In Which the Napoleonic Martinet Tries to Explain Away the Unexplainable…Not to Mention the Inexplicable. Which He Doesn’t.
Let’s all first get on the same page. Please read the Alice in Wonderland News-Journal article which details just how the ever-shrinking Senate Majority Leader had a job created just for him and doubled his salary, courtesy of Tom Sharp, Mark Brainard and Ruth Ann Minner.
Read it carefully, parse every syllable, smell every flower, climb every mountain.
Back so soon? Betcha didn’t Climb Every Mountain. That’s OK. I hated The Sound of Music too.
OK, let me see if I’ve got this straight: Union electrician Tony DeLuca, who Tom Sharp recruited to run for the State Senate, and for whom Mark Brainard ran his election campaigns, is appointed by Secretary of Labor and former Senate Majority Leader/President Pro Tem Tom Sharp, who was appointed by Minner Chief-of-Staff Mark Brainard, to a newly-created position in the Department of Labor which just happens not to receive any Federal funds. According to State Senator Karen Peterson, who actually knows and understands labor law:
“Until DeLuca was hired in September 2005, the labor law enforcement office handled work-force discrimination complaints, Peterson said.
Peterson claims that function had to be split off when DeLuca was hired because the federal Hatch Act prohibits elected officials from administering federal programs. Until DeLuca took over, work-force discrimination and labor law violations were completely supported by federal funds, Peterson said. She said the change has required state tax dollars, resulting in the loss of discrimination investigators and the mounting case backlog.”
Well, that should be easy enough to disprove. Let’s see what the real facts are:
James Cagle Jr., director of the division of industrial affairs and DeLuca’s supervisor, said he split the Office of Anti-Discrimination off from labor law enforcement before DeLuca was hired because of an unrelated court case. Cagle said he has documentation “to prove it” had nothing to do with DeLuca’s employment. But he refused a News Journal reporter’s request for copies of the records, saying they included personnel files.
Oh. Yes. THAT. How inconvenient for all concerned. I’m sure that DeLuca does not want an ethical cloud hanging over his public duties, so maybe he’ll make sure that this ‘proof’ is made public.
But let’s forget all this legal beagle stuff for a second. The very idea that, of all Delawareans, union electrician Tony DeLuca was most qualified to head the anti-discrimination unit of the Department of Labor was Tom Sharp’s and Mark Brainard’s idea of a sick joke. Kinda like Henry Ford naming the company town that housed black auto workers ‘Inkster, Michigan’, which at least brought us the Marvelettes (h/t to Dave Marsh). After all, no one stands up against discrimination more than trade unionists, especially electricians. The Plumbers’, Electricians’, Carpenters’, et al, locals are notorious for severely limiting minority opportunities in their shops. Unless you consider the Irish, Italians, et al, minorities. These have traditionally been closed shops which have been forced, by laws, of all things, to grudgingly admit more qualified minorities. Something that falls under the purview of ‘anti-discrimination’.
And, lest we forget, Tom Sharp made his political bones by basking in, and ginning up, blue collar white resentment to ‘forced busing’. He was even briefly deposed from Senate leadership when he joined with Wayne Smith to send mailings into Democratic districts (including those of Blevins and Sokola) to call for an end to the court ordered busing and to call out those senators who had not kowtowed to him.
And, even though people can change, we have the recent history of DeLuca singlehandedly and underhandedly deep-sixing the Inspire Scholarship program for Del State. It would be close to impossible to find a Democrat less committed to weeding out discrimination. Which is exactly what Sharp and Brainard wanted.
But maybe DeLuca has the educational background to handle a position that requires intimate knowledge of complex labor law. Yep, I thought so. From DeLuca’s own legislative bio:
“Education:
John Dickinson High School
International Brotherhood Electrical Workers Trade School”
That’s it, folks, nothing more. The man has nothing close to even minimal qualifications for this job. In fact, if you read the article carefully, no one even tries to make the case that he is qualified. Not even DeLuca. The best they can come up with is that they did nothing technically illegal. And even then they won’t produce the documentation to prove it.
Peterson’s argument that the dividing up of this agency has cost the state money needs to be carefully reviewed. Whether or not the state is in danger of losing some federal funds is but one question. The question I have is: Is the state using state funds to fund an agency which, but for one man and the Hatch Act, would be funded by Federal funds? If the answer to that is ‘yes’, then that one man should do the right thing and step down from his job to save the state some $$’s. Besides, DeLuca won’t stay unemployed for long. Brainard’s probably already got a gig lined up for DeLuca to teach Labor Law at Del-Tech.
Memo to Beau Biden and the Feds: Investigate this man. And the people who have enabled his rise to power. It looks like Brainard, Sharp and DeLuca have created a circular good ol’ boy network that promotes their ripping off the state at the expense of the taxpayers. Do something about it.