General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., June 2, 2011
It doesn’t take much of a roadblock to derail a bill once the General Assembly calendar turns to June.
When the NRA, which has at least half the legislators in its sights pocket, lays out the slippery slope card canard, legislators either cower and/or hold out their hands for campaign cash.
And so it came to pass that the National Rifle Association shot down SB 39 (McDowell) in the Senate Judiciary Committee, aided and abetted by Chair Patti “Is There An Actual Problem?” Blevins. This result was as predictable as ‘sportsmen’ shooting fattened birds on ‘commercial game preserves’ on Sundays. The bill would have required that background checks be performed on the private sale of guns at gun shows. Licensed dealers are already required to do it. Per usual, the NRA used a circular firing squad argument to convince the ready-to-be-convinced legislators. The argument goes something like this: This is a solution in search of a problem. You see, we don’t even know if it’s a problem, so why legislate it? Of course, even if you accept the NRA logic, which I don’t, the reason why you don’t know if it’s a problem is precisely BECAUSE THERE ARE NO RECORDS. And so it comes to pass that unregulated and undocumented sales of guns will continue to take place at gun shows. The NRA and Delaware’s cowardly legislators can breathe easier. Memo to lemming-like Democrats: If you think this will keep John Sigler from training his attack dogs on you, you’re dumber than I think. Except for Lumpy Carson. If there’s an Absolute Zero measurement for legislative intelligence, he’s already there.
On a more schadenfrauedic note, Debbie Hudson, who considers her obscenely wealthy constituents special, hence above the law, has lost control of her special-interest legislation to keep the undesirable riff-raff of commercial development away from her easily-offended landed gentry. It’s not about the legislation itself, as it makes some sense. It’s the simple fact that, when overdevelopment comes to her area, she suddenly gets religion after a 20-year career as an agnostic, or, dare I say it, Devil worshiper. Need I remind you that Debbie Hudson spent about half her legislative career as Deborah Hudson Capano? I never came across anybody who manipulated and misled civic leaders for his own greedy purposes more than her ex, Louie Capano. She owes her stately digs and opulent lifestyle to the fiscal fruits of overdevelopment. Now she’s arguing that she was for it before she was against it. I argue that she’s a hypocrite, pure and simple. So spare me the phony piety. Build, baby, build!
Today’s Senate agenda is dominated by the annual influx of corporate ledger-demain prepared by the Corporate Section of the Delaware Bar Association. I don’t pretend to know what’s in these bills, and neither do the legislators. If you don’t believe me, simply scan through the synopsis of this bill, which is part of the package. I’m sure that we can take the ‘grown-ups’ word that it will help Delaware maintain its advantage as a haven for corporations. And, what’s good for corporations incorporated here must be good for you, right? Right? Before you answer, check the rates on your credit cards, then get back to me.
The House Agenda features four tax cut bills. At least something will mollify the dukes, duchesses and dowagers in Debbie Hudson’s district. And, yes, the robber barons too.
I like HB 69 (D. Short), which would simply have fiscal notes (added by the Controller General’s office to bills with a fiscal impact) reflect projected revenue gains as well as projected revenue costs. I think that the House passed this bill unanimously last session, but it was buried in the Senate. Why? Two words: Nancy Cook. Much of her power derived from controlling information, which she often withheld from other legislators and almost always withheld from the public. She’s gone. Time to pass this bill, it’s basic common sense. A little worried by the relative lack of D co-sponsors, though.
I strongly support HB 55 (Rep. D. E. Williams), which creates a mechanism to provide for the popular election of the President of the United States. For the life of me, I can’t understand an argument that says that the person with the most votes for President shouldn’t be the President. Especially when the alternative is having a crooked Secretary of State like Florida’s Katherine Harris effectively rigging the election for Dubya. Do we really want party functionaries fixing an election instead of having the people decide? And I see that Rethug attack dog John Sigler is already fulminating in print about how ‘Delaware won’t matter’ if this bill passes? Might I point out to Sigler that states matter a lot–during primary and caucus season. In fact, even pre-Biden, Delaware played an integral role in Obama generating the momentum to win the election.
So, what are we talking about? Not having a few politicos come into the state to run field operations for the candidates? They’ll be coming to the state any way to help run field operations for the tickets which include races for, among other things, US senators, congresspersons, and governors. Delaware already gets next to no money for advertising revenue as it is at the presidential level, as most buys go into the Philly market, which includes Delaware. Does anyone think that candidates won’t venture into the northeast corridor, and that they might skip a whistle-stop in Delaware should we elect the President by popular vote?
With or without these hypothetical ‘horribles’, one question remains: Why shouldn’t the person who gets the most votes for President be elected President? Explain to me how that notion is fundamentally undemocratic.
The House is likely to give final approval to legislation making the sterile needle and syringe exchange program permanent. The bill received about 75% of the votes in the Senate, and I expect a similar margin in the House.
Finally, Tony DeLuca’s bill enabling an ‘invaluable’ member of the Delaware Commission on Italian Heritage and Culture to continue serving on the commission will likely pass. I’ve said all that needs to be said about this. This type of commission is a joke and waste of taxpayer dollars. I suspect that most legislators realize this. Won’t make a difference as this bill sails through.
Stick a fork in me and twirl me around with some pasta. I’m done. Perhaps overdone.
See ya next week!
I took up your challenge and read the bill submitted by Corporate Section of the Delaware Bar Association. I understood this part in the very beginning: “This bill continues the practice of amending periodically the Delaware Revised Uniform Partnership Act (the “Act”) to keep it current and to maintain its national preeminence.”
We’re number 1!!
The election of the President is not about and is not about direct democracy. It is a series of 51 separate and unequal votes (the states plus the District of Columbia) that decrease the power of populous states and increases the voice of small states like Delaware. The purpose of the Electoral College is to create a check on Presidential power by denying the Presidency the level of power that could come with a popular mandate (Paxton’s definition of generic Fascism as a “popular dictatorship”). The Electoral College functions in the same way as the Senate (where states are the electoral districts, creating unequal representation) and the House of Representatives (where each Congressional District has a different number of constituents). In our federal system, states matter and the Electoral College’s indirect electoral process is an important part of federalism’s check on an all-powerful, unitary Presidency.
As a complete and utter side note, if Gore had won the Presidency in 2000 by gaining Florida’s Electoral College votes he would have been the first President to ever be elected despite losing his home states. If Gore had managed to win Tennessee, the state that he served for 24 years in the House and Senate, he would have been President no matter what Katherine Harris did.
If we were to establish geographically defined electoral districts in Delaware for each of our three Electoral College votes, it would move us towards a more flexible Electoral College system that retains its federal character.
Sorry, FMD, it took you about (I’m guessing) 300 words to try to justify some hybrid system.
My opinion: The candidate with the most votes wins. No other system is more democratic than that.
So I don’t quite get this National Popular Vote bill — does this mean that if Gary Johnson wins the popular vote here in Delaware, that our Electoral College electors will cast their vote for whoever won the vote nationwide?
The Seventeenth Amendment established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. The electoral college is a similar vestigial tail that should be done away with.
I like the Electoral College. Do you really want Presidential candidates spending all their time pandering to Texas and California?
If you like what Texas has done for textbooks, you’ll love what they do for elections.
Oh right. The current system of pandering to a few swing districts in Ohio and Florida is so much better.
If candidate has to win votes rather than winning states, we’d see more active campaigning, not less. In effect, the electoral college inhibits candidates from undertaking a “50 state strategy.”
Direct election means that you need to have message that resonates with 51% of Americans.
Yes, I agree with that, except I don’t see how this bill actually does away with the electoral college. It just seems to direct the local electors to cast their vote for the person who won the greatest number of votes. The nest way I’ve read to do this — and genuinely get rid of the Electoral College — is implementing a combo of direct voting with Instant Runoff Voting. That preserves the wishes of the voters in the states, but also gives the state a clean way to get to a majority.
The assumption (I think) is that if every state ties the electors to the popular vote, the EC becomes moot. I agree that genuinely getting rid of the Electoral College is better.
They don’t need every state to do it, just a collection of states that hold a majority of the electoral votes.
You know Steve, regarding Debbie Hudson’s bill (HB 101), I don’t care if you take the blinders off or you have a cornea transplant, as long as you’re willing to see the light. I agree with you, “Build Baby Build!’ Let’s build good roads with union labor (or at least prevailing wage) jobs FIRST, at the developers expense. It cracks me up to listen the constant stream of horse dung about “Anti-development” and NIMBYism…. Its crap!
One in 500 people I’ve dealt with in the civics, and more specifically, regarding land development issue says, “No development”. All the rest want job expansion and growth by utilizing systems and structures that represent everyone’s long-term interest in order to help broaden regional interest in considering Delaware as a place they may want to live. “Generally a good standard of living when compared to other states and counties in the region, reasonable taxes and ready access to major metropolitan areas like Philly, Washington, AC and NY.” Why would you want to jeopardize that perception by compromising building standards and codes and likely requiring higher individual citizen and homeowner’s taxes, in order to allow developers not to make a profit, but to allow them to maximize their profit at you and I expense?
In the case of NCC, the Unified Development Code (UDC) when it was adopted was an excellent example of facilitating the citizens an opportunity to participate in the process in order to allow the developer to make money and the existing community to have a voice in what their future will look like. Since the expansion of County Council and Paul Scott-Clark getting elected Council President, the developers have done nothing but punch hole after hole in the process and remove the community’s opportunity to participate.
Debbie’s bill was initiated by her and Patti Blevins, based in part, on a meeting they put together between ex-Sec. Wicks and community regarding the next phase of the Hercules G.C. development and a subsequent discussion that developed about Barley Mill.
As I said yesterday in the committee meeting after hearing about Kent County’s code and proposed regulatory changes developed by DelDOT, take the best of the both of them, draft them into a bill and get them passed so they can be applied across the State and Rep. Hudson can put her bill away. Short of that, this dyed-in-the-wool Dem is going to support this Repub. when she’s doing the right thing.
Amen on HB55 (popular vote). I loved Sigler’s LTE. The ‘should be rejected by every legislator who loves Delaware and believes in our republic’ was over the top. What about apple pie and baseball? I was waiting for him to note that if this bill passed baby puppies would end up being drowned.
His LTE today should have been listed in the Comics section under Non Sequitur II
His LTE *was* over-the-top. But I can’t help but think that if Delaware wasn’t such a Blue state that a whole lot of folks here would be thinking differently about this.
A popular vote with IRV doesn’t ignore a *state’s* majority vote the way that this bill does.
I am against a National Popular Vote, but am willing to meet you somewhere in the middle. Say, electoral votes are are awarded by Representative District, and the popular vote winner within the state gets the 2 “senate” votes as a bonus.
Phil – what you are talking about is what they use in both Nebraska & Maine, but it can’t work in Delaware since we only have one member of Congress (but it is a great system for states with larger Congressional delegations).
The Electoral College is an indirect form of democracy. Senators can/should be directly elected because there are 100 of them so each Senator’s power is watered down by the institution (ditto for members of the House). The Presidency is an office that has a great potential for accumulating way too much power in a liberal democracy based on limited government.
A directly elected President with a large popular mandate will achieve a level of legitimacy that might disrupt our delicate balance of majority rule and minority rights. The complicated procedure to elect the President serves to limit the power of that office.
it can work in delaware, it just wont matter.
Granted that the Electoral College is unfair, however it is actually biased in our (Delaware’s) favor. How often does that happen?!? I say that we should roll with it! 😉