General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up For June 15 & 16
Unless they’re corporate giveaways or tax breaks for the ‘financial services industry’, bills can run into trouble this time of year. Especially if (a) they cause turf wars or alleged turf wars between different state agencies; or if (b) they pose a threat to the Delaware Way.
Hence, HB 75(Schwartzkopf), which would have put an end to ‘double-dipping’ for state legislators, is at best on life support. The reason? The News-Journal reports that:
…some lawmakers have privately grumbled that scrutiny of DeLuca and Booth’s jobs is hurting their chances to jockey for a second paycheck from taxpayers. “We have a lot of people who are out of work and they would like to apply for a job,” said Rep. Earl Jaques, D-Glasgow. “We have an open and free society where people should have the right to apply for a job.”
Try to wrap your heads around that Jaques quote for a second. If indeed ‘people…are out of work and they would like to apply for a job”, wouldn’t it be fairer if some legislator who already has a job doesn’t step in front of them and take that job away?
Bottom line is that legislators still want to be able to double-dip at the taxpayers’ expense. Another great excerpt from the story:
Jaques and five other Democratic representatives pulled their support of the bill Tuesday citing concerns about excluding legislators from getting part-time work as adjunct professors at the University of Delaware or school bus drivers or athletics coaches at public school districts.
I’m sorry. If this reasonable attempt to rein in the worst of the Delaware Way is being undercut, constituents should no longer even think that the ‘Honorables’ can be shamed into doing the right thing. If this can’t be done in the aftermath of Tiny Tony DeLuca’s blatant manipulations, it can’t be done, period. The dirty little secret is that many legislators serve in the General Assembly precisely so that they can use the system for their own selfish motives, and this bill would significantly reduce their opportunities to do so. I’m especially disappointed that some of our better legislators, Mike Barbieri, J. J. Johnson, and John Kowalko, withdrew their support. Memo to all of them: Once you start carving out exceptions to this policy, no matter how well-intentioned you believe them to be, you effectively neuter the legislation. Please reconsider your reconsideration.
The Delaware Way is also visible in the roadblock that has detoured the expected coronation of HB 168(Keeley). HB 168 would strengthen penalties for DUI offenses. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for taking all the time necessary to get this bill right. Bills introduced this late in session should generally have more scrutiny, because ill-considered legislation can often be rushed through with the attendant unanticipated consequences. However, the reason the bill has run into trouble is because of a turf dispute between the Justice of the Peace courts and the Court of Common Pleas:
But a provision that would reduce the JP Courts’ role in handling DUI cases drew strong objections from Chief Magistrate Alan Davis.
“This was presented as a fait accompli,” Davis said. “This is not a consensus bill. I take offense to it.”
Chief Deputy Attorney General Charlie Butler lamented that the debate had “started to take on more of a personal air.””We’re not saying we don’t like JP Court,” Butler said, but that it doesn’t make sense to allow a defendant to be tried in two courts for the same offense.
The real issue with the bill is that its fiscal impact might require additional funding for prison beds, something not considered during the budget deliberations. It’s probably best that this bill returns in January, at which point the food fight started by the Chief Magistrate might have been cleaned up.
Meanwhile, legislation to clear the way for the Bloom Energy fuel cells project in Newark raced through the Senate yesterday. While some expressed concerns about broadening the renewable portfolio standard, the overriding raison d’etre for the bill is jobsjobsjobs. Delaware’s resident go-to guy for all-things-environmental, Tommywonk, provides his well-balanced critique (must-reading, as always), and ultimately gives the bill a cautious thumbs-up:
Deployment of the Bloom Energy Servers will have benefits for the environment and the grid. To the extent that these fuel cells replace coal generation (which provides about one half of our electricity) they will contribute to reductions in air emissions. Bloom Energy’s fuel cells are reportedly more efficient than conventional natural gas turbines, and their ability to be located onsite enhances their efficiency by eliminating the loss of power over transmission lines. By providing distributed baseload power, this technology will alleviate congestion on the grid and reduce our reliance on out of state power. In considering the tradeoffs, I have concluded that the benefits are worth the stretching of the RPS in this case.
One last major story before we get into the two-day look at legislative action, suh-prize, suh-prize, it looks like state revenue projections have been reduced by $20 mill or so. This, of course, has led to the inevitable hand-wringing over what must be cut. Might I point out that, in light of earlier, more rosy, surplus projections, Jack Markell pushed to cut Delaware’s top personal income tax rate, which would result in a $13 million cut in state revenues. Why in hell isn’t anyone, ANYone, even suggesting that this sop to the rich be taken out of the equation this year? It’s gonna expire next year anyway, so why the rush to hand them some more unearned cash this year? Don’t answer. Rhetorical question. The game’s fixed.
Two notable bills passed the Senate during Wednesday’s truncated session. SB 98(Bushweller), which would require that vaccinations, health screenings and children’s wellness visits be covered for all new health plans starting with plan years beginning on or after Sept. 23, 2010, passed unanimously and heads to the House. SS1/SB 56(Blevins), which ‘require(s) insurers administering CHIP buy-in programs in other states to cause similar buy-in programs to be offered in Delaware if they should engage in specified transactions or affiliations with Delaware health service corporations’ passed the Senate unanimously after returning from the house in an amended form. The bill now heads to the Governor for his signature.
Both houses were busy on Thursday. If this were January instead of June, and if this column wasn’t long-winded enough already, I’d likely have at least something to say about the following bills that the Senate passed in particular: SB 64(McBride), SB 89(Katz), SB 117(Bunting), and SB 125(McDowell). I encourage all of you to be my surrogates here and provide your insights. I simply can’t let the unanimous Senate passage of HB 105(Viola) go without comment. I warned the Honorables, but they went ahead with this anyway. I urge the Governor to sign this bill. Why? Because I suspect that some day it will bite some of the Honorables big time. And I don’t ever want to run out of material.
Some notable and many not-so-notable bills in the House.
Let us first have a moment of silence for the latest, and perhaps last, incarnation of Rep. Gerald Brady’s speed camera/monitor bill. HS1/HB66 was defeated in the House yesterday, 15 Y’s, 15 N’s, 7 not votings, and 4 absent. His latest attempt to rescue his concept of speed cameras/monitors in school zones/construction areas had been reduced to creating pilot programs in Wilmington and Dover within school zones. The House had had enough. Me, I can’t get enough of this. One note on the roll call. Legislators often go ‘Not Voting’ if they’re reluctant to take a stand on an issue. In this case, however, I suspect that the large number of NV’s grew out of a desire not to further embarrass the sponsor. A noble sentiment, but both the legislation and the legislator are embarrassments enough.
Glad to see that HB 145(George) sailed through unanimously. It represents incremental improvement (IMHO) in how expungements are handled.But it’s progress nevertheless, and you can’t spell progressive without ‘progress’.
There has been some controversy on the DL board concerning SB 79(Bunting), which would ‘eliminate(s) the requirement that the Sussex County Administrator be a Sussex County resident at the time of his appointment.’ For the life of me, I don’t understand the controversy. SB 79 requires that the Sussex County Administrator be a county resident by the time he/she starts the job. If you lived in Sussex County, why wouldn’t you want the best-qualified candidate, regardless of where they currently reside? Should be a moot point now, as SB 79 passed the House, attracting only one ‘no’ vote (Atkins, of course) along the way. It now heads to the Governor. Seeing as how the new DELDOT secretary was not a Delaware resident when approved by the Senate, I doubt that Gov. Markell will veto this. So, it’s a win-win. Sussex County presumably gets a well-qualified candidate, and whatever crony Millsboro’s most infamous law-abiding citizen was pushing gets left out.
As I wrote a couple of days ago, I still have my doubts about HB 180(Mulrooney), but legislators rarely delve deeply into stuff like this lest their stuff be delved deeply into as well. (Memo to the Grammar Police: I know that last sentence must violate all kinds of rules, but I don’t know how to fix it. Feel free to let me know how it should read.)
No more delving for me today. I’m all delved out. I’ll endelvor to do better on Tuesday.
While I certainly support SB 98-“Two notable bills passed the Senate during Wednesday’s truncated session. SB 98(Bushweller), which would require that vaccinations, health screenings and children’s wellness visits be covered for all new health plans starting with plan years beginning on or after Sept. 23, 2010, passed unanimously and heads to the House.”, it is not as gorundbreaking as El Somnambulo makes it appear. The requirements to cover vaccinations, health screenings and children’s wellness visits is a part of the national health reform law. The purposed of SB 98 is to make the same requirements part of Delaware Law so that the Department of Insurance will have jurisdiction to enforce the requirements. The reason the Bill makes the coverage effective September 23, 2010 is because that was the effective date under the federal health reform law AND because I wrote that legislation before the end of the last session. It was not brought to committee in 2010. The Department of Insurance merely re-submitted the Bill I wrote in early 2010 without bothering to change the effective date. The unfortunate problem with giving the DOI jurisdiction is that the current administration seems to have a problemenforcing CURRENT laws when insurance companies have violated them. Case in point-it was APRIL that the DOI announced BCBSD has violated Delaware law by contracting with MedSolutions to handle pre-authorizations of tests ( cardiac stress tests was one) and MedSolutions was to be paid based on the percentage of denials! KWS said she was angry and didn’t know if BCBSD was going to be fined. Here we are two months later-no fine!
Its sad HB75 doesn’t have the votes. And the reason given (part time job opportunities) is a complete joke.
Legislators already get paid pretty well with a obscene pension to boot. I thik you can wait 2 years before taking that alleged bus driving job. Speaking engagements at a college? Boo- f-ing Hoo. Go speak at a private college, we do have them ya know.
Stop making excuses and do the right thing. Keep the likes of DeLuca and Booth from getting magical jobs in the future.
Disgusting.
I have been having an ongoing debate with Mike Barbieri about this legislation, and although I disagree with him taking his name off this bill, I have an understanding of his reasoning. I think he believes this legislation is a knee jerk reaction that does not address the real problem. The real problem is the agency’s that hire unqualified people, and the unqualified and unethical legislators that accept these positions. So, instead of taking the easy way out he would like to see a process of hiring that includes real transparency and accountability and is monitored through an outside commission. Mike is an honorable man who works hard as a legislator and works hard at his own business. I’m going to wait to see what he proposes in terms of amendments to this bill before I rush to judgment.
Thank you, AQC. It’s nice to hear a rational discussion about this bill. I’m afraid many liberals are speaking like conservatives on this issue– taking a large paint brush and and painting each situation the same color.
Like many other issues, it’s not simply black or white. Certainly, agencies hiring unqualified individuals for positions is ethically wrong and should be dealt with.
However, it’s up to those agencies to take the most qualified applicant. What if that applicant happens to be a member of the General Assembly? Who knows state government operations better than a member of the General Assembly?
This issue should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. No individual, clearly knowledgeable in the field of state operations, should be disqualified from a position.
Don’t get me wrong, legislation like this is needed. I just don’t feel it should be treated like a black or white issue.
“What if that applicant happens to be a member of the General Assembly? Who knows state government operations better than a member of the General Assembly?”
Dreadful reason. Who would know how to take advantage of double employment better than a member of the General Assembly?
You’re just wrong. It’s black and white. If the person wants the full-time job, resign the legislature. They show every day that it takes no expertise at all for that job.
Mitch, why dontcha go ahead and declare your primary against KWS already! Transparency and politicking are good bedfellows.
As for Senate Bill # 64 w/SA 2, I was in the balcony for that discussion. This looks like a good government bill (also see SB 126) that allows for stakeholders and agencies to work hand-in-hand to proactively get in front of what have been long-standing and expensive, very expensive, unintended consequences of rampant development in DE. Recent floodplain-drainage remedy for problems have a 60 million dollar state price tag alone. It looks like the state is determined to curtail (with lots of public buy-in) the huge expenses they’ve suffered lately from local land use decisions.
I missed the discussion on SB 117 but like the concept.
As for McDowell’s SB125, I came in late to the committee when it was being worked and there stood Paul Clark. I had to wonder why he wanted to have a front and center seat on this one. There are very strong rumors floating through leg hall that Pam Scott is still a Saul Ewing employee, counter to what Clark has declared to the press –she supposedly dropped her Delaware clients and now has a handful of Saul’s clients out of state. Saul has the county bond business. Just wondering if there was some connection there…..
While I don’t know Mitch Crane, I for one would welcome a qualified person primarying KWS. At least there’d be one qualified person in the race. He’s also right that SB 98 brings Delaware into conformity with Federal law. However, with teabaggers in control of many states, bringing Delaware into conformity with (what I believe to be) good public policy is more than negligible.
Mike Barbieri is a superb legislator, but he’s naive if he thinks that what he’d like to see happen has any chance of happening under the current set-up. When you’re dealing with a bunch of unethical greedy whores, you have to think like them. THEY think like them and THEY act like them. Mike–try to think like them and then do what they don’t want you to do. We’ve got your back.
Despite my shot at KWS, I thank Nancy for her perspective on the bills. I, too, have a funny feeling about SB 125, although I doubt that McDowell is pushing Clark’s agenda here. It could simply be where the stars align.
I didn’t enter a judgement about Crane running or not, just declare already what everyone knows he’s planning on if he’s going to come and take pot shots.
And no, I didn’t mean to imply that 125 is carrying any water for anyone but McDowell and his SEU.
FWIW, I checked out the Fiscal Note on SB 125, and it’d be a loss in state revenue of $33,000 for FY 2013. So, whatever its purpose is, we’re talking small potatoes.
Thanks for your comments, Nancy. If I were being coy, I would not have posted using my real name. I did not intend to take “pot shots” at KWS, just pointing out facts about a department I care about. I worked at the DOI for 4 years. Matt Denn hired me as regulatory counsel. Karen added responsibility as acting director of conusmer services and for writing her legislation. I didn’t stop caring when I left in January. I can’t help but be concerned that this bill is the only one of 8 consumer bills I prepared that has even been filed!
When and if I make a decision to seek another political office, I will file paperwork and certainly inform my friends at Delaware Liberal.
Besides which, there are plenty of people taking “potshots” at KWS (earned and unearned) who clearly aren’t running to replace her, so it isn’t as though a declared candidacy is a prerequisite.
I don’t know Mitch either, but if you run, I would like to meet you. If you appear to have an IQ over 70, don’t lie every time you talk, are not totally narcissitic and have actually held a job I will work for your campaign!
House Bill 75 should pass. We must put pressure on all of our legislators to get it moving again.
No legislator should accept a paying job as a state employee after being elected. It is insulting to tell us that they cannot live on a legislator’s salary when it’s more than many teacher’s salaries. In addition, it’s ludicrous to tell us that the hiring process is fair when a legislator is hired.
We should not give up on this.
Jim
I would like to meet Mitch and give him a check immediately if he is willing to run against Karen Weldin Stewart.
As Delaware’s elected Insurance Commissioner KWS has turned out to be more of an embarrassment to our state than one could have previously imagined.
There is more information on the corrupt practices of Karen Weldin Stewart, her boy Elliott Jacobson and her Staff leaking out of her department every day. The ramifications are enormous if even some of the information is true.
Give us a break, anon. There is more RUMOR, not more information. If you had anything on her she’d already be under investigation. She is not. Take it to the feds and shut up already.
AQC: You’ve fallen for one of the classic blunders. This bill of Gilligan’s and Schwartkopf’s is nothing but an attempt to steal the thunder of the Republicans, who were preparing a similar bill of their own, and to kill the whole idea under the weight of these bogus “concerns” about “fairness.” This is kabuki theater, and it’s going to backfire on the Democrats in a major way. All Republicans will vote for the bill, all or almost all Democrats will vote against it, and the GOP will run against the whole Democratic Party on the issue.
It’s great to see that KWS’s peanut gallery hasn’t lost any of their humor. That is what you practice, isn’t it, Nancy, some sort of warped humor and support for the D version of COD?
Oh, and three cheers to Kowalko for dropping his support for HB 75. Great progressive move there, John.
was that sarcasm?
Nancy: She never said she was resigning from the firm. She said she wouldn’t handle land-use cases anymore, and even then I’m assuming she meant only those in New Castle County.
Forgive me for speaking for MJ, but yes, that was sarcasm. I already gave Kowalko an earful about it, but he stuck to the party line — essentially what Barbieri told AQC, nearly word-for-word.
Why don’t they exclude currently serving legislators? Then they can keep their own sleazy doors open but at least give the constituents some hope for a better future.
Nancy: She never said she was resigning from the firm. She said she wouldn’t handle land-use cases anymore, and even then I’m assuming she meant only those in New Castle County.
That’s a big fail, Geezer, ol’ chum.
From The News Journal (story archived at http://www.bobweiner.com/news.asp?NewsID=459): “… Scott announced Friday she would be leaving the law firm of Saul Ewing, effective March 31 …”
And Nancy: She is no longer listed on SE’s website.
I stand corrected. But if she’s still at the firm, so what? I thought the problem was her land-use practice. Who cares if she’s doing something else there as long as it doesn’t bring her before the county?
*If* she said she’s resigning and is still working there, then it’s a problem because she lied. Plus, Saul Ewing is still the county’s bond counsel, IIRC.
But no one’s suggesting that she’s still working there, except Nancy. And the publicly available evidence (i.e., her name scrubbed from the online list of attorneys) seems to contradict the claims of the Paul Clark-obsessed character in the corner.
I’m not going to lose any sleep over either her or her husband. They’re not going to suffer financially. She’s a damn attorney, for pete’s sake, and could hire on with any of a dozen other law firms, or hang out her own shingle. The Clark-Scott family is not going to starve because she had to stop representing developers.
Hi there ‘from the corner’ to the anony besmirched person — I got the information from a member of the General Assembly who got it directly from Saul Ewing employees. Pam Scott also did show up at a recent NCC Historic Review Board hearing for La Grange property and mumbled responses from her seat in the audience….just saying.
What is still salient is to note that one of Executive Clark’s most problematic conflicts with his wife’s remaining at Saul was the fact that for years and years, Saul Ewing has been named to work the NCC bond business –which enriches the company far more than any one land use account, one would imagine. That Clark was in leg hall last week to lobby for the new tax-free bond arrangement a la McDowell was understandable because he is going to be running some of those bonds. If Saul continues to be the company who handles the bonds and Pam is still working Saul clients –albeit out of state clients— are she and her husband still then being enriched via that arrangement?
It is a fair question.
If you take a look at the NCC notices in yesterday’s News Journal, there is a bill (11-067) set to be heard at the June 28th plenary session ‘Authorizing the issuance of revenue bonds (Provident Group NCC Properties LLC Project) on a tax-exepmt and or taxable basis in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $6.5 million”.
It is all above my paygrade as to whether this is a Saul-Scott-Clark affair – I am just the cluck mentioning the possibility from what information has been shared with me from people I trust.
FWIW, I checked with my environmental go-to guy, who is most likely your environmental go-to guy, and he said that SB 125 makes public policy sense to him.
So, we should remove Sen. McDowell from those chafing for a good conspiracy theory here.
“*If* she said she’s resigning and is still working there, then it’s a problem because she lied.”
Oh, please. She lied half the times she opened her mouth in public, and was a nasty asshole on top. If she lied about this, it doesn’t make her Top 1,000 Lies Told list.
As for the bond business, please again. There are only so many law firms in Delaware, and not a single one is free of political connections and influence. Usually it runs from the law firms to government agencies, not the other way around. Did the county switch to Saul Ewing under Clark? If so, you might have a point. Otherwise what you’re asking for is a government free of lawyers.
There are enough actual conspiracies out there that we don’t need to be finding more in the shadows.
Geezer –
I see it as more of a problem for him than for her. Her resignation was the final firewall they decided upon after the first “firewall” was laughed at. If she’s still working for Saul Ewing – and keep in mind there is NO EVIDENCE to that effect except hints and anonymous rumors from Delaware’s Most Unreliable Blogger, who holds a B.S. in Copy And Paste – then that’s a big problem for Paul Clark.
Nancy, if you or anyone else, especially a member of the GA, has hard evidence that says Pam Scott is still working for Saul Ewing, then produce it. We’ll be happy to look at it. Otherwise, shut up already! Jesus.
He’s hopelessly compromised already, and he should be renting, not buying, his office furniture. Most people of any party would vote for JoJo the Dog-Faced Boy before Paul Clark.
In theory, I agree. But who’s going to run against him? I hardly see Tom Kovach being able to mount any sort of a campaign – it won’t be a special election, after all.
Maybe James Baker will mount a Democratic primary challenge! That would be rich.
@anon 2:43pm–
I’d actually vote for Baker (who is personally an asshole and politically a wannabe emperor) before I’d vote for Clark. They’re both corrupt Delaware Democrats. Baker is a horse’s ass. Clark is a horse’s anus. I vote for ass vs. anus.
given the party registration balance in NCC and the sheep like behavior of the Dem voters… if Clark is on the ballot as a D, he wins re-election.
Anon40: Nicely put.