Speaker Pete & Our PAL Val: A Kinder & Gentler Toxic Twosome?

Spoiler Alert: No, of course not.  But the two serial fabulists made that promise to the House D Caucus during November’s ‘Airing Of The Grievances’ Caucus.

The very same caucus that believed the Toxic Twosome’s assurances that they were running against each other for leadership, only to be tricked into finding out that the two uber-prevaricators were still a team.

I might add that we’re talking the same caucus that apparently believes that Pistol Pete will retire from the General Assembly by January of 2024 as he has promised them.  Making the House D Caucus the Most Gullible Caucus in History.

Pete ‘n Val are what they always have been–the bullies who pick on the nerds in the cafeteria.

Assuming, for argument’s sake, that there’s at least a scintilla of sincerity in their promises, how would we know if they follow through?  To me, what’s most important is that good bills receive fair consideration in the House.

Pete ‘n Val have used their power to kill really good legislation, most of it memorialized in the Delaware Democratic Party’s platform, much of which has already passed in the Senate.  Here’s how they do it:

1.  Speaker Pete creates majorities on committees that are inhospitable to progressive legislation, and names chairs who oppose progressive legislation. Stephanie Bolden on Housing and Deb Heffernan on Environment, to name but two obvious examples.

2. Speaker Pete assigns bills to committees where he knows they’ll be buried.  Remember how he assigned minimum wage increase legislation to the Business Lapdog Committee for years?  You know, the committee that for years buried the legislation because Bryon Short, Quin Johnson, Andria Bennett and Bill Bush, among others, owed their legislative existence to the Chamber.

3.  Speaker Pete assigns an inordinate number of important bills to the House Administration Committee.  You know, the committee where Pete, Our PAL Val, and the Rethug leaders can bury progressive bills.

4.  Should a good progressive bill emerge from committee, Speaker Pete reassigns it to the House Appropriations Committee. Where his brainless lackey Lumpy Carson makes sure it never gets a hearing.  Schwartzkopf used this tactic a lot this past session.  In many cases, the bills he reassigned had already been funded in the Budget Bill, meaning they did not have to be reassigned.  In the past, bills were typically assigned to the Appropriations Committee pending money being placed in the budget.  That’s not how Pete has used the process recently.

Let’s not forget that time that Pete screwed his entire Caucus by cutting a budget deal with the Senate Rethuglicans.  Also pretty sure that that was the same budget cycle where Mike Ramone was gifted the ‘training wage’.

So. What would kinder, gentler look like?

1. Committees that reflect the priorities of the Caucus as a whole.  Not of the Chamber, and not of this DINO governor.  The Senate established its independence from the blinkered budget-smoothing sycophant this past session.

2. An open process that ensures that worthy pieces of legislation at least make it to the floor for debate.

3. More independence from the Carney, um, ‘Administration’.  See #1. Either the legislature is a co-equal branch, or it’s not.  With next to no initiative coming from the Governor’s office, it’s time for the General Assembly to take the initiative from him.

4. More progressive committee chairs.  Having Lumpy Carson in charge of both Joint Finance and Transportation is as much of a joke as he is.  Having Stephanie Bolden playing the part of the fox guarding the hen house is also a major diss.   There are a lot more progressives in the General Assembly than there were even four years ago.  They deserve proper representation among the committee chairs.

We’ll know soon enough if the Toxic Twosome will be less poisonous this year.  We’ll know as soon as Speaker Pete unveils the committee assignments.  (I’m kinda surprised he didn’t release them on the afternoon of December 31.)  Let me just say this–if he once again screws progressives, then I think they should withhold their votes for Pete as Speaker.  Promises are not meant to be broken.  If he breaks them, well, breaking promises should be a two-way street. Maybe he’ll retire early, if at all.