Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Sun., June 30, 2019
Based on what’s come before, it’s entirely fitting that this first session of the General Assembly draws to a close with the passage of two money bills with contents hidden far from the prying eyes of the public.
On Thursday, the Senate passed the Bond Bill with no notice whatsoever. The bill was not made available to the public to review before the roll call had been taken. The Senate could have just as easily delayed consideration of the Bond Bill until first thing today, giving the House plenty of time to consider it. So why didn’t they? No, seriously, I’m asking. We now know that there’s a potential bailout of Wesley College, a private institution, using public dollars to bail it out. I take no position on whether the state should be doing this. My criticism goes to the deliberate move to rush this bill through the Senate with no public notice.
What’s even worse is the cavalier manner by which the entire General Assembly will consider the Grant-In-Aid bill today. The committee charged with writing the bill is not even going to meet until 3 pm today. Now, bear in mind that at least two of Delaware’s most powerful legislators have every reason to hide the particulars of this bill from the public. Nicole Poore parlayed her public position into a second job as President of Jobs For Delaware Graduates, a bullshit waste of money if ever there was one. Valerie Longhurst parlayed her public position into a second job as Executive Director of the Delaware Police Athletic League. There is only one reason why Delaware’s two most unethical legislators have these positions–they can ensure that they will be amply funded even though neither agency is a state agency. The funding is in the annual Grant-In-Aid bill every year. They will get their funding–the bill will likely be signed into law–before the public even has a chance to read it. If you’re OK with that, there is no point in reading this.
Here is the Session Activity Report from Thursday.
Today’s Agendas are starting points, and only starting points. Having said that, the House deserves credit for providing notice on a significant number of bills it intends to run. We’ll find out soon enough if the Trone family will be aided in their continuing pursuit of a retail liquor monopoly as Mike Ramone’s gift to them is #1 on the agenda. Actually, the House agendas include several Senate bills that are likely senate priorities. Conspicuous by its absence is SB 159 (Walsh), which is designed to make the State Auditor do her job. Speaker Pete decided that protecting Kathy McGuiness was more important than accounting for taxpayer dollars. So, he buried it in a committee that won’t meet until 2020. The bill could still be worked under a motion to suspend rules, but that would require some integrity on the part of senate leadership.
The bleeping Senate hasn’t even posted an agenda yet. Guess the senate ‘leader’ wanted to beat the beach traffic back home to Lewes on Thursday. BTW, Dave, is it true that your wife is registered to vote down at your beach house? After all, she is listed as living there, 35759 Tarpon Dr., Lewes DE 19958-5047, to be specific. Memo to Sen. McBride: Spare me any talk about bringing transparency to the office of Pro-Tem. The senate leadership team is hopelessly compromised, and it’s up to the Senate Caucus to address it. And it’s time that the voters elected someone to replace Sen. McBride unless they want someone who lives in Lewes representing them. Betcha they don’t.
I’ll provide updates as developments warrant. However, I won’t be burning the midnight oil tonight. If you’re down there, let us know what’s going on.
Me? I’ve had enough of this group of miscreants.
If I read the Budget Bill correctly, the Auditor of Accounts actually had her funding cut this year rather than increased. I saw only one reason to vote for McGuiness; that she would use her many political connections to restore some funding and rebuild the office. Apparently those connections were not enough and the office will remain the stagnant underfunded backwater it has been for at least the last decade.
One step she could take is to redirect the money she spent on PR personnel for the office to hire, y’know, actual auditors.
What esteemed legislators will filibuster the 2 money bills so they can’t be voted on until the public can read and provide comment? What esteemed legislators will vote against the bills and take the time to inform the public about the real reasons for what they contain?
That would be nobody. While the Grant-In-Aid bill won’t be completed until at least early evening, if then, you can now look at the Bond Bill here:
http://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=47865
Let’s see…we’re throwing another $4.4 mill at the Riverfront Development Corporation; $1.5 mill to the ‘Fraunhofer Vaccine Development’, which doesn’t sound like a state program; $2.5 mill to the ‘National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals’, whatever that is; $2.2 mill to the Ft. DuPont boondoggle. That’s just the first couple of pages. I could go on and on.
Read it for yourself and find your own outrages. Seems to me that we’ve moved far afield from what the Bond Bill used to be.
What did it used to be?
So many more non-state-related projects than when I started. Schools, roads, building upgrades and, during the ’90’s, prisons, prisons and more prisons.
12:30 pm. Still no Senate Agenda. The standard operating procedure, the one that McBride promised he would do in furtherance of more transparency, is that the next session’s agenda would be posted by the close of the preceding day.
As we learned this year, McBride’s promises mean nothing.
Or we could just say Delaware remains the corrupt and loveable place it’s always been, and the Hated “Delaware Way” is still with us.
The Senate has finally released an Agenda:
http://legis.delaware.gov/Agenda/Senate
So the most “progressive” general assembly in history’s record so far.
1) nothing on gun reform
2) nothing on voting reform
3) nothing on budget reform
They passed a modest bill about gun storage. Pretty sure they passed a couple of voting reform bills, but not ‘no-excuses absentee’ voting.
The so-called D senate leaders killed gun reform, and the Senate Rethugs have so far refused to vote on the absentee voting, which requires a super-majority, and got only three no votes in the House.
There was so much wrong with this session that I’m thinking of counting down the ten worst outrages of the term. Lots more than 10, though…
Safe storage bill was bs. They even made it weaker in the end so the state has to prove why it wasn’t stored. It’s a feel good bill with no real consequences people like Nicole Poore can say oh look at me I’m for gun safety!
They didn’t do same day voter registration or absentee ballots either. Pretty sure moving up the primary the same day with the presidentAl primary is dead.
Oh yea and they killed hb 110.
So not impressed
It was a shitty year, all right. The problem wasn’t with progressive legislators, the problem was with those who foiled progressive legislation at almost every turn.
Specifically, both the House and Senate leadership.
Wouldn’t hurt if the Governor stood for something, ANYthing, besides budget-smoothing either.
Guess I expected them to stand a little stronger then they did again Poore and pistol Pete.
You are right on the Governor. I have never seen a politician who always has the “is it time to go home yet?” Face quite like John. That dude is checked out
I know. The thing is, if you go after the king, you had better GET the king. Leadership controls committee assignments and what does/does not get onto the Agenda.
I think that, in the Senate particularly, the newcomers will become more assertive moving forward. But, if you remember, both the House and Senate leadership scheduled the organizational meetings for the day right after the election. They knew that time wasn’t on their side. They couldn’t even wait until Return Day, when the newbies could have gotten behind more progressive leadership.
From Bittle – new legis are pliable and obedient? –
https://delawarestatenews.net/news/final-day-dawns-a-look-back-at-the-legislative-session/
House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, a Rehoboth Beach Democrat, praised the dynamic in the House while noting the session has — knock on wood — not been as bumpy or eventful as it was in 2018.
“It has been so much different than last year, it really has been,” he said last week.
“We came into this thing worried about the 12 (new representatives) and the impact they would have, whether it be negative or positive and everything, but been pleasantly surprised with how they’ve interacted with the members that have been here a while.
We’ve had members that have been here for a while taking the new people under their wing and mentoring them and teaching them the right way to do things.”
Bond Bill: Section1 Addendum Supplement pg. 2
Agency/Project #20
Delaware Strategic Fund: FY 2019– $12.5 million FY 2020– $12.5 million.
This is the blank check for funds (total $25 million) to be distributed to the Fiskers, Blooms, JP Morgans, Barclays, DuPonts, Chemours etc. etc. etc. who are recommended for taxpayer gifts by the Delaware Prosperity Partnership secret society (exempt from FOIA and/or public scrutiny). I will be making this point on the floor before I decide whether or not to throw out the $850 million baby (Bond Bill) with this $25 million thievery mechanism (with no appreciable return on investment) by voting against the entire bill. Delaware Prosperity Partnership will receive an additional $4 million ($2m in 2019 and $2m in 2020 in this bill also). Just enough to keep their lips sealed and the Chamber of Commerce’s greedy palms lubricated. This sequel was formerly brought to you by Alan Levin and Jack Markell whose successful game show gave away over $250m to bloated/engorged and wealthy corporations during their tenure. Best wishes Wall Street
Representative John Kowalko
Double dipping must be put to an END.
Holy FUCK! I was looking at the Legislative Council page and discovered that the Research Analyst for the Joint Sunset Committee, a job I once held some three decades ago, is, wait for it, Mark Brainard’s kid. I’m not making this up:
https://legis.delaware.gov/Offices/DivisionOfResearch/DivisionStaff
Almost 9 pm. Grant-In-Aid bill has yet to be introduced.
The Grant-In-Aid bill wasn’t even introduced until the Special Session had convened on July 1. Passed in the House at 12:26 am and in the Senate at 1:01 am. I’ll be digging deeper into that bill in the next day or so.
However, I can report that Nicole Poore’s sham operation Jobs For Delaware Graduates got $1,395,197 of YOUR taxpayer dollars, and our PAL Val Longhurst’s Police Athletic League of Delaware got $183,600.
It pays to be ethically-bankrupt in the Delaware General Assembly.
BTW, the Senate tried, but couldn’t pass, ‘no-excuses absentee voting’. The bill needed 14 yes votes. It only got 11, although there are 13 yes votes right now. Ennis was absent, and Townsend changed his vote to no for parliamentary purposes (someone on the ‘prevailing’ side must move to rescind the roll call). Delcollo went not voting. He would have been the 14th.