General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up: Week of January 13-15, 2015
Talk about your soft openings. When the most urgent piece of legislation appears to be one that would allow smaller eateries to serve beer and wine, then you get a pretty good sense that it could be a slow January.
The other bill on the fast track is a banking bill, and it passed the House unanimously. The sponsors of the bill don’t fill me full of confidence that this is simply an innocuous piece of legislation. It strikes me as a special interest bill, and the interests are those of the banks, not of the consumers. Could someone please give us some background on the gestation and urgency of this bill? And, um, talk me down?
I really didn’t want to talk about this, but since we had a thread on our blog about it, I can only say that the Kowalko Press Conference on Tuesday was both depressing (to me) and counterproductive. John Kowalko had already been all over the radio and newspapers blistering Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf for removing him from the House Education Committee. His stated goal is/was to be reinstated to the House Education Committee. If someone can explain how holding this press conference to reiterate what he had already been saying for days could in any way make it more likely that he’d be reinstated, please enlighten me:
http://wdel.com/story.php?id=65443
I think John’s supporters, including some of our contributors, have got it wrong. Schwartzkopf wasn’t trying to silence Kowalko. He knows that Kowalko will never be silenced. His point was that John couldn’t serve effectively on this committee because he was more prone to diatribes than dialogue. While I disagree with the Speaker on that, I dare you to watch the clip in the story and not understand where Schwartzkopf is coming from. If anything, Schwartzkopf successfully goaded Kowalko into releasing his “Inner John”, and effectively proved his point. I’ve argued for years over here that Kowalko would be a more effective legislator if he built legislative coalitions rather than grandstanding and throwing his colleagues under the bus. He was coming off what I viewed as his most effective legislative year. I was cautiously optimistic. And now, this. John has become marginalized because he has chosen to be marginalized. He’ll always be both the hero and the victim in his own narrative. He will have his supporters, but, if you’re looking for change rather than confrontation, I suggest you look elsewhere. And, those Kowalko fright wigs. Whoever thought that would lend an air of gravitas to the proceedings was, um, mistaken.
Here are the session activity reports for the week:
A couple of bills caught my attention here. There are some legislators who just can’t wait to kill the Official State Varmint. HB 25(Wilson) would permit the ‘harvesting’ (I love that euphemism for killing) the Gray Fox. You may recall that, back in 2010, the General Assembly designated the gray fox as Delaware’s Official Wildlife Animal. In 2014, legislative Varmint Killers tried to legalize the hunting of the gray fox. Led by the teacher and students who had pushed for the official designation of the gray fox in the first place, the hunting of the gray fox was thwarted. The gun-toters are back again, drool dripping from their collective chins.
We also have the educational version of the ‘Terrorists Win!’ bill. HB 27 (Jaques) ‘requires all new school construction or major renovation to include the following features: an intruder alarm, bulletproof glass in entrance areas and interior doors and windows, and doors lockable with keys on both sides. Further, the bill would require all new school construction plans to be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget’s Facilities Management Section for compliance with these requirements as well as with Crime Prevention through Environmental Design principles’. Better this than, you know, passing legislation prohibiting mentally-ill people from having guns. We’ve sure got our priorities straight.
Speaking of priorities, although the Governor’s State of the State address doesn’t take place until next week, Gov. Markell publicly stated this week that he will propose no income tax increases, nor will he propose an increase in the gas tax. He says that he tried the gas tax last year, no one went along with it, so he’s gonna sit back and wait for the General Assembly to come up with some way to fill the (pot)hole in the capital budget. I guess it’s appropriate that, in the Blue Hen State, the Governor and the General Assembly are playing chicken with our roads, bridges and infrastructure. Per usual, it’s the least they can do.
Tags: El Somnambulo, John Kowalko, Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, Steve Tanzer Delaware
You will be hated for it, but I think you have summed up the Kowalko situation pretty accurately. When I said, in a prior thread, that Kowalko’s strength is his ability to not think too far down the road, it goes without saying that such an “ability” is also a weakness.
El Som: Since you asked, Pete’s banking bill is a direct hand-off to Alex Pires according to Matt Bittle’s DSN report. Read about it on DE Way http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2015/01/first-bill-introduced-by-pete.html
And I disagree about where we are with change in Dover and confrontation.
You need a guy like Kowalko in the room and on the committee to take that hard stand in this, the DE Way state, where going along to get along controls the temperature in the room unless otherwise challenged. His is one vote for the progressive agenda. We need that vote and that voice.
The General Assembly passed some hideous education bills in the last two years because of the willingness of party power-loyals on either side of the aisle to go along (GOPers will never vote against pro-charter law). But we had a nice-sized faction of progressive-minded legislators who resisted the rubber-stamped bills with amendments (that failed) and with the creation of task force committees (work not yet completed).
A good-cop Baumbach who feels more comfortable working as effectively-as-possible behind the scenes still needs a bad-cop Kowalko to set up the narrative. Kowalko has his coalition and loyal alliances even if you can’t see them.
Hurrah! After all I got a website from where I can in fact obtain helpful data regarding my study and knowledge.