SOMEthing is, and it stinks of the Delaware Way.
You may have missed it, but Gov. Markell vetoed a Felton charter change yesterday. I’m not sure I can even recall the last time a governor vetoed a charter change, but it doesn’t happen every day. Or even during every administration.
But the vetoed change suggests an untold story.
HB 251, sponsored by Rep. Outten and Sen. Cook, would have, among other things, established that “(a)ny person otherwise eligible to be a member of Council shall not have a family member holding an elected office for the Town of Felton nor have a family member nominated for and/or appointed to an elected office in the Town of Felton. For purposes of this section ‘family member’ shall mean spouse, parent, child, sibling, half-sibling, grandparent or grandchild.”
In other words, only one elected official per family, thank you very much. And the change would have taken effect just a couple of weeks before town council elections were held. Fortuitous timing.
While there may be good reasons to enact such a statute (just imagine Paul Clark and Pam Scott together on New Castle County Council), it does seem to clearly be unconstitutional. This excerpt from Markell’s veto message seems pretty definitive:
When a legislative body establishes restrictions on elected office, it ultimately limits the choices available to voters and restricts the ability of otherwise qualified persons to serve their community. Therefore, such restrictions should be targeted and reasonably related to the specialized demands of the particular office. Whether family members can suitably serve concurrently as members of the Town Council of Felton should not be predetermined by the General Assembly through additional restrictions on membership; it should be left to the eligible voters in Felton.
Furthermore, the language in Section 1 of House Bill No. 251 is overly broad in significant respects. For example, Section 1 also prohibits family members from serving successively on Town Council, as the language is not limited to prohibiting family members from serving concurrently. Thus, as written, the law would prohibit an otherwise qualified candidate from serving on Council if his or her family member currently serves on the Council, even if the currently serving Council member is not seeking re-election.
In addition, House Bill No. 251 would have the effect of disqualifying a person for service on Town Council merely through the nomination of a family member to that body. A person seeking office would therefore need to receive more than just the most votes, he or she would also need to secure the commitment of their family members not to disqualify them by simultaneously seeking Town office. Allowing family members to use the nomination process to limit the electoral options of their fellow citizens would not be consistent with our State’s democratic ideals. These examples reinforce the principle that the eligible voters of Felton are the best persons to determine who represents them on Town Council.
Kudos to Colin Bonini and Dave Sokola for casting the only two ‘no’ votes on this misbegotten piece of legislation.
But that’s not what interests me. I’m more interested in how and why this change ever found its way into legislative form. There must be a real story involving real people and real feuds behind it, not just some bizarre hypothetical. There’s no way any self-respecting town solicitor would allow something like this to make it before the General Assembly without some sort of backstory. So I’m calling on our loyal Felton readers (distinguishable from normal Felton citizens by their ability to read without moving their lips) to give us the inside skinny on this story.