General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., June 19, 2014
Second verse, almost same as the first:
Wednesday Session Activity Report
Last day of the DIY reports, I promise. Got next week’s work schedule, and it’s ‘green across the screen’.
In the limited remaining time allotted to me today, I’ll now proceed to scour my resources for stuff that interests me…
Very happy to see the Senate pass SB 253(McBride), which ultimately conveys a parcel of property to Faithful Friends. Anyone who knows anything about Faithful Friends knows that they perform an invaluable public service in providing care and adoption services for stray and abandoned pets. A humane no-kill shelter with some of the finest staff and volunteers you’ll ever meet. I find it ironic that the three senators who voted no reside in an area known for housing Delaware’s worst (only?) puppy mills.
The FY ’15 Budget Bill was introduced and laid on the table in the Senate. If you have time, read the Epilog Language. That’s where all the sneaky stuff usually is.
Yay! HB 331(Kowalko) unanimously passed the House yesterday! The bill requires that both the University of Delaware and Del State comply with FOIA. And, unless I misread it, the House Amendment voted onto the bill strengthens the bill. The University must really have pissed off some important people.
Interesting bills on today’s Senate Agenda:
SB 241(Marshall) seeks to clean up after the elephantine dump that the State Medical Examiner’s Office took on the criminal justice system.
HB 13(Kowalko) bans former legislators from lobbying during their first year out of office. Hmm, wonder who would benefit by this proposed Senate amendment?
What’s that? Gotta go.
Tags: El Somnambulo, Faithful Friends, Hayes Carll, Steve Tanzer Delaware
HB 371 Decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana made it out of committee yesterday with an amendment. Congratulations, Rep. Keeley!
The amendment to Kowalko’s HB 331 is tricky. Yes, it does require labeling of contractual services as “public” if public funding is used. But what it also does is limit the expansion of what may be requested under FOIA (if I am reading it correctly). It still maintains that no minutes, emails, or other communications of any entity at either university below the level of full meetings of the Board of Trustees can be FOIA’d. This is important because 99% of all the actual work and deliberation is done at the committee level on those boards, and this allows them to continue to have virtually all those deliberations shielded because (even though they are, as in the case of the Executive Committees, empowered to act as the Board between meetings) those committees are still not “public bodies.”
In addition, there are large numbers of documents that should be legitimately available through FOIA that every other agency receiving tens of millions of State dollars every year is supposed to hold available, and which public universities across the nation except in DE and PA are required to make available.
So it’s an improvement over the original amendment that almost completely gutted the bill, but it is not (again, assuming I’m reading it correctly) as strong as the original was.
Steve Newton
Correct you are
John Kowalko
Sorry, Rep. Kowalko, but your bill is virtually toothless, and it will be held up as some great testament to transparency.
Rep. Longhurst told the Delaware State News, apparently with a straight face, that the first amendment to the bill was crafted without input from UD. She added that it eliminates loopholes that UD may take “to detain the FOIA process by seeking counsel from the Delaware Attorney General’s Office,” even though that is already prohibited by law. (http://delaware.newszap.com/centraldelaware/132798-70/ud-dsu-transparency-bill-gets-watered-down)
That amendment was stricken, and the second one is only marginally better. It apparently eliminates the possibility of either university refusing to disclose information on a whim, which the first one did. But, as Steve Newton points out, the real work of the universities, done at levels below the boards of trustees, will still be private.
Rep. Osienski, the open-government champion, has apparently not uttered a word about why he added both amendments.
Rep. Kowalko, will you introduce a bill next January to restore the original intent of HB331 and bring both universities fully under FOIA?
Another Mike,
That is absolutely my intention and always has been. I’m too old to be taking baby steps but if the starting gate doesn’t open you’ll never have a chance to finish much less win. I’ll never apologize for what I am forced to do but I certainly will not excuse myself for those failings and there consequences. However, I will never stop trying to ultimately do what’s right and that’s a promise I can keep.
John Kowalko
A.M.
I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by disputing your toothless remark but I still have most of my teeth and I sometimes have to take a gripping bite before I can chew something up. The bill (with the amendment) should not and will not be held up as a testament to transparency especially by me. I also would ask your reconsideration of Rep. Osienski’s role in this matter. He was merely the assistant starter who was making sure the starting gate opened and I sincerely appreciate his work.
Rep. Kowalko, I appreciate your honesty and the work you have done. Any criticism was certainly not directed at you. You, surpassed perhaps only by Sen. Peterson, have done more to advance open government in Delaware in recent years. And I apologize to Rep. Osienski if I have mischaracterized his role in this.
Another Mike: I didn’t know much about Rep. Osienski when he first took office. But he has become one of the most steadfast progressives in the entire General Assembly. And quite an effective legislator.
I’m really happy that he’s in Dover. One of the good ones.