OK, everybody, take a deep cleansing breath. I’ll take one too. Aaaaaahhhh…
You can turn off the alarms: The 2020 Delaware non-presidential primaries will not be held in April. They can’t be held in April. As required by law, the State Board Of Elections long ago posted the official calendar for elections for this cycle. In fact, I don’t believe that even the 2022 primary elections could be held in April.
The source for all this agita is the appearance of HB 41 (Bolden) on today’s Senate Aganda. The bill would move Delaware’s statewide primaries from September to April. It’s true that the bill had disappeared below the surface for some time. I suspect that the push for the bill came from the state parties so that they could save $$’s by combining the state primaries with the presidential primaries. I disagree because I believe that the result of this change will be to discourage insurgent campaigns. Challengers would have to knock doors during the winter months to have any chance of knocking off a well-heeled opponent.
It’s unlikely that this change could even take effect in 2022. Why? Because we have redistricting that will impact every state, county and local district in Delaware. The General Assembly can’t even begin that process until the Census results are received. The goal would generally be to have new maps approved by the end of the 2021 legislative session. That, however, doesn’t change the process. Counties and municipalities must then draw their own lines, and generally try to conform them to lines drawn by the General Assembly. Whenever the process is concluded, which assumes no delays, no lawsuits and the like, I doubt that there would be sufficient time for the Department of Elections to allow for primaries in April of 2022.
Which is why SA1/HB 41 (McBride) changes the effective date of the legislation to January of 2024.
While it’s impossible to determine whether pressure from our blog and community activists helped accomplish this, legislation capping that Minquadale landfill is on today’s Senate Agenda. #1 in fact. It should pass handily. The key was getting it out of McBride’s Executive Committee. While there may be a few stray Rethug defectors, HB 212 should be on its way to the Governor shortly. Certainly McBride will dare not vote against it. Since the governor has been, at best, a passive supporter of environmental racism, it’s not a done deal until he signs it. We’ll be watching.
Trey Paradee’s ‘Mea Culpa Tour’ moves one step closer to its final performance, as SB 212 undoes the sweetheart deal he engineered between Kent County and one of his brother’s clients, DE Turf, back in June. His deflection of responsibility reminds me of this lyric that we all know: “Blame it on Cain, don’t blame it on me.” One question lingers for me: What did co-sponsor Bill Bush know, and to what extent was he involved in this? He arrived in the General Assembly as a fully-formed Good Ol’ Boy, so I think he deserves blame right along with the Paradee Bros and Queen Nancy. You can say what you want about Sussex County, but the Kent County old guard is the absolute worst that the Democratic Party keeps serving up. Hopefully, Kerri Harris and Sean Lynn are working to remove the rot from the foundation.
Little to spike my interest on today’s House Agenda. Although…isn’t this bill arriving a little late in the day? We have special license plates for everything, but not this? Strange. At least it’ll help alert us as to which motorists we should give a wide berth…