Legislative Priorities
We know who the players are, but what are the plays? What legislation do we want to see moved this term? Can Andria L. Bennett keep a family tradition alive by adding an extra $50.00 in fines to crimes perpetrated against old people and veterans?
With Pete Schwarzkopf in as Speaker I am hopeful that marriage equality might actually be on the agenda in January.
Marriage equality seems so 2009 to me. Hasn’t that been tackled?
Here are a few that would be a good starting place:
1. Nondiscrimination protection extended to include gender identity and expression
2. Marriage equality
3. Death penalty repeal
4. Resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the notion of corporate personhood and money as speech, and laws in Delaware to require transparency and processes for corporate involvement in political campaigns
5. School board election process changed so that nominating district is same as voting district
6. Charter school reform that at minimum adds accountability, oversight, and coordination in planning
7. A reversal of RTTT test-focused education policy.
8. Adding in a requirement for health care practitioners to talk to patients with terminal illness about palliative care and end-of-life options
9. Something to be done about pay for early childhood educators
10. Licensing for Naturopathic Doctors
11. Enable undocumented immigrants in Delaware to have access to in-state tuition and financial aid at Delaware state colleges and universities
12. Create a non-partisan independent redistricting process for the future
13. Allow same-day registration/voting and no-excuse absentee voting
14. Get us an initiative and referendum procedure
I want to see a minimum wage increase.
Last time, it was pronounced as ‘not a priority’ of the Markell administration. Hopefully, it will be different this time.
With Schwartzkopf and Longhurst in control, there had better be some kind of tenants’ rights legislation enacted.
How about we require companies the size of Walmart to pay a living wage to employees?
5. School board election process changed so that nominating district is same as voting district
I’m not sure what this means. My district selects everyone at-large. Perhaps the process varies by district, so it would have to be done through the district charter or something…
10. Licensing for Naturopathic Doctors
Perhaps I’m crazy, but this seems like we could do this along with faith-healers and psychic surgery.
14. Get us an initiative and referendum procedure
Oh god, no. This is one of the prime reasons that people stood in line for up to 7 hours to vote in Florida. They had 11 lengthy constitutional amendments to work through to decide how they were going to vote.
Gay marriage doesnt have the votes in the Senate.
Regarding school board elections, at least her in Christina School District, school board members have “Nominating Districts” and have to be from that nominating district but everyone in the entire school district votes for all school board members.
So for example, Shirley Saffer was just re-elected from District G. Only people in District G could be nominated but then I got to vote even though I live outside District G but live in Christina School District.
We should either have an at-large system, a district system, or other innovative proposals that make sense would be fine, but I think the current system is ridiculous.
Maybe giving federal retirees the same break on their taxes as other retirees are getting? (HB 97 Military and Federal Civilian Retirees Exemption) (which would also be a small incentive to bring their disposable income here).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Like that one.
What complaints do you have with the current system? That a motivated group of voters in a different nominating district can select a person representing another nominating district?
In the at-large system, that issue is exacerbated because all of the SB members could come from the same highly motivated neighborhood. It hasn’t happened that way yet, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
At least in your current system (which I think has merit) a SB member has the motivation to represent their district because they will be directly influenced by the decisions of the board, but also the responsibility for all of the district as they are all constituents.
If you want an example of how crappy a district-level election works out, check the New Castle County Council. A developer wants to build a new mega-neighborhood in Middletown? No problem, there are only 3 votes on council that Middletown even has a say on (Prez and 2 councilmen that serve the area) the other 10 can do as they please and often do. Why should a councilman with almost no undeveloped land give a damn about farmland in Odessa being changed into high-density taxpayer dwellings?
geek–it actually does happen that people on other nominating districts choose the school board representatives for those districts. It happens in Red Clay and Christina all the time vis a vis the city districts, who are always heavily outvoted by the suburban districts.
Maybe that is why there is no public non-charter high school in Wilmington?
(also open to other interpretations on why that is)
Ezra,
One other interpretation is purely mathematical.
Public school enrollment in New Castle County was considerably higher in 1978, when deseg began, than it is now. The most significant population growth in NCCo in the last 30 years has occurred below the canal. The only new public high schools built in New Castle County in the last 30 years have been built below the canal — Appoquinimink and St. Georges Tech.
There are plenty of logical reasons why there should be a public high school within Wilmington’s borders, but the districts that serve kids who live in the city have sufficient capacity in their high schools now, and it’s not likely any of the school boards would suggest tearing down an adequate facility in order to build a new one inside the city.
Wilmington High School was around not too long ago (13 years?). I understand that the space is fully occupied now by Charter and Cab, but what was the reason that school was phased out? I was in the WHS building for high school and I think their last class was about the year before I started there (1998-1999).
I would like to see jobs that that pay better, rather than trying to raise the wage for jobs that are, at best, semi-skilled jobs. It seems to me that the path to higher wages are industries that require a higher skilled workforce, thereby creating demand and resulting in higher wages. Knowledge work such as information technology, software development, and many other types of work require nothing more than high quality broadband, a good computer and place to set it. These jobs can and are being done remotely. Telework reduces infrastructure costs, traffic, and many other costs.
If you artificially raise wages for unskilled or semi-skilled work to the point that the wages are not conmensurate with the knowledge, skills and abilities required, those jobs will eventually go away. Wal Mart People Greeters are an example of jobs that have or are disappearing. Making an average of $10.45 an hour for greeting folks and giving them a shopping cart, it’s an example of a job that just disappears when a company needs to cut costs.
10. Licensing naturopaths. Why? Who?
It always surprises me that the same people working to challenge, say, school testing, can buy the allopathic medical establishments fancy maneuvers to cut down on competition. You can be a “Certified hypnotherapist” without state testing. However, you need extensive and specific certification to be a massage therapist. Physician assistants were first created 40 years ago, weren’t in degree programs until the 1990’s, and yet nurses, who had their own program at Yale in 1923, still can’t prescribe.
There isn’t a thing about these ‘certifications” that’s about patient care… it’s all about saving money for the people who have it.
And nurses should not prescribe, not until they take the additional coursework and training required to be a PA or Nurse Practitioner.
Naturopaths are fine as long as they are adjuncts and not replacements to traditional therapy. Physicians are nowadays very willing to send patients to naturopaths, as long as the therapy does not interrupt or conflict with the traditional therapy, or is seen as competing with it. Even if only for the placebo effect, physicians would rather their patients be happier. But physicans will feel much more comfortable sending patients to a certified naturopath for adjunct therapy. Then at least they would have some confidence in what their patient was getting there.
@hereagain: Licensing seems to be the prerequisite to be able to have insurance cover ND visits. I would prefer to go to an ND as my PCP but I would also prefer to not be broke.
Puck, there were women with master’s degrees in nursing while PA’s were just jumped up corpsmen. Many nurses have years of advanced training… more than sufficient to prescribe.And if you don’t trust nurses, stay out of the hospital.
Ezra, insurance doesn’t cover many types of midwifery care, either. As I said, it’s just “restraint of trade” from the allopaths. I strongly suspect that even if licensure is created, many good ND’s won’t want it.
Make Public Transit a priority. With the cost of fuel and other operation costs rising DART’s budget has not seen any sort of significant increase in several years
” there were women with master’s degrees in nursing while PA’s were just jumped up corpsmen. ”
As long as it’s an NP masters degree, that’s fine with me, because that provides the required training for prescribing.
There are still RNs out there with 2-year degrees, and even a few grandfathered “diploma nurses” without any degree. That’s fine for most nursing care, just not for prescribing.
People should not belittle the qualifications of a Corpsman in the medical field. Depending how many years they have in the military they come out highly qualified to be a PA. Depending where they are based they are the doctor and nurse and any other medical person for their unit or in my case a submarine.
“Colloidal Silver” is a good reason to want some basic level of competence for alternative medical practitioners. Zero health benefit and it turns people blue for life. Literally blue-skinned, like smurfs, no cure, completely permanent, although not actually dangerous. If you can suggest an alternative way of ensuring that naturopathy won’t turn my skin blue, or some other unintended consequence of a general refusal to believe in documented science, I’m all ears. And I say this as a person with a strong desire to see accupuncture (which has documented success) covered by health insurance as an available alternative course of treatment.
Yiu know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
Thank you, Jason.
I don’t want to see aromatherapy covered by insurance as it has no proven value. I also don’t want to see many homeopathic “remedies” covered for the very same reason.