on this very blog where the debate was about toning things down to get more “respectable” folks to be willing to associate with it. You intuitively know how this works. Because, and here is a big fat 100% guaranteed secret, this isn’t the “Delaware Way” after all – it is the “human way” of all close political interaction where power and authority is in play.
And you know, sometimes, just sometimes, some real societal good comes out of being closely connected and able to make things move by being so closely connected.
So I suppose the bottom line of this rambling is this: By engaging in politics, you become part of politics. You may be able to change it and use it to your ends, but in the final analysis, you may have become just part of the next version of the Delaware Way.
“I can’t figure how the cause of legalizing sports betting somehow translates into a fight for the good new way.”
See if you can follow this, John: The racinos have been getting a sweet deal for 15 years now. It’s time for them to start pulling harder. They wield so much power in Dover that they shot this down. What part don’t you understand?
“Just because those who lobby against the bill are, well, lobbyists, doesn’t make the bill a good one.”
Nor does your lack of understanding make it a bad one.
All of us understand those elementary points, Geez. [One hates to see the name of the true Geezer http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2007/0601/nba_porter5_195.jpg debased by such a dyspeptic post.]
It’s a good idea to pinch the race tracks. But there are other interests in this mix: horsemen [who would necessarily get pinched under this proposal] , the professional and college sports leagues who have legitimate interests [whether or not you agree with them], the folks who don’t like the state getting deeper into the business of soaking compulsive gamblers, the folks who think the state should get serious about harder sources of revenue, including some that John Kowalko has proposed. There are a number of understandable reasons, not all of them bad, why this proposal failed.
As Political Observer observed, there are lobbyists all over the place. If your side loses on a bill, don’t whine about lobbyists, just because your lobbyists lost one.