With great fanfare (a press release within minutes), the House of Representatives passed a ‘campaign reform’ package yesterday. The key bill is HB 300(Gilligan), which seeks to undo some of the incalculable damage of the Citizens United decision. The Roves and Koch Brothers (and Rodel) will still be able to dump huge sums of money if they’d like, but HB 300 would require more transparency about who is behind those anonymous ads. Which is why not a single Rethuglican voted for it. Bill passed on a strict 24-13 party line vote. Not surprising since, without a bottomless pit of anonymous right-wing dollars, the Rethugs are not competitive any more, not with their loco right-wing teabaggers driving the lopsided bus (subtle Steinbeck reference), and they know it. And you know, sometimes the terminally-loquacious Greg Lavelle should just shut up:
Lavelle called Gilligan’s reasoning un-American.”You’re talking about intentionally limiting political speech,” he said. “It’s very troubling that we are going to decide who can speak when.”
No you’re not. You’re merely requiring whoever is speaking to own up to the fact that they’re doing the speaking and that they’re paying for it. C’mon, Monsignor, show me where in this bill anybody is prohibited from speaking. All the bill does is to try to let the public know, and know in a timely fashion, who is behind these shadow efforts paid for with big anonymous bucks. You and your Rethuglicans want to spend those Rovian millions while safely hiding them in the basement. Don’t bleat about democracy when the word that applies is hypocrisy.
While we’re at it, a question for the News-Journal: I know that you are facing financial (and quality) constraints, but has the paper’s collective Rolodex been reduced to one cell phone number? “Boss, a woman has just crushed three kittens with her bare hands, what should we do?” “Quick, find out what Lavelle thinks! He’s at the desk right next to yours.” Uh, just because someone is an Attention Whore doesn’t mean that he should be quoted in virtually every local story. I know that you’re close to being beyond embarrassment, but don’t you think you should be a little less, what’s the word, blatant, in demonstrating your paucity of sources and lack of reportorial diligence?
The other campaign finance bill passed yesterday, HB 310(Longhurst), strikes me as overkill. While I agree that penalties should be increased for filing tardy or incomplete campaign finance reports (they’re currently so low as to be ineffectual), this bill goes too far, IMHO. My experience teaches me that the campaigns most likely to be hit by these new penalties are the ‘kitchen table’ campaigns. In other words, it will hit the candidates least able to afford the sanctions. Of course, if the intent is to drive these so-called ‘nuisance candidates’ from the political arena by those legislators who may well have to face these ‘nuisance candidates’, then perhaps the bill will accomplish its true purpose.
The House also passed SS1/SB 151(Peterson), which would “require that operators of video lottery facilities…use data provided by the Division of Child Support Enforcement to identify large video lottery prize winners having outstanding child support debts. Once identified, such prizes would be used to pay child support debts.” Let the record show that 9 R’s, the usual downstate suspects at that, opposed having child support delinquents cough up any money they may have won while pissing away whatever’s left in their wallets at the racinos. By coincidence, pretty much the same suspects who don’t have the cojones to stand up to the Sheriff of Nuttingham. Here’s the roll call.
For the completists, here’s yesterday’s Session Activity Report.
Serious committee day on tap today as committee days dwindle down to a precious few.
This may finally be ‘Don’t Support Your Local Sheriff’ Week in Dover. HB 325(Schwartzkopf) will likely be fast-tracked to compensate for Sussex R cowardice. The bill, that would make clear that Jeff Christopher really isn’t The Law in Sussex County, will be considered in today’s House Administration Committee. It will be released for a floor vote, with or without the support of former sponsor Dan Short. It will almost assuredly pass on Thursday, with or without the support of the cowards in the Sussex County Rethuglican delegation.
Ah, but there’s so much more going on in House committees today. Here are the highlights, at least according to me:
HB 211(Scott): Requires that admission to vo-tech high schools be done by lottery. Hmmm, wonder what this is all about. Hey, if it’s good enough for vo-tech, why shouldn’t it be good enough for charters? Oh, that’s right, charters would still need a mechanism to ensure resegregation at their most ‘prestigious’ schools. In the House Education Committee.
HB 317(Schooley): Requires a ‘learning readiness’ tool be in place to determine whether students are ready for kindergarten. House Education Committee.
HB 296(Bolden): Establishes a ‘comprehensive system of support resources and services that directly targets the runaway and homeless youth population’. In House Health & Human Services Committee.
HB 299(Ramone): Requires Delaware students to learn CPR to be granted a high school diploma from a Delaware high school. Not saying that learning CPR is not important, but requiring it in order to graduate high school? Red Cross training, of course, but high school? In House Health & Human Services Committee.
HB 311(Barbieri): One of Delaware’s best legislators continues his quiet, yet effective, work on mental health issues. This bill “significantly updates the laws under which a person can be held involuntarily for up to 24 hours for a mental health evaluation. In place of the current system where a person is transported in handcuffs by police to a hospital emergency department, the bill allows a psychiatrist or credentialed mental health screener to evaluate a person anywhere and then transport that person to the most appropriate location for evaluation or treatment in the most appropriate and least restrictive manner.” In House Health & Human Services Committee.
SB 185(DeLuca): Gov. Markell’s lobbyist reform legislation, which just passed in the Senate last week, is being fast-tracked in the House. Look for it on tomorrow’s agenda. In today’s House Administration Committee.
HB 308(Scott): Makes it unlawful for employers to mandate that an employee or applicant disclose password or account information that would grant the employer access the employee’s or applicant’s social networking profile or account. This Bill also prohibits employers from requesting that employees or applicants log onto their respective social networking site profiles or account to provide the employer direct access. An excellent bill. Just how pathetic is it that employers have actually stooped to snooping into these social networking sites? In House Telecommunication Internet & Technology Committee.
Here’s today’s House Committee meeting schedule.
And, over on the Senate side…:
SB 290(Peterson): Ensures that a correctional institution does not use restraints on a pregnant prisoner except under very limited circumstances. Senate Adult & Juvenile Corrections Committee.
The Senate Executive Committee will consider the nomination of Mark Murphy for Secretary of Education. Wonder if there’s been enough time to effectively vet this nomination? Seems kinda rushed to me. REAL rushed, in fact. One would think that all of the public education stakeholders might have some questions for the nominee, and maybe even a senator or two could be roused from their torpor to pose a meaningful query.
SB 161(Lawson) and HB 277(Heffernan): Two dueling bills pertaining to home invasion. AKA ‘Tough and Tougher’. Both bills would create the new offense of ‘home invasion’. Neither is needed for law enforcement purposes, there are literally hundreds of offenses on the books to address the elements contained in the ‘new crime’ of home invasion. Regardless, whichever bill passes, most likely HB 277, will be prominently featured in election brochures from one end of the state to the other. In Senate Judiciary Committee.
SB 209(Ennis): “Provides an important tool for combating obstruction of justice by those who would purposely make false statements to law-enforcement during criminal investigations”, by “allowing for the prosecution of one who intends to obstruct a criminal investigation by knowingly providing a false and material statement to law-enforcement.” Anyone who speaks Attorney Generalese, please feel free to translate that into intelligible English for me. In Senate Public Safety Committee.
There is also a Senate agenda today and, other than a charter change for Frankford, the other items previously passed the House unanimously, and should face little opposition in the Senate.
In ‘honor’ of the News-Journal:
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