Delaware Is Different

Delaware ended its legislative session on Wednesday. The GA passed a balanced state budget on the deadline. The budget restored last year’s pay cuts and increased funding in various areas. The GA also passed a set of bills addressing the Bradley case in Sussex by a unanimous vote.

The General Assembly concluded business for the year early this morning, leaving citizens unscathed by tax increases and state employees confident of their jobs.

The session ended with the elimination of a yearlong pay cut for state employees and a late boost in state revenue that allowed legislators to avoid painful election-year belt-tightening or tax increases.

Compare and contrast with some of our neighboring states. In New Jersey, Chris Christie relied solely on budget cuts because the millionaires in the state must be protected:

Christopher J. Christie, the first Republican elected governor of New Jersey in 12 years, unveiled a $29.3 billion budget on Tuesday that relies almost exclusively on spending cuts to reverse the sagging fortunes of a state he sees as battered by the recession and choking on its tax burden.

To close a deficit that he asserted was approaching $11 billion, Governor Christie called for the layoffs of 1,300 state workers, closings of state psychiatric institutions, an $820 million cut in aid to public schools, and nearly a half-billion dollars less in aid to towns and cities. He also suspended until May 2011 a popular property-tax rebate program, breaking one of his own campaign promises.

Of course, Republicans adore Christie because the pain of recession must be borne by the poor and middle class instead of the politicians and bankers that caused the problem. However, people in the state weren’t so happy:

A crowd estimated at 30,000 to 35,000 people gathered Saturday [May 22] near New Jersey’s Statehouse to protest Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget cuts.

State police, who gave the crowd estimate, said no problems were reported.

The crowd is believed to be one of the largest ever to protest in state history. It was mostly comprised of public employee union members and several community and nonprofit groups that would lose some or all their funding if Christie’s plans are adopted.

Of course these protestors weren’t wearing teabags or carrying misspelled signs comparing Christie to Hitler so the media wasn’t interested.

Other neighboring states aren’t immune. Pennsylvania has its first on-time budget in Rendell’s term, and it calls for layoffs and spending cuts:

The tentative budget, agreed to by negotiators and Rendell on Tuesday, includes no increases in sales or income taxes, and Rendell hailed a boost in spending for public schools. But he acknowledged that this agreement includes painful cuts, and he said there could be as many as 1,000 state employee layoffs.

“There’s no way to do this without inflicting pain,” Rendell said. “There’s no clear way to cut $1 billion from the budget … without pain, but under the circumstances, this is the right thing to do.”

Delaware is just different. Delaware requires supermajorities to pass the budget, like many other states. In other states, like California or New York, this leads to months-long budget crises because a few legislators can hold the whole government hostage. This doesn’t happen in Delaware (so far).

The trends affecting the Republican party just don’t seem to be happening here either, or not nearly as much. In Nevada and Kentucky the GOP establishment candidates were soundly defeated by hard right Tea Party activists. Delaware Republicans have nominated Country Club Republicans like Michele Rollins and Mike Castle instead. Tea Party candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Glen Urquhart haven’t gotten much traction in Delaware. Delaware has a small and vocal Tea Party minority but they could only must a couple dozen protestors in Dover Wednesday.

Delaware seems to be bucking the national trends. Instead of laying off state workers, we’re restoring pay cuts. Instead of losing jobs, we’re announcing new jobs. Instead of purging Republican incumbents, we’re embracing them. What makes Delaware so different?