General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., June 24, 2014
Looks like the Proud Know-Nothings will be the biggest winners during the 147th General Assembly. The losers? People who drive Delaware’s roads and people whose jobs depend on making sure those roads and bridges are safe. In other words: You. Another winner: The owners of the racinos who have mismanaged their Own Private Monopoly. I really didn’t think this would happen, and, I must admit, I’m almost stunned that the General Assembly would choose political expediency over our deteriorating infrastructure.
No, the Governor is not exempt from criticism. Far from it. This governor (a) waited until an election year to play a game of chicken on infrastructure spending; (b) likened the need to continue our ongoing periodic road maintenance program to swallowing bitter medicine rather than pointing out the benefits to our state’s economy from having those great construction jobs; and (c) decided to (pardon the expression) muddy the waters by making this a two-fer with a proposed clean water initiative. Horrible messaging, horrible staff work.
Still, I never expected the Delaware General Assembly, by dint of deliberate inaction, to blow (at least) a $70 million hole in the annual transportation capital budget. $70 million less spent on keeping our roads and bridges drivable in FY 15 than was spent in FY 14. (Well, maybe $60 mill, should the Honorables hike weekend tolls on Rt. 1.) This is blatant dereliction of duty. From the ridiculous (Valerie Longhurst proclaiming that she simply won’t allow a gas tax increase) to the equally-ridiculous (Greengrocer Hocker claiming that, since the D’s can’t pass this by themselves, he’s not going to ‘help’ them). Never mind everybody who drives in this state who will suffer the consequences. I’ve been around a long time. This Profile in Cowardice ranks near the top of the most cynical gestures ever to emerge from Dover. When the roads become pockmarked, you know who to blame. Call them on it. And if you live in one of these idiots’ districts, and you have the chance, vote against them.
While ignoring public safety, the Honorables appear poised to provide another $10 million to help bail out the bad business decisions made by greedy racino millionaires who were literally given licenses to steal by the State. Who could possibly argue that our legislative luminaries have their priorities in order? Looks like we’re headed towards a horrible conclusion to what has generally been a good legislative session.
Here’s last Thursday’s Session Activity Report. While Rep. Kowalko’s legislator-to-lobbyist ban passed the Senate, Sen. Blevins passed an amendment weakening the bill by changing the effective date from 2015 to 2017. In other words, those ‘Honorables’ who depart the Hallowed Halls this November can become lobbyists right away. Effectively cutting losers and retirees a nice financial break. That part of the bill is bad public policy.
Legislation completely reforming the Medical Examiner’s Office passed the Senate. This may be a first: Two no votes, Bonini and Peterson. I wonder if there had ever been a vote when these two political opposites cast the lone no votes. OK, I’ve stopped wondering. Because now I know. And, as usual Karen Peterson raises a substantive issue: Under the bill, the new Medical Examiner’s Office would be under the Department of…Public Safety and Homeland Security. That’s right. The same Department in charge of the State Police would now oversee all of the forensic testing. What could possibly go wrong? House Speaker and former state cop Pete Schwartzkopf dismisses the potential conflict-of-interest:
“It’s had absolutely no oversight,” Schwartzkopf said. “We have a guy in control who wasn’t overseeing anything except for trying to make more money for himself. These cops risk their lives doing undercover, making buys from really badass people only to have it screwed up by a bunch of clowns up there who should be in jail.”
And some cops plant or steal evidence and otherwise influence the direction of cases as well. They no longer have to fear, of they ever had, independent oversight. And, I’m sorry, but Gov. Markell’s defense is weakweakweak:
“I have great respect for Secretary [Lewis] Schiliro,” Markell said of his Homeland Security secretary, who has pushed the move. “I trust his judgment.”
As if Schiliro will be Secretary forever. And as if this should provide any reason for confidence. Does anyone really think that any secretary would go after cops under the Department’s purview? And does anyone really think that this lab would adopt the uncovering of police planting or stealing evidence as one of its principal missions?
Oh, and lest anyone think that an agency investigating its own is immune from partiality, let’s look at the FBI, whose lab work has been praised by proponents of this bill:
“It should be no surprise that when law enforcement agencies investigate themselves, they find no wrongdoing — especially since a study of the FBI’s internal investigations found that they cleared themselves of wrongdoing in 150 out of 150 fatal shootings. With that track record, the public can’t be confident in the integrity of an investigation with this predictable outcome,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
Look, I understand the need for a bill and the desire to pass it swiftly. There were disastrous problems uncovered at the Medical Examiner’s Office, and right now there’s a void. But there really needs to be some independence of the office from the state cops. Otherwise, there will be even less reason to trust the impartiality of justice as meted out in this state. The bill can still be amended to provide some independence from the state police. It should be.
Today’s Senate Agenda kicks off with the Budget Bill. Did anybody do their weekend homework by reading the Epilog Language? Me neither. But you should. There’s almost always sneaky stuff buried there. BTW, there’s a Senate Finance Committee meeting today where the committee will consider a 1% annual pensioners’ increase. I’m a pensioner. I’m a ‘yes’ on this bill.
Andria Bennett’s ‘revenge porn’ bill leads off the House Agenda.
Legislation providing more revenue sources for voluntary ambulance services will be considered. In a vacuum, per usual.
An updated midwifery bill is on the Agenda. It should pass, but probably won’t.
Buncha Sunset bills on the House Agenda as well.
The bill reforming forensic medicine and the medical examiner’s office is on the fast track, and on today’s House Agenda. After a committee meeting earlier in the day. Kids, get to know these initials: MTSR. It means “Motion to Suspend Rules”, meaning a bill can bypass committee consideration and can be considered regardless of what would ordinarily be permitted under a Chamber’s rules. This often happens during the last week of session, where there are rules, but the rules can easily be broken. Sometimes, bad stuff sneaks through. Might even happen today. Be vigilant.
Tags: Delaware Casinos, Delaware Medical Examiner, Delaware roads and infrastructure, El Somnambulo, Featured, Lewis Schiliro, Sen. Karen Peterson, Steve Tanzer Delaware
I’m almost stunned that the General Assembly would choose political expediency over our deteriorating infrastructure.
Especially since there is no political downside to letting the casinos do what they are going to do anyway. Because do not be surprised to start hearing about layoffs and other cutbacks from these organizations within months of getting their new subsidies.
According to the News Journal, the $10 million from tolls will allow and additional $20 million in borrowing, so they actually generated $30 million. Not a perfect solution, but not as dire as just $10 million.
Allowing more borrowing is not “generating” anything other than more debt.
Dover failed big time on the gas tax and the Clean Water Initiative. The former is both Markells and the Honorables fault. The CWI was either designed not to go anywhere or a completely bungled mess of ineptitude.
Hocker should have been called upon to figure out how to pay for the roads.
Now that DNREC is back to being headed by a 30 year company man, don’t expect anything exciting environmentally for the foreseeable future. Aquaculture in toxic inland bays? Great plan.
Quick recap of this legislative session: fucked without getting kissed
Gotta disagree with you on the midwifery bill El. There is nothing in there to protect women who don’t know when they should protect themselves and their babies. As soon as one woman dies under the care of an untrained and uneducated “midwife” the legislature will do the work they should have done now.
AQC: The point is that it’s happening now, and it’s gonna continue to happen. The bill, for the first time, creates protections and standards of professional conduct.
In other words, it improves on what’s happening now.
I don’t get it. What’s making legislators wait a year to be a lobbyist going to do? They’ll still get snatched up and be a consultant or advisor with almost the same influence as they would if they were a lobbyist.
That’s the thing, it doesn’t create standards or protections. People can sell themselves as a midwife with no more than a GED. There is no training requirement and they are credentialing themselves.
Well, we’ve had legislators immediately step into lobbying positions at the very highest levels of the profession. Roger Roy and Joe Petrilli at the top of the list. And, of course, Wayne Smith, who resigned office almost immediately after he was elected, to head up lobbying efforts for Delaware’s hospitals.
I’m not in any way claiming that this bill will have tremendous impact, but it will have SOME impact in at least not enabling legislators, in their role as legislators, from actually becoming lobbyists-without-portfolio while they are still legislators.
Blevins’ Senate amendment enables any legislators who leave the General Assembly this November, by their choice or by the voters’ choice, to become lobbyists right away. The ‘effective date’ of the bill was moved from Jan. 2015 to Jan. 2017 in the amendment. The amendment weakened the bill.
In the immortal words of my first, um, girlfriend, “Wow, that was fast.”
Not only did the House pass the bill creating the new Division of Forensic Science today, the Governor signed the bill into law already:
“Dover, DE – Following a 35 – 4 vote in the House, Governor Markell signed Senate Bill 241 into law today setting up the Division of Forensic Science to take over the operations previously conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The bill, which was approved by the Senate 18 – 2 earlier this month, reorganizes the forensic sciences in a new Division within the Department of Safety and Homeland Security. The bill also establishes a Forensic Science Commission to provide important oversight and assistance to the office.”
May I just ask one question: Who will police the police who now have the so-called impartial evidence analysis unit available to them 24/7?
Absent any proof to the contrary, I’ll answer the question.
Nobody.
AQC
On Midwives and HA 1 to HA 1 to HB 319
That’s the thing, it doesn’t create standards or protections. People can sell themselves as a midwife with no more than a GED. There is no training requirement and they are credentialing themselves.
How about next time you read the bill before you start passing off blatant misinformation?
Midwives have to be nationally accredited by national accrediting bodies–NARM or MANA–which have requires of hundreds of hours of subject specific study, a testing regime, and a requirement for more supervised work in childbirth than either nurse midwives or OB/gyns.
The bill requires informed consent and integration into the healthcare system, including OB visits. It also places midwife standards of practice directly under the Board of Medical Licensure, and provides for specific contraindications in certain types of pregnancies where it is illegal for midwives to attend a birth. The Board of Medical Licensure consists of 15 people (8 or 9 of them physicians) and includes the Director of the Division of Public Health and the Director of Obstetrics for Kent General/BayHealth. Both of these individuals were included on the task forces that provided the recommendations from which the bill was written.
As soon as one woman dies under the care of an untrained and uneducated “midwife” the legislature will do the work they should have done now.
Again, misinformation. In studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Canadian Medical Journal, and about a dozen other peer-reviewed national and international medical journals, home birth for low-risk pregnancies attended by Certified Professional Midwives (exactly what HB 319 is limited to) has been repeatedly shown to be just as safe and to have less complications than hospital births for comparable pregnancies.
Oh, and while you’re on that –if one child dies routine–please check DPH stats, wherein you will discover that more children die as perinates or neonates in Delaware hospitals than are born at home each year. Delaware’s c-section rate is extremely high–well above recommended national and international norms.
Next time how about you actually read the proposed legislation before you start telling everybody what’s in it?
Don’t members of the General Assembly take office/leave office the day after Election Day? So wouldn’t the Jan. 1, 2015 effective date not affect those departing this go-round?
Good point. It wouldn’t affect them IF they have a lobbying job already lined up.
It would have affected them if they didn’t line up a lobbying gig until Jan. 1, 2015. It now won’t impact them at all due to the amendment.
And you’re correct. They’re off the payroll the day after election.
Just in time for those pensions to kick in…one way or another, they get more than what’s coming to them.
As a former chief drug prosecutor for the state, I can tell you, without hesitation, that this bill is a big, big MISTAKE. Peterson and Bonini are right. “A wink and a nod” may easily become the wave of the future.
Just wondering, if the bill abolishes the office of the Chief Medical Examiner, is the state going to maintain the current Forensic Examiners that respond to the scene, and transport MD cases to the lab to do autopsies, or is the State Police Detective group going to take over death investigations and eliminate the ME Forensic Examiners? Will DSP maintain a fleet of specialized morgue wagons — or will it revert to the Maryland system where the MSP and municipal police call the funeral homes to do ALL the transporting, even crime victims and accident victims to be transported by the funeral homes. It’s a terrible system in Maryland, what we have now in Delaware is, or was very nice. While fixing the forensic lab, I hope the new bill doesn’t ruin the excellent ME system we had for the every day operations that supported the funeral service and the families who lost a loved one. I don’t think the funeral homes should be in the chain of custody of crime and accident victims. Done every day that way in Maryland — hope it doesn’t happen here.
There is no educational requirement for certified midwives. There is not adequate training required, or supervision, to safely determine if a pregnancy is uncomplicated, and the informed consent is based on information obtained by undereducated “midwives”. And of course more babies die in hospitals since significantly more are delivered in hospitals. But, I’m more worried about when we start seeing the mothers dying.
AQC
The only question remaining is whether you’re simply misinformed or intentionally spreading misinformation. Which is it?
There is no educational requirement for certified midwives.
That’s just untrue. CPMs must meet the educational standards of NARM or MANA. They are actually more stringent in many areas than those for nurse midwives.
If you care to disagree, please cite the provision of HB 319 that states that there is no education requirement–or STFU.
There is not adequate training required, or supervision, to safely determine if a pregnancy is uncomplicated, and the informed consent is based on information obtained by undereducated “midwives”.
Again–there are code requirements in the bill and standards of practice are required to be formulated by the Midwife Advisory Council and approved by the Board of Medical Licensure before anybody can practice. There are standards for what constitutes informed consent. If you seriously want to make the argument rather than just fear-monger, let’s see some links.
But, I’m more worried about when we start seeing the mothers dying.
Again, would you care to document that “worry” from some reputable source? I’ve done the research–even in Delaware 70-80 women per year in the Amish/Mennonite communities are having midwife-attended births, and what you “fear” hasn’t happened.
As late as 2000, according to Division of Public Health statistics, 1 out of 25 births in Kent County was a home birth attended by a midwife–similar stats run back through the 1990s, and–guess what?–the women dying at the hands of uneducated midwives are conspicuous by their absence.
Again: even in studies done by CDC, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Canadian Medical Journal. But you’re not interested in facts, are you?