Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 17, 2018

Let’s talk gun control legislation. Specifically, let’s discuss how the House D’s, in particular, invariably fall into the same Groundhog’s Day continuum.  It’s either incompetence, or deliberate malfeasance.  Here’s what’s bugged me for quite some time:  Why do Pete Schwartzkopf and Val Longhurst insist on sponsoring the major gun control legislation?  They aren’t in any manner the strongest or most committed legislators on the issue. Pete, in fact, is quite comfortable with the NRA and the so-called Delaware Sportsmen’s Association. And both continue to repeat the same failed approach that has caused previous gun control legislation to fall apart.  On both Longhurst’s bump-stock bill and Schwartzkopf’s bill to increase the minimum age for purchasing deadly weapons, they re-enacted Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football.  They set themselves up as the sole negotiators with the Forces Of Evil, and they made major concessions that weakened both pieces of legislation before they even hit the floor, as if the Forces Of Evil were negotiating in good faith. 

They then professed themselves to be shocked, shocked, when the Forces Of Evil raced across the lobby and worked to weaken and/or defeat both pieces of legislation in the Senate after they had passed the House. So, Longhurst’s bump-stock bill returned from the Senate with amendments that sent Longhurst into another of her many snits. As if only she had the right to negotiate on her legislation. Yo, PAL, you got played again. And the minimum age increase?  It already has five eviscerating Rethug amendments waiting for consideration in the Senate.  Here’s my point: Longhurst and Schwartzkopf should not have been the ones running these bills when there were more committed and far more competent legislators available to run them. It’s not typical for the House leaders to be the leads on legislation like this. I guarantee you that Bob Gilligan would have deferred to other members to run these bills. In fact, just look at the job that David Bentz did on shepherding HS 1/HB 302 through the House. He’s one of many D House members who would have done a better job than the so-called ‘leaders’. OK, just had to get that off my chest.

More on the gun control bills later this week.  Like, Thursday, when the deadly weapons minimum age increase is scheduled for consideration. Let me just share the emasculating Rethug amendments awaiting the Honorables:  SA1, SA2,  SA3, SA4, SA5.  The two amendments from Sen. Delcollo, in particular, demonstrate the mistake that the voters made in SD 7.  He publicly told a rally of guns rights advocates that he was on ‘the side of the angels’.  Meaning on the side of those who would wield weapons of war. Take note.

A pretty sedate Senate Agenda awaits us today. Only that highly-suspicious Delaware City charter change intrigues me, and I’m apparently the only one. Well, there is also a pretty substantial reworking of the New Castle County Board of Adjustment.  Looks like good government legislation. What do our county experts think?

I like HB 306 (J. Johnson), which leads off today’s House Agenda.  The bill ‘permits judges to utilize their discretion in determining whether a juvenile charged with possession of a firearm during commission of a felony should be transferred back to Family Court or remain in Superior Court’. Judges previously were required to keep the case in Superior Court.  Sometimes, progress is incremental, like it is here. 

The agenda concludes with a ridiculous Special License Plate bill, sponsored by Sen. Bloviator Bonini, who is still without an opponent.  Yep, the Dover Air Force Base Chiefs Group will soon have their own vanity tags. Just thought you’d like to know.

I kept today’s piece a little short.  With some particularly sketchy bills in committee, and one on tomorrow’s Senate Agenda, look for something a little more magnum opus-ish tomorrow.