Delaware General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues. June 14, 2011

Casey Stengel, upon surveying the inability of his first-year expansion New York Mets to perform even the simplest of baseball tasks, once asked, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

He might as well having been talking about Delaware education officials who somehow, some way, managed to greenlight a charter school founded by a criminal with a lengthy history of bankruptcies. You can read the sordid details here. The News-Journal has apparently now gotten religion. A well-argued editorial (didn’t know they had it in them) blisters the state for lax oversight:

Believe it or not, there is something more egregious than a school board president with a record of serial bankruptcies, multiple aliases and accusations of sexually assaulting one of his children:

The state agencies responsible for approval of charter schools have no process in place to prevent an Anthony White reign at Reach Academy, the state’s first public school for girls.

So now the General Assembly must fast-track legislation to require state officials to do something that probably none of them (or us) conceived that they could possibly not be doing on their own. As Speaker Robert Gilligan puts it:

“I mean, common sense dictates that you certainly should know who you are giving money to and know who’s dealing with the children,” Gilligan said. “And I just can’t believe they didn’t do such a thing.”

Maybe the Delaware General Assembly and those pushing for the fast-tracking of charter schools should step back and see if this process in any way furthers public education in Delaware. Charter basically creams the best students from both public and private schools, so those students would be top-notch regardless of what school they attend. I’ve known students who go to Cab, and for those who aren’t at the top level, and even for some who are, many find themselves ill-prepared to deal with life following the senior high school musical. And some of these charters are downright head-scratching to me. Plus, the process for approval, as we can see through what happened at Reach Academy, leaves a lot to be desired.

So now the General Assembly must pass legislation  legislating common sense because the people in charge of this have demonstrated a complete lack of common sense. The state officials responsible for this  should be fired, pure and simple. At some point, failure to carry out the most basic of tasks must have consequences. Time to bring in somebody who can play this game.

By ‘play this game’, I don’t mean former legislator Dick Cathcart, fast becoming Exhibit A for the Delaware Way. Cathcart was last in the news when reports surfaced that he had awarded $1.5 million in no-bid contracts to an HVAC company for ‘work’ at Del State. Reports also surfaced that Auditor Tom Wagner had suppressed a report commissioned for his own office that was highly critical of Cathcart. Reports also surfaced that certain connected Del State people got work done gratis by the winner of the no-bid contract. So  what’s an ‘honorable’ person like Dick Cathcart to do? Why, ‘retire’, of course, and get yet another job giving him access to large sums of public money. Yes, for the mere pittance of $80,000, Dick Cathcart becomes the new City Manager for Delaware City. Just like that. If possible, the stench in Delaware City has gotten even worse. At least Cathcart had to undergo unrelenting scrutiny before securing his new job:

Before leaving (legislative) office, Cathcart secured a $25,000 grant to add decorative planters to Delaware City streets, Mayor John Buchheit said, and the city hopes he will help locate more funding for future projects. Buchheit said he had initial reservations about the issues at DSU, but they were quickly put to rest.“He assured me he had no wrongdoing in that whatsoever,” said Buchheit, who added that council confirmed Cathcart unanimously. “That was my only concern, and I brought it up with him. And after five minutes, I was satisfied.”

Granted, that’s five minutes more than the State Department of Education spent on Anthony White’s qualifications, but still.  Ladies and gentlemen, the Delaware Way in full flower.

Speaking of which: Alert the media: I’m on Al’s show today at 10 a.m., WDEL-1150 AM. Topic A will be the Tigani Indictment/Plea and how it might impact the Delaware Way. The Charter Fiasco and Dick Cathcart will no doubt get some tough love as well. All this, plus El Somnambulo returns from the Lucha School Graduation Ceremony in Juarez.

Whoops, almost forgot I’ve got a General Assembly to cover.

Tony DeLuca is no doubt thankful for this brief respite from the spotlight, but I haven’t forgotten, and you can bet that we at Delaware Liberal will be paying close attention to his Nixonian efforts to prevent further scrutiny of his ‘work’ history.

Following a weekend respite from the spotlight, it’s time for the General Assembly to take center stage once again. There are only three weeks remaining in this legislative session, so legislative work will expand to fill the limited time allotted. This is the time of year when bills of dubious merit sneak through b/c (a) legislators and lobbyists like it that way; and/or (b) there isn’t enough legislative resolve to pay close attention to every bill. I’ll do my best to call attention to those bills, and I urge all of you to check out the legislation along with me.

One blatant special interest bill made it through the House Thursday, a bill which is a sop to the new auto dealers, you know, like that Willis guy who once had Dale Earnhardt, Sr. at his dealership, and who is a representative now. He went ‘not voting’ due to a conflict-of-interest, but legislation permitting auto dealers to conduct state inspections on VEHICLES THAT THEY SOLD passed with no dissenting votes. Campaign checks should be going out from the dealers any moment now, if they haven’t already been hand-delivered.

Sen. Marshall’s bill establishing community firearms recovery programs passed by a 14-7 vote. As I suggested last week, the bill was amended to eliminate the provision that funding would come from legislators’ Community Transportation Funds. Instead, this will first be a pilot program contingent upon funding in the Budget Bill, funding which I believe has already been inserted there. No doubt, Wilmington and possibly Dover will lead the way on this.

Tony DeLuca’s exercise in overkill, SB 4, has been assigned to Tony DeLuca’s Senate Executive Committee. The bill purports to “require members of the General Assembly and statewide elected officials to disclose all separate income and the hours worked in separate employment during days when they perform official duties. It also requires documentation of any reduction in compensation for the official’s separate employment, or a declaration that their compensation has not been reduced.”  The sole purpose of this bill is to somehow seek to position DeLuca, of all people, as the champion of legislative transparency, and to enable him to call others hypocrites. O, Napoleonic Martinet , release the six years of DOL time sheets and the DOL card swipes and maybe we’ll talk. BTW, didja know that the coverup is always worse than the crime? Drip, drip, drip…

Here’s the entire Session Report from last Thursday.  See if you can spot anything that looks a little hinky.

Today’s Senate agenda is relatively short on intriguing legislation. One notable exception is SB 15 (Booth), which “requires the State and its political subdivisions to verify employment authorization status for all new hires; requires public employers to only contract for physical performance of services within this State with contractors and subcontractors who verify employment authorization status; and requires, except for enumerated exceptions, that all state agencies and political subdivisions verify the lawful presence of those 14 years of age and older who apply for public benefits.”

Yep, you’ve got it. They’re going after those annoying ‘illegal aliens’ again. Notice who are not required to do this? Right again, those private employers like, you know the entire bleeping Delmarva poultry industry. Hypocrites. With the exception of Debbie Hudson (who the bleep is landscaping your lawn, Debbie?), all of the sponsors represent areas  south of the Canal. This is basically an election issue in bill form.

The House Agenda (yes, there’s only one today) includes more intriguing fare. The headliner is HB 75, aka “Tiny Tony’s Law”,  which would “prohibit all members of the General Assembly from being employed by the State of Delaware while in office, unless the member was already a State employee at the time the member was elected to the General Assembly, or the member became a State employee prior to enactment of this law.”

I support this bill although I’d go a step further, if possible. I would essentially ‘freeze’ legislators who are already state employees at or below the level they hold when elected. That would prevent someone from making a precipitous ride up the food chain, in part likely due to their membership in the General Assembly. Case in point. Say, for example, that an instructor at Del-Tech is grandfathered in. I don’t see anything in this bill that would prevent that person from becoming the next Lonnie George while still serving as a legislator. That person would wield incalculable power. Seems like a pretty big loophole to me.

Both HB 137(Barbieri) and HB 145(George) seek to restore common sense and judicial discretion to certain sentencing provisions. Some of the best work in this General Assembly is being done in this area.

Legislation removing the prohibition against persons convicted of any drug felony from receiving federal food benefit assistance should receive its final consideration in the House. SB 12(Henry) passed the Senate back in April by a 15-5 vote. While I don’t see as wide a margin in the House, I think that the bill will pass comfortably.

I’d better stop now, as I need a comfortable margin to prep for Al’s show.

What,  you think I just go on there and wing it? Don’t answer. Rhetorical question.