Delaware’s Shittiest Democrats: Lobbyist Bob Byrd

Every few years Delaware Today or some other publication prints what purports to be a list of the “10 Most Influential People in Delaware.” It’s always a joke, because it’s always full of people whose names are in the media frequently. The truth is that the most influential people in the state keep their names out of the media. They operate behind the curtains, where the sausage gets made and the gore isn’t pretty.

One person who belongs at the top of any accurate list of the state’s movers and shakers is Robert “Bobby” Byrd, whose lobby shop has been leading Delaware legislators by the nose to the Chamber of Commerce’s trough for decades now. Last last month he gave an interview to Dace Blaskovitz, a stock broker and conservative broadcaster whose work is disseminated by the Caesar Rodney Institute.

Through no fault of my own, I’m on the CRI mailing list, and the Koch-funded operation routinely sends out transcripts of Blaskovitz’s interviews. This one revealed more than they might realize. Blaskovitz, who chummily calls Byrd “Bobby” throughout, asked him to talk about a conservative think tank report that slagged Delaware for its allegedly poor business-friendliness. Quoth the overstuffed Byrd:

There’s a big difference between Delaware and our permitting process and the
permitting process in other states. … Delaware does really not allow you to zone a piece of land and get a piece of land permitted for any kind of project until you have disclosed exactly what that project is. And that’s a major difference from what’s done in other states. … So the Claymont Steel Facility in Delaware, which we represent … [y]ou have to go to the county when you’ve actually got a client or a prospective client who wants to build in there. So that takes a lot more time because you can’t get that permit process out of the way.

So if I’m a company that’s looking to move into, to develop a facility somewhere and I’m looking at at a site that is already permitted, the roads are in, the services are there, the utilities are done and I’m making comparison between that particular parcel and a parcel in Delaware where you’ve got to go through that permit process to get all that done. That’s a no brainer. … [I]t takes 18 to 24 months to get something permitted in Delaware, where if you go to another state, all that work is done ahead of time.

And we do it that way because we give the community and the citizenry the ability to comment on whatever it is that’s going to go there. Whereas just going ahead and getting the permitting done ahead of time. And that’s where the issue is going to be. And that’s where the fight’s got to be.

Yeah, you read that right. Bobby is flipping the bird at the public and its demands to have some say in zoning decisions. So whenever you read that Delaware is “not business friendly,” remember what it means in English: It gives its citizens a seat at the table, and that is something that DINO Bobby Byrd intends to fight.

Never, ever make the mistake of thinking progressivism’s most potent enemies in Delaware are Republicans. They are not. They register Democratic, just like everybody else, and they are all the more dangerous for it.