If a marijuana legalization bill reaches your desk, will you:
A. Sign it?
B. Let it become law without your signature?
Or:
C. Veto it?
I ask this question because your stock answer, “I’m looking forward to hearing the debate on the floor”, doesn’t apply. As if it ever did. You’ve by now heard countless legislative debates on this issue.
I also ask this question due to an interesting exchange on the Rev’s Podcast with DeShanna Neal. First, remember that a bill virtually identical to the one that just fell short has been introduced. That is not Standard Operating Procedure. If a bill fails on a topic like this, the issue is usually dead for the session. I can’t ever recall a virtually-identical bill being introduced right after a bill was defeated. As to the exchange, the REV suggested that the rumor is out that Speaker Pete will provide dispensation to any and all D’s who vote for the new bill.
Why?: Two reasons:
1. The bill is incredibly popular with pretty much everybody but cops, and governors who have not healed from the scars of the Culture Wars Of The ’60’s. BTW, I find the governorship of Carney to be the strangest of all the administations I’ve known. No, he’s not the strangest governor, Tom Carper holds that distinction and we can only hope that nobody, um, stranger, ascends to that office. His penchant for secrecy is, I think, unique for governors of the past 40 years. His cult-like attraction to the Concord Coalition and budget-smoothing are not bedrocks of the Democratic Party. But, I digress.
2. Pete has received assurances that, should the bill reach his desk, Gov. Carney will veto it.
Meaning, no D legislator, along with perhaps one or two R’s will have to run for reelection while explaining why they opposed the bill that their constituents want.
I don’t know if it’s true, but it certainly would offer a cynical solution to the conundrum that certain legislators are facing, and would be in keeping with the toxicity of the Delaware Way.
Governor Carney: We’re not idiots. We KNOW that you’ve decided what you will do should this bill reach your desk. We KNOW that you’d prefer that the bill NOT reach your desk, but that might not be politically viable for the Kop Kabal. We DON’T KNOW what you intend to do.
You can’t play rope-a-dope without dopes.
So tell us.