General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., June 7, 2012

Campaign finance reform passed the Senate yesterday, and heads to the Governor. My sophisticated analysis can be summed up as follows: HB 300(Gilligan), good. HB 310(Longhurst), bad, but nowhere near as important as HB 300. It’s really kinda like a hitchhiker, with 300 driving the car. And so insubstantial that 300 probably wouldn’t ask for gas money.

Kids, if you’re as alarmed at that last paragraph as I am, you can do something about it. I fear that I am in the early stages of TAS (Tortured Analogy Syndrome). I may well need a return stay at the Homey D Clown Institute at the University of Iowa Creative Writers Workshop. While initially exclusively devoted to treating Third Person Withdrawal Syndrome, (examples of their therapeutic techniques can be found here, and here), the creative team in Iowa City has expanded its pharmaceutical rehabilitative palette to include experimental treatment of TAS. As you can imagine, such treatment costs money, lots of money. So, if you’re a lobbyist and can’t stand what I write about you, please pony up to fund my exile to the Home of the Hawkeyes. You never know, I might, might, never come back. Surely a $600 investment on behalf of each of your clients isn’t too much to ask…you know where to find me.

Now back to this column, already mired in tortured…torture stuff. Speaking of which, SB 211(Blevins), which adds tethering a dog for 18 hours or more to the definition of cruelty to animals, passed the Senate. I’d like to tell you that the vote was unanimous, but four senators do not believe that tethering a dog for at least 18 hours a day constitutes cruelty. Uh, you know where I’m going with this, right? If we can propose bringing back the whipping post, then surely we can propose tethering an ignorant legislator for 18 hours. With a bottle of hooch and/or a hooker just out of reach.

Here’s the complete session activity report for Wednesday.

It’s Payday Loan Day in the Senate. Make no mistake. If this bill is to be defeated, which would be really unfortunate, it will be defeated because so-called Democratic senators don’t vote for it. Here’s what I wrote back when the House considered the bill:

Helene Keeley’s payday loans bill, HB 289, is on today’s House Agenda. It deserves passage because it will lead to the accumulation of data that will prove what we already know: That this is a predatory industry that feeds off of the most desperate among us. The bill would also limit to five the number of payday loans any customer may take out annually, which is a key piece in putting an end to month-to-month dependency that leads to 500% annual interest payments. Relentless lobbying has jettisoned an interest rate cap from the bill, which is unconscionable. But whores like uber-lobbyist David Swayze have no conscience and neither do most legislators, so it’s not unexpected. Something I’ve never understood is how people like David Swayze, in other words, people not hard up for bucks, can look themselves in the mirror when, day after day, they represent clients who succeed only by screwing the population at large. I mean, Swayze and his (ilk alert) ilk don’t need the money, so do they just like oppressing the masses? I’ve never figured out that pathology, but I’m open to suggestions. But, enough: OK, D’s you have a chance to redeem yourselves, if only momentarily. Pass this bleeping bill, willya? Maybe the Governor will take a brave stand on its behalf at some point yet to be determined.

Today’s Senate Agenda also features SB 214(Bunting), which mandates that schools provide a minimum of 150 minutes a week (30 minutes a day) of moderate to vigorous physical activity weekly for all K-5 public school students. Are there really schools that are not providing this? Whatever happened to gym? Or recess?

The House Agenda for today is Hee-UGE, but it’s a little misleading. You will often see agendas this large as we get into June, but they basically provide fair notice as to what bills will be considered. I expect the House to work off of this agenda for at least a couple of days, and you will see other bills added to it as we go along. This will likely be the modus operandi until the last week of session, when you’ll see several different agendas posted and then, ultimately, you won’t see the ‘must-lists’ of legislation, where legislators list their priorities. And, since many of those ‘must-list’ bills get worked under suspension of rules (like, for example, not requiring a bill to be considered in committee), that’s where lobbyists earn their money and the public gets screwed. You have been warned.

A really bad bill is on today’s House Agenda, a really really bad bill. HB 204(Scott) would, in essence, prevent the whistle-blowing that led to us finding out about the whitewash that Auditor Tom Wagner conducted on behalf of his political ally, Richard Cathcart. Because this proviso is buried in a bill that would otherwise make boilerplate changes to the office’s charter, Wagner hopes he can sneak it through. Memo to legislators: A simple amendment striking the offending section should suffice. Let’s see if anyone does the right thing here.

I support HB 305(Lavelle), as it clarifies what should have been the case all along: the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility is subject to state procurement laws.

Well, like sands through the hourglass returning to Capistrano every spring, I must…GET…HELP! Anyone know how to set up a tax-exempt charitable organization?