Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: May 14, 2019
If you haven’t already, read this screed before proceeding. Allow me to focus on the stated rationale from both Senators McBride and Poore as to why they broke their public commitment to release the gun control bills from committee:
“At this time, we are not planning to, or I’m not planning to (send the gun bills to the floor), because we do not have the support of the caucus…I think with any bill, compromise is huge.”-Sen. Nicole Poore.
That is a lie, and now I’ll prove it. Implicit in the word ‘we’ above, is that ‘we’, in this case Senators McBride and Poore, support the bills but, dang it, ‘we’ just couldn’t get enough of our colleagues to go along with us. The truth is that McBride and Poore decided that they opposed the bills, meaning that there weren’t enough votes for passage. Rather than embarrass themselves on the floor, they decided to kill the bills in committee. In other words, they killed the bills, then lied about why they killed the bills.
We can’t move on before highlighting another Profile In Cowardice from this sad situation. Sen. Cathy Cloutier who, some 20-plus years into her legislative service is still afraid of her own shadow, also voted against releasing the bills from committee. Just days after a bunch of NRA hooligans cornered her at her fundraiser to let her know that…They…Were…Watching. Cloutier has played a disingenuous game with her constituents for at least the past 15 years. The game being that she’s really a Democrat, but she is an R out of loyalty to her dead husband, and former state representative, Phil Cloutier who, according to reports, doesn’t give a shit as to what party she identifies with. Real Democrats, especially those representing districts that strongly support gun control, don’t give in to the NRA b/c ‘contributions’ and/or ‘primary threats’. If she wasn’t an R, she wouldn’t face a primary threat based on her support of common-sense gun control bills. I know just what she’ll say: The vote didn’t matter b/c there weren’t enough yes votes to get the bills out of committee anyway. Let’s look at it differently: If she had voted yes, it would have placed tremendous pressure on McBride and Poore. Even a Republican was willing to vote yes, but the D leadership went against their solemn promises, and killed the bills. No, at least two decades after the death of her husband, Cathy Cloutier is still playing the part of a victim who is faced with choices that are unfair to her. A strong D in this district won’t face these self-created dilemmas. It’s time to take her out in 2020.
With the apparent death of these bills, the heart of the legislative session has been left on the operating room floor. In fact, what remains demonstrates the lack of initiative from our sleepy-eyed governor.
I can’t go on. I must go on.
Today’s House Agenda blahblahblah. Well, there’s only one bill that interests me. HB 130(Brady) ‘ enacts a ban on stores providing single-use plastic bags at check-out.’ Yes, yess, YES! Can we pass it w/o it being watered down, please?
Today’s Senate Agenda, brought to you by Prevaricator Pro-Tem Dave McBride, is similarly uninspiring. I guess we could look at SB 74 (Walsh), which allows ‘…qualified employers to pro-rate their job creation activity…’, oh, never mind. Just a bill that put-upon business people wanted.
Today is a whole lot of nothing from a whole lot of nobodies.
Maybe tomorrow will be different.
Don’t count on it.
Poore will be getting a primary opponent if I can get him to do it, actively trying to get someone to switch the race they were running.
I think I know who you are talking about. I am trying to convince them to run for Senate too.
I think I do as well. I almost think they are better positioned for the race they’re currently targeting.
However, if no other strong candidate emerges to challenge Poore…
Sooo who the heck you all talking about?! haha
I guess this illustrates my general issue with DE state politics in general. Too many cowards. Nothing of any substance ever gets done. What’s the point of lobbying for you interests anyway?
The entire GA session has been an incredible waste of time. Same as the previous ones as far as I can remember.
Of McBride’s many lies, I find the most pathetic lie to be “It didn’t get support because it doesn’t fix all gun violence forever.”
That hoary chestnut is a reliable NRA go to. That someone in McBride’s position would use it is seriously disgusting.
I personally enjoy the “but criminals will still break the law!”
… yeah, no shit.
Yep. That was another good one also deployed by McBride in his lying ass statement.
Might as well get rid of those laws against murder and manslaughter, then. They’ve been on the books literally since humans began writing them, and yet murders continue.
You can’t fix stupid, which means it’s impossible to explain things to stupid. If that worked, stupid could be fixed.
It’s all stupid, and yes Vanella, it does nothing to tackle the criminals.
Hahaha! You’re right!
With all these laws on the books people still break them. You’re a real deep thinker.
I might suggest you think about what you’re saying a little bit more, but it won’t help
Don’t be an idiot.
Look at our body count for yesterday compared to England’s for a year, or Japan’s for a decade.
Are you comparing “gun violence” or “violent crimes”? After taking population into account, I think you’ll be surprised at the violent crime rates. London has passed New York City in violent crime every month this year (there’s talk of banning knives). Japan’s gangs don’t use guns, as with many other criminals there. As you could expect, considering the culture, they prefer to use a knife and using a firearm can be considered dishonorable.
The criminal justice scholar has logged on.
Australia’s.
We’re not dealing with the best & the brightest, folks.
You would have seen massive non-compliance from peaceable Delaware gun owners had the bills passed. Non-compliance from Delaware Law enforcement saying they won’t arrest people.
We only have to look at other states to see this is the case. When you pass unconstitutional laws and the very people you target with those laws decide en masse to not follow them, you have a serious problem. You’d have a huge number of Delawareans who previously had committed no offence worse than a parking or speeding ticket who would suddenly become felons overnight
https://www.courant.com/business/hc-xpm-2014-02-10-hc-haar-gun-registration-felons-20140210-story.html
“I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register….If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don’t follow them, then you have a real problem. – Sen. Tony Guglielmo
Gun nuts are a criminal element.
I have 2 things:
– Why is it imperative to bash anyone who doesn’t agree with you? Maybe Senator Cloutier doesn’t agree with the Bill’s as they stand, and must they be “NTA Hooligans “?
– I hear both sides, “Commen Sense Legislation” and “Criminals won’t be affected”, but I have yet to hear anyone explain how any of 3 these bills would help. Rational dialogue will go a lot farther then name calling to finding a satisfactory compromise.
Chuck,
Why is it important not to trash your political opponents? The DE GA is a do-nothing legislature stocked with people who like photo ops.
These people are garbage. Too much coddling. Not enough yelling & arm twisting. These people are weak in mind and constitution.
Fuck these people.
Of course it doesn’t impact criminals! No law stops people from breaking it.
Do you suppose the new abortion laws in Georgia, Alabama & Ohio will stop illegal abortions?
Why are people so fucking stupid.
I will not support any legislation unless it guarantees to end racism & homelessness!
Heavily regulated gun ownership had dramatically decreased gun crime/murder everywhere.
I love to watch these turd birds twist themselves in knots.
Delaware may be blue, but the legislature runs on a minority-majority OPINION. The citizens can voice their preferences to the state government, but unless it corresponds to the opinion of the officeholder, it will not become law. One set of examples include the gun bills simply held in committee. Another area that gets no joy is legal cannabis. Most insidious are the economic policy measures that should be passed, but are held up by the pressures of DE’s financial elites, and these hurt the public interest the most. In light of their shocking behavior this week it is fair to ask whether Sens. Poole and McBride retain any sense of the public good at all.
Asked and answered. No! Poole never had any concern for the public good. She correctly saw getting elected as a means to an undeserved financial end.
McBride…well, even people who have known him for decades are likely exhausted from trying to figure him out. Suffice to say that his being elevated to Pro-Tem was the Peter Principle in action.