“Send In The Mapses…
…to fry my synapses (hey, I never claimed to be Sondheim)
Well, maybe next week.”
Well, maybe this week.
Here’s the lede: The House and Senate have scheduled public hearings to review, and to comment upon, the proposed redistricting maps. Here is that schedule:
Public Hearing Schedule(s)
The Senate will host two public workshops during which the public will have an opportunity to offer comment on draft maps. One hearing will be virtual, the other will be in person at Legislative Hall. Registration is required. Members of the public who wish to attend should sign up using the links below.
What we don’t yet know is whether the maps will be uploaded for people to view before the hearings. In a transparent process, they would be, because how can you prepare to raise questions w/o being able to formulate them based on the proposals?
I will also point out that the Senate has scheduled two hearings. Meaning that, even if people don’t get to see the maps until next Tuesday, they will at least have an additional two days to review the maps and develop the questions.
The House, of course, has only scheduled one hearing despite there being 41 House districts as opposed to only 21 Senate districts. Because that’s the way their leaders want it. Transparency is to be avoided at all costs.
So, today, in order to prepare you for the now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t attempt by the House to sneak their plans past you, I will provide you with what I’ll be looking (out) for.
1. This holds true for BOTH the House and Senate: Who is retiring? You can bet that all four caucuses have made clear to their respective members that they must make that decision before redistricting. We already know that both Reps. Brady and Bentz have announced their retirements. We know that Sen. Ernie Lopez has announced his retirement (from the Senate, at least). We’ve been told that Sen. Pettyjohn is retiring, although I don’t think that’s been announced officially. Any other retirements will likely be reflected on the maps in one of two ways: (1) the elimination of a district in its entirety, and it being moved elsewhere; or (2) the redrawing of district lines in a manner where either the incumbent is no longer in it and/or the framework of the district is changed significantly.
2. What happens in the City Of Wilmington? I have long predicted that Gerald Brady’s district will be eliminated, enabling the other city districts to pick up needed population. But what if I’m wrong? Indeed I could be. The 2nd RD, currrently ‘represented’ by Stephanie Bolden, is clearly a more likely candidate for shrinkage than the 4th. Well below the population threshold even before the entire Gander Hill population is broken up. Bolden is 75 years old. She’s spent her entire, pardon the expression, political career, representing herself, often to the detriment of her constituents. Buccini-Pollin/predatory loans immediately come to mind. B-b-b-but ‘you can’t get rid of a minority-majority district’, you say? I have a solution for that. Some twenty years ago, Dick Carter and I put together an alternative House redistricting map at the request of our leadership. Even back then, we were already able to create a minority-majority House district in the Dover area. Something that House leadership in 2001 and 2011 had no interest in exploring. If maintaining an equal number of minority-majority districts is required, there’s your solution right there.
3. Will NCC lose a House district? I’m guessing ‘probably’. If so, that district (probably either RD 2 or 4) should go to eastern Sussex where a new D ‘beachhead’ district can be established right next to Speaker Pete’s. The most impactful statement made during the first redistricting hearing was from (former CNN correspondent, and current Delaware resident) Ralph Begleiter, who pointed out that the Sussex community more or less east of Rt. 1 had shared interests unlike those in the rest of the County. I agree. I think that Speaker Pete might as well.
4. Will ‘Our Pal Val’ Abandon Delaware City? I can’t wait to find out the answer to that one. She is part of that cozy cast of insiders who got Jack Markell to throw money and free land to a highly-dubious scheme to create the ‘Underwater City At Ft. DuPont’. Dropping a veritable windfall into the lap of the ethically-stained Dick Cathcart, who had almost the sole authority to disburse the cash. This scheme has dripped of corruption from the start. Now that Delaware City residents are blowing the whistle on the scheme, will Val get while the gettin’s good? Delaware City is in the far SE portion of her district. Let’s see if she rides out of town ahead of the wrath of the voters. Surely Crabby Dick’s isn’t the only watering hole in her district.
5. Can/Will The Kop Kabal shore up their supportive members? Members like Lumpy Carson, Larry Mitchell, Bill Bush, Franklin Cooke. I think they are limited in what they can do.
6. Will The Kop Kabal place Mike Ramone and Michael Smith in the same district? They can, and should. Ideally, one of those western NCC districts is the one that should be sent downstate. Will they? I doubt it. But they and the caucus control the process, and they can. Will Pete ‘n Val play political hardball for once that actually benefits the D’s rather than selling out members of their own caucus? I’m going with the trend, and predicting ‘no’.
Coming soon: My Senate preview!
Let the games begin and the tempest in the teapot of Delaware come to a rolling boil! Admit I’m a single issue voter when it comes to Delaware politics, that being the destruction and end of the hated Kop Kabal . I see said Kabal as the root of many of our problems, out of control police for one and the failure to legalize weed (there, I said it!) for another. As for Wilmington well…. It will remain corrupt AF and the games will go on. And on.