Mo’ Better Democrats: Challenge These Legislative Miscreants!
We can argue about the merits of the recently-concluded first session of the 151st General Assembly. However, with a progressive Senate D Caucus moving full speed ahead, we learned who needs to be challenged, especially in the House, to do away with the Kop Kabal now and forever. Time and time again, we saw progressive legislation stalled or watered down due to the action and inaction of Speaker Pete’s Mindless Minions. I think it’s essential to get rid of as many House members of the Kop Kabal as possible. We’re not that far away from reaching critical mass, so it’s essential to keep our eyes on the prize.
We don’t know how redistricting will shake out. Retirements, if there are any, could well influence the new districts. However, based on what happened this year, the General Assembly would be much better off if the following legislators were no longer in it come November of 2022:
MUST CHALLENGES:
Stephanie Bolden-RD 2: Talk about an undistinguished career. Her narcissism has been her defining characteristic. Along with her Holloway family connections. As a legislator, she previously opposed cracking down on ‘payday lenders’, you’ll have to ask her why, and, this session, she single-handedly stopped a bill that would have helped probably hundreds of her own constituents by providing legal assistance to renters facing eviction from landlords. Again, you’ll have to ask her why. Or maybe direct the question to Buccini/Pollin. This district has traditionally been under-represented. Bolden’s immediate predecessor was Hazel Plant, whose sole accomplishment was being married to Al Plant. She got funding for the family business, the Eastlawn Services Center, as did her husband. And that’s it. A real community organizer could work wonders for their constituents here.
Larry Mitchell-RD 13: Literally a member of the Kop Kabal. He’s already banked three pensions (cops, Del-Tech, General Assembly). He has played a key role in slow-walking police reform. Most recently, he was a sponsor of the amendment that gutted the magazine capacity bill. He hasn’t been challenged in awhile, his district is likely to pick up more people who don’t know him. The time is now to find a serious primary challenger for him. Maybe the challenger wins this time, maybe not. But Mitchell’s headed into the sunset soon. 2022 is the year to try to make it happen.
Val Longhurst-RD 15: I know it’s a heavy lift. However, her knack for grabbing popular bills and branding them as her own aside, her Kop Kabal kredentials are there for all to see in this racially-mixed district. Not to mention, I think she is vulnerable on her six-figure ‘job’ at the Police Athletic League and how she got it. However, and this is important, if a genuine challenger cannot be found, then it’s better to spend resources elsewhere…here for example:
Franklin Cooke-RD 16: He may have been Dunleith’s friendly neighborhood cop. But, as much as Speaker Pete, Cooke helped to deep-six legit police reform. As Chair of the so-called Police Reform Commission, Cooke reveled in the presence of so many ex-cops, and made sure that the most compelling issues weren’t even considered by the Commission. His district is a minority-majority RD. He made clear that his priorities are Blue First, Black no better than second. He is a disgrace in a district that once counted J. J. Johnson as their state rep. His defeat would put an important dent in the Kop Kabal.
William J. ‘Lumpy’ Carson-RD 28: As Larry King might’ve said, “Look up the definition of ‘useful idiot’ in the dictionary, and you’ll see Ol’ Lump’s picture”. Which is why Speaker Pete has gifted arguably the Dumbest D In Dover with the chairmanship of the Joint Finance Committee (every other year) and the House Appropriations Committee. Which is why Ol’ Lump gratefully buried a key element of the gun reform package in the House Appropriations Committee even though money for the bill’s implementation was funded in the Budget Bill. Even more than the gutting of the magazine limit bill, this defined the House leadership’s breaking its word on the gun reform package. Ol’ Lump is an anachronism in his own district: a rural guy in an increasingly-suburbanized district. He is ripe for the pickins. Pick him, and the collective IQ of the House immediately soars.
Bill Bush-RD 29: Bush has already inherited the title of Resident DINO from Quinn Johnson and Bryon Short. That’s why Pete installed him as chair of the Business Lapdog Committee, which was originally founded to provide Carper acolyte Short a platform to seek higher office. Until this year, it was where minimum wage increases went to die. Were it not for the great grassroots effort on behalf of SB 15, it would’ve died this year as well. Bush also opposes rights for renters and for those living in manufactured home communities. He’s also a Big Deal at Del-Tech as a member of the Board Of Trustees. He’s smart, but he’s Chamber-corporate all the way. He hasn’t been there that long, and he’s to the right of the D’s in that district, or, at least I think so. Primary him, and let’s find out.
Andria Bennett-RD 32: It would be political malpractice not to primary her. She was a consistent opponent of minimum wage increases–until this year when it became evident it would pass. Gun bills, renters’ protection, manufactured housing residents, you name it, she’s either against it or she’s completely unpredictable. She voted against the magazine capacity bill even after sponsoring the killer amendment. Betcha her constituents don’t like that. I’d put her right there w/Ol’ Lump on the Dumbness Scale, but she has a little trailer park cunning to her. She beat up her husband and had the cops keep it out of the papers. She conducts her committee hearings in an utterly unprofessional manner. Her district is overwhelmingly D, and the residents there deserve much better. In a year with so many tempting targets, she probably ranks #1–especially since a credible challenger will likely smoke John Viola’s daughter. A General Assembly with no Violas–a pleasant thought. Even in the string section, you’d never know they were missing.
Darius Brown-SD 2: The only senator on the list. Sure, it might be nice to find upgrades for Spiros Mantzavinos, Nicole Poore or Bruce Ennis–but none of them are a true impediment to the progressive agenda the Senate has run. Darius Brown, however, sold his vote on limiting the Minquadale landfill in exchange for campaign contributions from Waste Management and its bagmen, The Byrd Group. He then publicly beat up a female acquaintance. He’s been given plenty of chances to ‘turn his life around’. He’s demonstrated that the Senate is not the place for him to continue this makeover. Having said that, his ‘opponents’ last time truly stunk of suckitude. Is it asking too much to have someone who is not a self-dealer run for this seat?
OTHERS TO CONSIDER:
Nnamdi Chukwuocha-RD 1: Gotta say, I was really disappointed that he was the prime sponsor on the amendment that gutted the Magazine Capacity bill. However, the last thing I want is to give the Potter grifters any hope at all.
Sherry Dorsey Walker-RD 3: She appears to be on a quest to BE somebody rather than to DO anything. Which is why she, along with Stephanie Bolden, opposed Melissa Minor-Brown’s ascension to leadership, which was utterly pathetic on both their parts. If they couldn’t have it, they’d make sure that another Black woman wouldn’t get it. Mirror, mirror on the wall… She’s already run for statewide office once. Perhaps her constituents would be better served by someone who has their eyes set on serving the district. And staying in it. Of all the people on this list, she was the one I most considered upgrading to the ‘Must Challenge List’. Still might.
Gerald Brady-RD 4: Gotta say, he’s voted the right way and sponsored some good legislation. If only he could put two sentences together, he’d be a greater force in that caucus. He can’t and he won’t.
Sean Matthews-RD 10: Sean was a huge improvement over Dennis Williams, and has been a champion for public education. However, he sponsored the killer amendment on the Magazine Capacity bill, and he cast a couple of puzzling votes against the rights of manufactured housing communities. Warning signs…
Pete Schwartzkopf-RD 14: Only if a legit candidate emerges. You don’t need to defeat the leader of the Kop Kabal in order to defeat the Kop Kabal.
Kim Williams-RD 19: In some ways, similar to Sean. Also sponsored the killer amendment after lamenting that her WMD might make her a criminal if the bill wasn’t amended. I guess getting rid of her WMD is not an option.
OK, kids, fire away. Agree, disagree, add or subtract names. And, of course, suggest suitable challengers.
Kim Williams is a good example of how activists often founder outside their areas of expertise. She really couldn’t figure out that if her gun were declared illegal in Delaware, it would still have retail value in most other states? That she could sell it and use the proceeds to buy a legal gun?
Ironic, to me at least, that someone who obsesses about education could have used a better one herself.
I’ve seen it mentioned in passing here but don’t know the whole story about Rep. Williams and her potential WMD. Can someone fill me in?
When the magazine capacity bill came over from the Senate, and the House considered an amendment that would permit magazines with larger capacity, she was quoted in the press as saying that, under the original bill, her weapon would be considered against the law.
So, in her case, the fact that she owns a weapon that could be classified as a WMD, was more than enough reason to be a sponsor on the amendment that gutted the bill. As Alby pointed out elsewhere in the thread, she could easily have sold her weapon to a buyer in another state.
Mom’s Demand Action, are you up on all this?
Primary!
As I understand it, her gun has a removable plate that allows for attaching a large-capacity magazine, and such guns would be banned under the bill.
I dunno, maybe I haven’t watched enough cop movies, but if you can’t hit anything with the first 17 bullets, maybe gun ownership isn’t for you.
Kim Williams maybe needs to be on a watch list, but I think her track record speaks louder than this one fuck-up
http://delawareliberal.net/?s=kim+williams
Agree. I wouldn’t prioritize her, Sean or Nnamdi.
However, should an unassailable alternative surface…
Find ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, who is more progressive for public education in Delaware, especially in her district, and you can talk about her removal. An amendment on a gun bill does not outweigh the numerous great things she has done for Delaware.
We don’t need someone more progressive than Williams on education. We would like to have someone EQUALLY progressive on education, but also in favor of rational gun safety laws. Trading more bullets for better education is a hell of a trade-off. I wish Kim didn’t confront us with that choice, and a strong primary would send that message.
If I’m one of the gun bill sponsors, I remember this next time she needs my vote. That’s how this works — you support my bill, I support yours. And the only way to send her a message — other than the primary you don’t want — is to vote against her progressive education bills. That’s certainly not what you want.
She’s a big girl. Let her defend herself.
This is what drives me crazy about this site. It is Delaware Liberal. But anytime anyone in Legislative Hall doesn’t agree with 1000% of your stances they get eviscerated on here. All you are doing with that is weakening the Democrat party in Delaware. You are, in reality, emboldening what you don’t want. I get it, when I blogged about education I did my fair share of eviscerating. But I got over it and eventually realized 1) I wasn’t always going to get my way, 2) no one is ever going to agree with you 100% of the time, and 3) going after good people and legislators is not always the best idea. Just my two cents.
JEE-zus, Kevin. Go back and read the thread from the beginning and you will see that your argument doesn’t hold water. It’s not at all what the original post said, and it’s not what we’ve said in the comments. In fact, I clearly wrote that, if the standard that you claim we apply was the 100% in support of every progressive issue, you’d be lucky to find 4 legislators who met that criteria.
Feel free to criticize, but use some reading comprehension skills and apply them, willya?
First off, Kevin, it’s the Democratic Party.
Second, no member of the public is under an obligation to the Democratic Party. The public’s job is to tell its representatives what it wants them to do. Protecting them from criticism is the job of their PR people.
Progressives mostly want the same things, but my priorities and yours probably differ. Kim Williams gets to vote on all the bills, not just the education bills. I trust her to vote the right way on education, but she voted the wrong way on that bill, and her explanation did not make it better — it made me wonder why she thinks she needs to carry a gun, and why she’s sounding like Dave Lawson on the subject.
I don’t live in her district, so I don’t have any way to express my displeasure outside of threatening to donate to a credible primary challenger. It’s that simple. She probably won’t get one, but even if she did, a primary challenger is hardly weakening the party — she ran unopposed last year.
What does “going after good people and legislators is not always the best idea” even mean?
Kim Williams successfully spurns the right-wing Kool-Aid on education and minimum wage, but on this gun bill she apparently couldn’t resist a deep chug.
That said – the Dem primary is the election, so if any of these people want to stay in office they need to think more about how they are positioned to win primaries – less about how their lips are positioned relative to Pete’s bunghole.
Contact Governor Carney and ask him to extend the state of emergency and eviction moratorium until tenant protections are put in place!
https://governor.delaware.gov/contact-connect/
I have no evidence or knowledge of this but if I were Pete, I’d make a deal with the emerging progressives not to shut down their agenda as long as they don’t shut down his cop cabal priorities.
Problem is, the progressive agenda includes police/criminal justice reform.
It also includes gun safety measures, measures which the kops have not supported. If kops supported keeping WMD out of the hands of citizens, the legislation would pass just like that.
Which is why turning the Kop Kabal into the distinct minority is essential.
Except the cop cabal priority is shutting down the progressive agenda.
Maybe in general, but I think Pete is pragmatic about it and chooses his battles. Cops care most about their pensions and their legal immunities. The rest of the right-wing agenda is negotiable to varying degrees.
All cops are Republicans, no matter what the letter after their name says, because all cops are authoritarians, just as all career military people are authoritarians.
“Negotiable” means giving them something in negotiations. No sale.
There is no lumpy Carson, busch or Cooke in positions of power without Schwartzkoff.
Get a member of the LGBTQ community in Rehoboth to primary him and it’s over.
Get Snyder Hall on board and find someone.
What about the guy from Bad Hair Day???
100% correct.
They are his chosen henchmen.
Pete had a member of the LBGTQ+ community, Don Peterson, run against him in 2016. The LGBTQ+ community supports Pete.
As long as Pete runs, he will win in the 14th. That being said, getting more progressives elected in the House so that he is no longer elected Speaker should be the goal.
Question for you, SA:
The idea has been floated that there might be enough D’s on the eastern side of Sussex to carve out another swing D district there?
Any realistic chance of that?
I also think it’s important to look at the votes on SB 7 – a very regressive bail bill that increases pretrial detention. You can see that here: https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail/78868
There are also a number of Senators that aren’t listed in this post, but have not lived up to their ‘progressive’ values if you look at their votes and where they stand on important issues like reforming the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights. You can see that bill and the sponsors here: https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=78766
I think it is also worth noting that Rep. Longhurst is a cosponsor on the tenant right to counsel bill. This is so important as evictions will start again this summer. She could have suspended rules to get this bill passed, but did not. https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=78838
You make some good points.
Just a cautionary note: If you looked hard enough this session, there couldn’t have been more than four legislators who ‘voted the right way’ on every bill.
It makes no sense to primary every one of those D legislators for not being perfect, and that’s not what this exercise is all about.
It’s about identifying and primarying those legislators who generally impede progressive progress.
Of course. I suppose my question is: why only Darius Brown (who sponsored some good bills, like expungements) over other Senators? That is not meant in any way to defend his actions, to be clear.
I stated the reasons. He let the word be known around Leg Hall that he was hard up for campaign $$’s. He took money from the lobbyists at Bobby Byrd’s firm to lift the limit on the height of the Minquadale Dump, screwing people who did not deserve to be screwed. Pretty much a quid pro quo that he sought.
AND he punched a female companion in public at a Talleyville restaurant.
This was at least a second chance for him since he has a huge back tax load that he accumulated.
I also mentioned why I didn’t add other senators to the list. The Senate has put forward progressive legislation that passed the Senate, often with the support of every D in that caucus.
The House, however, is where I think we need to focus our efforts. Otherwise, the lower house will continue to put the brakes on good legislation.
Lewes and Rehoboth should be combined but I don’t think Pete wants a more democratic district.
Still amazed Daruis Brown is still a Senator after getting hammered and throwing a glass at a women during cocktail hour and literally no one says a thing….
This is not a 20 year old at UD…
This is a 40 something year old State Senator. Let me know where to send my money on a primary since the Senate Dems and staff apparently has no balls to call him out
Who’s “no one?” Lots of people said lots of things. I just hope they don’t offer him a plea deal so he has to stand trial. Maybe then they’ll notice that the Black community of Wilmington is “represented” mostly by people who aren’t doing shit for them because they’re too busy stuffing their own pockets.
Well, they took away his Judiciary Committee chairmanship. And the President Pro-Tem has indicated he’s prepared to do more once the case is resolved.
Sometimes it’s just up to the voters.
As it is, though, the Senate has disciplined him. Which the House leadership, noticeably, has not done to Andria Bennett or Steve Smyk.