Delaware General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., June 9, 2016
Let’s start with (what I think is) the most interesting bill on today’s docket, and see what you think about it. HB 375 (Bolden) changes the date of Delaware’s primaries from September to the ‘fourth Tuesday in April’. I used to strongly support making the primaries earlier, thought September was too late, but now, I’m not so sure. I think that April is too early. The reason the April date has been chosen is because that’s the date of Delaware’s presidential primary. For now. But that date has floated around for years (remember when Delaware wanted to go head-to-head with New Hampshire?), and there is nothing to guarantee that won’t happen again. Especially since the rules of the respective parties at the national level can and generally do change every four years.
Here’s what’s even worse, IMHO. With an April primary, the filing deadline would be pushed into late February. Meaning, assuming that an incumbent files and isn’t challenged, then announces that they won’t run after the primary date has passed, the party voters would be shut out of the nomination process. It would be done by the district committee and/or county party. It would circumvent democracy, much like Rebecca Walker did in the 9th RD by delaying her announcement until after the July filing deadline. Only it would be in February.
I understand the mantra that campaigns are too long, and they are. However, this bill essentially makes campaign primaries shorter and general election campaigns longer. Except that, in many races, the primary election is the general election. Would we be better off if, say, the primary for US Congress and Mayor of Wilmington were decided in April? I think the advantage would invariably shift to the ‘established’ candidates at the expense of insurgent candidates.
While I think that June would be a desirable alternative, legislators are not gonna support that with the current legislative calendar. As written, I think that the bill protects incumbents and the parties at the expense of challengers, so I don’t support it. But, what do YOU think?
Here is today’s House Agenda. Please note HB 340(Keeley). The bill ‘ allows the Wilmington Parking Authority to enter into partnerships and other organizations for the development of public parking garages.’ There are apparently important commercial and business reasons for doing this. But…haven’t we been demolishing public parking garages in the city? I’m confused, and not for the first time.
Today’s Senate Agenda is an intriguing grab-bag of bills.
I’ll be interested to see if SB 253 (Hocker) garners any opposition. It’s another farmers vs. DNREC bill.
SB 197(Hall-Long) seeks to facilitate the dissemination of information to sufferers of post-partum depression.
Can we just legalize it already? SB 181(Lopez) ‘allows designated caregivers to possess and administer, and minor qualifying patients to use, medical marijuana oil for minor qualifying patients on school busses and on the grounds of the preschool, primary, or secondary school in which the minor qualifying patient is enrolled’. BTW, one of my spelling pet peeves: A buss is a kiss, a bus is a bus, and more than one bus are ‘buses’.
Last, and, by a large margin, least, we have HB 383 (Ramone), which designates the Maypole Dance as the ‘Official Dance of Delaware’ for exactly 365 days. (BTW, little-known fact, Nevada’s Official Dance is the Horizontal Mambo). So, kids, here’s what’s going on. There’s no better way for a legislator to hoodwink the masses than by teaming up with some local school, getting the kids to develop some silly piece of legislation, then having them observe ‘how a bill becomes law’. It gets kids, parents and teachers eating out of the legislator’s hand which, hopefully has been sanitized since said legislator’s last encounter with a lobbyist. This is how even an indifferent back-bencher like Mike Ramone builds up political capital. BTW, don’t look now, but that Golden Retriever is fast sprinting toward state recognition as well. It’s out of committee now, and with a hack like John Viola pushing it, it’ll soon be law.
Here’s a wrap-up of what happened Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sen. Henry’s bill expanding the clean needle exchange program statewide passed the Senate. 5 downstate trogs voted no.
Several bills from the Corporate Bar’s annual package passed the Senate and now head to the Governor. These bills purportedly are designed to protect Delaware’s preeminence when it comes to its national reputation as business-friendly. We all know what that means.
For reasons I don’t understand, the General Assembly passed this Resolution this week, two years after “Doctor” Mark Brainard became President of Del-Tech. It pays to be crooked and connected in Delaware. BTW, he’s not a ‘doctor’. Getting through law school (and even passing the bar, which Brainard did not) does not make one a doctor. It’s all a bleeping bad joke.
Let’s end with my favorite congruence of bill and legislator this week. Who better than Bill ‘Lumpy’ Carson to sponsor HB 339? The bill:
…permits craft distilleries to purchase alcoholic beverages that they do not manufacture to add to products they do produce to sell to their patrons for on premises consumption. For example, this Bill would allow a craft distillery to sell for on premises consumption a Manhattan cocktail using a whiskey it produced and vermouth that it purchased.
Nothing wrong with the bill. Passed the Senate, heads to the Governor.
But it got me to thinking. If we are gonna have bills designating this and that as Delaware’s Official Anything, then who better than Lumpy Carson to be designated as “Delaware’s Official Happy Hour Patron”? Betcha the entire Kent County delegation would sign on as co-sponsors. There’d be lots of competition to host the bill signing.
Delaware should have a mid-June primary. cant help that it interferes with legislative session.
If Delaware were to implement an effective and aggressive vote by mail program, you could even do it in July. That eliminates what seems to be the key objection to the September primary: That there’s not enough time to pivot from the primary to the general.
And, with an effective vote by mail program, people on vacation would not be disadvantaged. And, if vote-by-mail becomes popular, you could eliminate polling places and save money. Just as long as it’s not as draconian as what Arizona did.
It would never happen, but I like California’s “nonpartisan blanket primary” wherein the top two finishers regardless of party go on to the general.
Re earlier primary: Wouldn’t some of the timing issues favoring the incumbent be offset by the fact that the incumbent is in session during the entire campaign?
I have a friend that sent a picture of their California primary ballot. “There are 35 candidates for US Senate. You can only choose 1.”
I enjoy Arizona’s voting by mail (I’m on the permanent list) . It ought to be even more interesting this year as AZ is considered “in play” in the race for president and it looks like the legalization of pot is also going to be on the ballot. Although what Maricopa County did with the primary was pretty stupid (not coming close to having enough polling places), there is a case to be made that the number of polling places they had for the primary would actually be enough for the general.
I would be happy with New Years Day primary, if it got this season over with faster. It’s upon the challengers to make a decision to run sooner. If you can’t make up your mind on whether you want to run by February, then you don’t really want to run. Lets face it, as it stands, if you file just before the July deadline, you are already way behind.
On that note, move the primary to April and allow online voting. We allow online banking, filing taxes online, HIPAA compliant communication between doctors and patients, and damn near everything else. Why can’t they figure out how to do online voting? Oh, right, GOP voter fraud scares. Because people may vote more than once. Well, just make you SS#, a username, and password required. Only allow one vote per account. Sure, someone will inevitably figure out how to hack the system and get someone else’s credentials, but haven’t they been doing that with paper ballots for years…according to the GOP?
A state rep’s term is effectively up July 1. Holding the primary any earlier brings up two problems:
1) Lawmakers will be campaigning when they should be legislating. Granted, that’s not a huge problem because they don’t really do much in the way of legislating in the first place.
2) Primary votes would be cast before the General Assembly’s business was completed. Such a system would guarantee that in election years only consensus bills would get worked before the date of the primary.
On point 2, that’s currently what we have, except that it lasts the entire session.
“I have a friend that sent a picture of their California primary ballot. ”
Because California permits the direct initiative process the thickness of their voter guides is legendary.
In the November 1914 election, 48 ballot propositions appeared on the statewide ballot. The elections that have come the closest to that record were in November 1988 — with 29 propositions — and November 1990, when 28 propositions were on the ballot.
Now remember, the entire proposition must be printed, along with an independent analysis plus statements from both proponents and those against. The 1990 voter guide had 224 pages!
I know all you have better things to do, but you really should look at the 1990 official voter guide (it is a 2 part pdf) to appreciate what each of us voters had to, in theory, read to understand what they were voting for). http://repository.uchastings.edu/ca_ballot_pamphlets/index.html
And yes you can even read the 1914 pamphlet but it’s only a 112 pages.
Lawmakers will be campaigning when they should be legislating. Granted, that’s not a huge problem because they don’t really do much in the way of legislating in the first place
Which is a case for a 90 day session, like Maryland does. Have the GA get its business done from Jan 1 until March 31 and incumbents still have a couple of weeks to campaign. from where I sit, they are functionally in session for not much more than 3 months anyway.
Re General Assembly resolution for Brainard: This is probably to coincide with today’s “Coronation of the King” down at the Chase Center.
https://www.dtcc.edu/inauguration
The college probably delayed this until now so it would fall on their 50th anniversary – think “coronation” and “golden jubilee” combo of self-congratulatory BS.
I have seen 3 college president inaugurations in the past few months (Cecil, DTCC and the school my son attends) and all 3 have been delayed more than a year since the president had already assumed the role. It’s pretty weird that it takes that long to plan something like this.