General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., April 24, 2013

Man, it feels great to be part of one of the preeminent political blogs in the entire country! The coverage, analysis, and response to consideration of HB 75, the Marriage Equality Bill, was crack cocaine for all of us political junkies. Thanks to Delaware Dem and everyone who added to the threads! The bill faces a less certain result in the Senate, where the votes of Cathy Cloutier, Bethany Hall-Long, and Ernesto Lopez will likely determine the result. If you are constituents of any of those senators, now is the time to contact them to encourage them to support HB 75. Be friendly, polite, and positive. Let them know that you'll have their backs if they have yours. For you legislative completists out there, here is yesterday's session activity report. As expected, HB 40(Keeley), which extends the Automatic Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program and the Office of Foreclosure Prevention for four more years, unanimously passed the Senate. Due to a technical amendment, the House will hold another vote before the bill heads to the Governor, no doubt by Thursday afternoon. Not everyday can be yesterday. But my work goes on.

A Townsend Sandwich.

.... at least in my twitter feed. If you care about Delaware, you must discriminate against gays. That is the message from the "traditional" marriage crowd. Contact the following Senators today: Senator Brian Bushweller Dover (302) 744-4162 E-mail Address(s): brian.bushweller@state.de.us Senator Cathy Cloutier (302) 744-4197 (302) 577-8517 (302) 478-9616 E-mail Address(s): catherine.cloutier@state.de.us Senator Bethany Hall Long Phone: (302) 744-4286 E-mail Address(s): bethany.hall-long@state.de.us Senator Bob Marshall Phone: (302) 744-4168 Phone: (302) 577-8519 E-mail Address(s): robert.marshall@state.de.us

Pregaming the Senate vote on Marriage Equality

Here were the Senate votes on SB 30, the Civil Union Bill, back in 2010. The lone Senate Republican voting in favor of Civil Unions, Liane Sorenson, retired. She was essentially replaced by Republican Ernie Lopez as her district moved south in redistricting. Lopez has indicated that he will vote no, and he really has to to placate his rabid and enraged Tea Party base who are still smarting over his votes for Death Penalty Repeal and for Background checks. Bunting retired, and was replaced by Senator Hocker, who has to be a no vote. Katz was defeated by Lavelle. I am not sure how "gettable" Lavelle is. He was considered gettable during the Death Penalty repeal and Background check votes. He voted no on both. So I think it will be wishful thinking to put him as an unknown vote. I am considering him a no. Deluca was replaced by Townsend. Senator Townsend has made past statements supportive of marriage equality, and he is a sponsor of the bill, so I am considering him a yes. All of the Senate no votes on Civil Unions are still in the Senate. I am going to assume that all those who voted no for Civil Unions will also vote no for gay marriage, and going on the less logical assumption that all yes votes for civil unions is also a yes vote for gay marriage. I will list as unknown those who who I think are up for grabs. So according to this chart, Marriage Equality has 11 votes, just enough for a majority. The no votes have 9. And one vote, that of Cathy Cloutier, is up for grabs. I would highly encourage everyone supportive of marriage equality in Delaware contact every single "yes" vote on that chart in addition to Cathy Cloutier. If Marriage is to be won in the Senate, it will be at best a 12-9 vote or a 11-10 vote. So every single yes vote needs to be shored up and Cloutier needs to hear it. Click here for their contact info. In terms of sponsors and co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate, Senators Blevins, Sokola, Henry, McDowell, Peterson, Poore, and Townsend all are sponsoring HB75. Thus, I would assume they are all solid yes votes. That leaves Bushweller, Hall Long, McBride, and Marshall as possibly shaky Dem yes votes. So they need to hear from us.

The Marriage Equality Vote in the House

Here it is in a nice chart form. Red for Republicans and Blue for Democrats. And yes, I colored Atkins red because in reality, he is a Republican. Has there been any partisan vote on a controversial issue this session where he has voted with the Democrats? No. Four Democrats, Earl Jaques, Charles Potter, Bill Carson and Trey Paradee all voted no with the Republicans. Only one Republican voted yes: Mike Ramone. He represents an upstate New Castle County district. Paradee and Carson's districts are downstate and more conservative, but not so conservative that they had to run scared and vote no just to stay in office since their Democratic colleagues in other Kent County districts voted yes. Likewise, Joe Miro and Debbie Hudson's districts are upstate and in New Castle County, and they voted no even though they may suffer electoral consequences given their districts. As did Democrats Earl Jaques and Charles Potter, both of whom are in safe liberal Democratic districts, and if I have anything to say about it, both will suffer electoral consequences due to this vote. The point of all this: this was not a vote that was given to district constituencies. This was a vote of personal principle. Those voting no are of the mind that equality is for me and not for thee. That makes them ill suited for office.

Tuesday Open Thread [4.23.13]

Of course we all know that our Democratic congressional delegation has for a long time assumed that Delaware was a more conservative state, or at least its residents possessed a more conservative politics, and hence there was a need always for a Democratic candidate to always always moderate their message and move to the right (and this applies more so to Carper and Carney, and less so to Coons). And now we have statistical proof of this phenomena. David Broockman and Christopher Skovron looked at legislators’s perceptions of their constituents and compare to estimates of the the actual issue attitudes of people living in their districts.
There is a striking conservative bias in politicians’ perceptions, particularly among conservatives: conservative politicians systematically believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are by over 20 percentage points, while liberal politicians also typically overestimate their constituents’ conservatism by several percentage points. A follow-up survey demonstrates that politicians appear to learn nothing from democratic campaigns or elections that leads them to correct these shortcomings. [...] These findings suggest a substantial conservative bias in American political representation and bleak prospects for constituency control of politicians when voters’ collective preferences are less than unambiguous.

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 23, 2013

One bill dominates the upcoming legislative week. Both because of its import and because of the relative dearth of other pieces of notable legislation. HB 75(Smith) would legalize gay marriage in Delaware. The bill is on today's House Agenda. I believe that the votes are there for House passage. The question is whether certain wavering legislators listen to their constituents and, in most cases, to their consciences. Or will they give in to the arguments of the religious absolutists? Here are some who were wavering. Please let me know if they've committed to support HB 75 since I first posted this:
Charles Potter, 1st RD: He has been a strong advocate for civil liberties, there are many marriage equality supporters in his north Wilmington district, but he has not yet taken a position; Deborah Hudson, 12th RD: She has generally been a moderate on social issues and, again, there are many marriage equality proponents in her Chateau Country district; John Mitchell, 13th RD: He was ‘almost’ Speaker, and he could wind up there someday…if he does the right thing; Joe Miro, 22nd RD: This Pike Creek R has lots of marriage equality proponents in his district.
And if you support HB 75, but haven't contacted your legislator, why not? BTW, major props to Reps. Mike Ramone and James 'J. J.' Johnson. Both have made clear that they support HB 75 since I posted my initial list last week, and that their votes are not in question. I'm putting the over/under at 24 yes votes. Ladeez and gentlemen, place your bets. Here is today's House Agenda. The only other substantive bill (as opposed to technical housekeeping stuff) is HB 42(Barbieri), which 'adds adult aunts and uncles to the list of relatives who may act as a surrogate to make health care decisions for an adult patient if the patient lacks capacity and there is no agent or guardian...'.

Monday Open Thread [4.22.13]

Those results are actually somewhat heartening since they either involved terrorists who were not American citizens or whose citizenship was left unclear. I can see the argument that noncitizen terrorists do not have constitutional rights and are enemy combatants. But citizens? Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev is an American citizen. Yes, he is a terrorist too, but he is an American too. Just as Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer, but also an American citizen. Just as Eric Rudolph was a right wing bomber, but he was also an American citizen. So since he is an American citizen, he has constitutional rights. That means Tsarnaev has his 5th Amendment rights and 6th Amendment rights, which are, respectively....