By ‘ever’, I mean since 1983, when I first started working for the General Assembly. I’ve either worked for, or followed what’s going on in Dover ever since.
My answer to my question is: Yes, I think so.
Go ahead. Pick a highlight. Eliminating the Estate Tax? Bringing back the death penalty? Finding ways to pile more charges on prisoners? Other than protecting a woman’s Roe v Wade rights in the event that Roe v Wade is overturned by a right-wing Supreme Court, this session has been one embarrassment after another. Nods to the law’n order crowd and to the aging multibillionaires. With D’s controlling both chambers.
The reasons why also provide us with a road map for change. So, um, here’s why:
1. Gov. Jellyfish John Carney. No governor has had more time to prepare for the position, and done so little preparation. Not even Ruth Ann Minner, who echoed George H. W. Bush’s approach of tackling ‘whatever crosses my desk’, rivals the utter passivity of Carney’s first few months in office. What few ‘initiatives’ he has supported come straight out of the propaganda masquerading as ‘reports’ that Jack Markell underwrote for the purpose of letting business run roughshod over the business of governing. Oh, and turning DEDO into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the businesses that will mete out money to–businesses just like them. Meanwhile, he waits for reports before doing anything about the prison crisis. And he and his staff ‘monitor’ legislation like restoration of the death penalty. Every other governor I remember, from 1983 on, brought with them a legislative agenda of their own to which the General Assembly responded. Carney, OTOH, has left a vacuum in its stead. He wanted to be Governor, he just doesn’t want to govern. BTW, how’s that ‘independent review’ of the prisons going? How’s that search for a Secretary of Labor going? WTF is he doing?
It’s even worse than that. While it’s in some ways admirable that he seeks people’s input on issues, it betrays a singular lack of even the most elementary thought on the issues of the day. The budget, the death penalty, legalization of pot, you name it, hasn’t he even thought about these issues during all his time in government? Does he really need people at coffee shops to fill in the blanks in his brain? Speaking of the budget, in lieu of any serious consideration of the specific cuts in the budget, our green-eyeshade guv goes with a mathematical formula buttressed by Chamber propaganda. A formula is no substitute for rigorous policy analysis, as if I should even have to point that out. He should be embarrassed. As it stands, he’s close to irrelevant. Even Bethany Hall-Long would be better. Forget about him being a Democratic governor. He’s simply not a governor except in name only.
2. Changes in the State Senate. Karen Peterson’s retirement and Patti Blevins’ loss have slowed progressive momentum almost to a halt in the Senate. Blevins and Peterson had an agreement, an agreement that kept Peterson from running for President Pro-Tempore when Tony DeLuca was defeated for reelection. In effect, Blevins would allow Peterson’s legislation to get a fair hearing on the floor rather than burying it in the Pro-Tem’s desk drawer, as it had under both Thurman Adams and DeLuca. Blevins also generally supported most progressive initiatives, meaning there was a genuine synergy for the passage of progressive legislation. With Blevins and Peterson no longer there, neither is the synergy. There’s Townsend, maybe Henry, and who else? Yes, you can still patch together a traditional D coalition on some bills, but it’s the exception, not the rule.
3. A Democratic House Which Acts Like Anything But. There simply is no excuse for the regressive legislation coming out of the House and the progressive legislation which doesn’t make its way out of the House. The D’s control the House by a 25-16 margin. In a political environment that made sense, the House would be passing legislation that most closely reflects the principles (?) of the Party. Instead, even a Senate with a circumscribed D edge still is more likely to reflect progressive ideals than the House. Why?
First and foremost is the ‘leadership’ of Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf and Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst. Let’s talk about their leadership style. They govern through fear. They reward their supporters and screw their enemies. To the point where they actively work against legislation sponsored by those who are not in their good graces, regardless of whether it’s legislation that reflects so-called party ideals. This pettiness extends to committee assignments. Those who kiss his cop butt are rewarded, those who don’t share his police worldview and governing philosophy get buried. Which is how you get restoration of the death penalty and elimination of the Estate Tax while you don’t get minimum wage increase in an assembly with a 25-16 D edge. The Speaker and his henchpersons have splintered the Caucus, meaning that Pete passes legislation by finding common ground with the Rethugs.
So, you have a splintered D caucus. The cop groupies, the Chamber DINO’s and the drones (yes, there’s plenty of overlap) vs. the few serious progressive legislators. In the absence of any kind of guidance from the Governor, Pete’s agenda becomes the default D agenda. Why? Because he’d rather cut deals with Rethuglicans than with D’s. Instead of holding R’s accountable for their intransigence and using that intransigence as a political club, Schwartzkopf hangs his caucus members out to dry instead.
4. There are very few Republicans left in Dover. Most are now Rethuglicans. How many R’s are willing to vote for anything that goes against the Tea Party orthodoxy? I can only count about four who will switch on occasion: Senators Cathy Cloutier and Ernie Lopez, and Representatives Joe Miro and Mike Ramone. Cloutier is the only one of the four who can reasonably be counted on to set Party aside in most instances. Meaning D’s have to either stick together or put up with Pistol Pete’s version of Democratic legislation. Which has virtually nothing in common with Democratic principles. The decades of ‘good government’ R’s from Brandywine Hundred and Newark and the pro-labor (and anti-busing) R’s in the New Castle area are over for good. Most legislative R’s are nothing but obstructionists now.
So, what is to be done? As I see it, we need better D’s in the House of Representatives. And some new progressive blood in the Senate. People who can and will think for themselves, can develop legislative priorities of their own in the wake of the vacuum that is the Governor’s office. People who place their constituents first, ahead of Chamber propaganda, ahead of the cops and the cop mentality, and certainly ahead of the desires of wheezing billionaires threatening to move to Florida.
I start naming the names of those who need to be challenged tomorrow.