The Delaware Way

Filed in National by on January 6, 2015

Well, if you are an activist, it means you are of no value to our government. It means you cannot be in government. It means you cannot be a legislator.

That was the reasoning given to Representative John Kowalko for his removal from the House Education Committee by Speaker John Kowalko, according to Mr. Kowalko. You can believe that or not, but I do, because it fits the pattern of the Delaware Way, and of Mr. Schwartzkopf, and of Governor Markell.

Those words are as much a declaration of war against you, me, and all Progressives, all activists, from the corporate establishment that I have ever heard.

Only corporate whores who fellate regularly can serve.

Tags:

About the Author ()

Comments (4)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. El Somnambulo says:
    January 6, 2015 at 8:03 am

    “It means you cannot be in government. It means you cannot be a legislator.”

    Did Pete tell Kowalko to resign? Did he bring him up before the Ethics Committee? Did he remove him from all committees? Did he gin up a primary challenge to John? I don’t get this.

    I’ve said for years that John’s outspokenness made it more difficult for him to be effective within the legislative process. It’s a double-edged sword.

    It is what it is, but, in my opinion, it’s a justifiable, if extreme, exercise of power.

    Frankly, I’m much more PO’d that Keeley got kicked off the Bond Committee.

  2. pandora says:
    January 6, 2015 at 8:20 am

    And… Rep. Earl Jaques, D-Glasgow, will chair the education committee. The guy who brought us HB 165? Remember this email from him?

    Elizabeth,
    First the fund you are referring to is not a “slush” fund. If you attended yesterday’s public meeting you would know that it is not used for capital projects. It is connected to the Charter Performance framework, which will ensure that is used for education issues for either high-performing or high-need students. The money allocated came from the last budget numbers – NOT from the Department of Education. So this isn’t a case of taking money away from our public schools. In fact, the number one priority, according to the testimony from the School Superintendents to the Joint Finance Committee was money for technology. That money is in the budget! The Charter’s number one priority was money for this Strategic Performance Fund, which again the Joint Finance Committee granted and is in the budget based on whether the legislation passes. Since it doesn’t apply, I shouldn’t comment. However, the points you make in the first few paragraphs are done each and every year for our Colleges and Universities. We give them capital money and we don’t own the buildings. If you took the time to read House Bill 165 you would see loads of transparency and accountability throughout. I hope you are not listen to the nay sayers who just like to yell at the top of their voice, but most of the time don’t know what they are talking about!HB 165 has been properly vetted and has loads of support throughout the education community.
    Earl

    Naysayers who just like to yell at the top of their voice seems like another term for activist.

    Or how about his claim that he authored HB 165 (via Steve Newton).

    This year Earl (D-Charter Schools Network) has claimed vociferously that he–NOT the Charter School work group–authored HB 165.

    The problem with Earl is that he can’t keep his stories straight, as commenter Citizen aptly documents:

    BTW, 2-3 wks ago when I was in email contact with Rep Jaques about the poorly worded nutritional asst. provision in HB 165, he replied at one point (in relation to my request that the federal breakfast program be explicitly included) that he would need to “check with the Charter Schls Network” about that (then he wrote back to say that yes, they planned to include b’fast & there was no need to include it in the bill!!). This was b4 the bill was publicly available.

    So there was no effort to disguise who wrote this, or whose bidding Jaques is doing.

    So we have an “informal work group” that the Attorney General’s office thinks “may have been a public body.”

    I’m not feeling hopeful about the new Education Committee chair.

  3. Joanne Christian says:
    January 6, 2015 at 11:01 pm

    Feeling Rep. Kowalko’s pain. You get bounced off boards and commissions too, when you educate, alert and cry foul in our open legislative sessions when bills are introduced etc.. Delaware’s closed drawer veto morphed into a closed deal agenda.

  4. kavips says:
    January 7, 2015 at 8:34 am

    There is almost a natural evolution to it. A full circle. You have a king, which doesn’t work, so you stress getting everyone involved in the running of things.. Thing is, that creates backlog where everything gets argued and nothing gets done. Setting up the new guard to come in to get things done. To do so, they need to get rid of all other voices other than their own. And you are back to a king again, and need to reinvent the wheel all over again.

«
»