DE’s Most Intriguing Legislative Races Of 2024: #9-RD 10
Imagine a state representative who retired, but never bothered to tell anybody. No need to imagine it when your state rep is Sean Matthews. Oh, he hasn’t technically retired. He still mostly goes to Dover, votes for Pete ‘n Val, opposes strong gun safety legislation. And, here’s the point, does virtually nothing else.
Now understand that most of the people who are new to his Brandywine Hundred district, and there’s a bleepload of ’em, have no idea who he is. That includes virtually everybody who lives in a rectangle (well, more like a rectangular-shaped apostrophe) bounded by Naamans Road, Foulk Road, Silverside Road, and Marsh Road. I’m thinking that’s at least 40% of the district. Holiday Hills, North Graylyn Crest, Kingsridge, Lancashire, Wynnwood, Clair Manor, Foulkside, Highland Woods, Indianfield, Darley Woods, and several of those one-street developments. I’ve knocked doors and lit dropped in that entire area several times as it was in my district up until 2022. What once was bright-red Republican, then swing, is now solidly Democratic. To the tune of 8320 D; 5371 R; and 4793 I. Here’s the map.
Did I mention he’s basically retired? Here is his entire legislative output this session: Three distinctly minor bills on driver registration, two amendments to those bills. And nothing else. Go here, and type in ‘Matthews’ in the upper right-hand corner (my cut-and-paste didn’t work) to see his paltry output.
His entire output for the preceding legislative session, meaning the entire two years, is equally devoid of accomplishment. Three bills signed into law: one dealing with notaries, one dealing with auto dealership licenses, and one ‘to allow for right of way acquisitions to commence upon the approval of final right of way plans on a parcel by parcel basis’. That’s it. All handed to him. No initiatives.
Couple that record with his support for the Kop Kabal leadership and weakness on gun control (he and Kim Williams share the same penchant for allowing maximum ammo in assault weapons), and you have a disengaged incumbent who doesn’t reflect his constituents’ interests. The best you can say about him is that he’s a back-bencher. Unlike, say, Kim Williams, who is a leader in education, Matthews has no legislative accomplishments to speak of since his election in 2014.
Truth-In-Advertising: I supported Sean when he ran against the even-more useless Dennis E. Williams, who has that gene that impels him to run for something every cycle. I don’t regret it one bit.
However, Matthews has become uninterested and uninspired. An engaged progressive challenger can win this seat, and can provide the kind of representation that will be embraced by the 10th RD.
Know anybody?
Sean Matthews has come to strike me as a guy collecting the extra 50k a year and that’s about it.
Like a Trini Navarro is at the state level. Just there and no one quite knows why
Well, $50 K is $50 K. Absent a challenger, why not keep collecting it?
A few months ago I heard a rumor that he was planning a move to Pennsylvania. But I only heard that once. Either way, it would be grand to have someone with some fight in them ready to step up.
Sometimes the mere act of challenging an incumbent is enough to drive an incumbent into retirement.
It happened pretty recently, when Rep. Mike Mulrooney retired rather than face Melissa Minor-Brown in a primary.
Thats not how I remember that happening. I thought Mulrooney announced his retirement and then Minor-Brown ran against the union and caucus supported candidate in order to win that seat. Now a better example would be how Sarah leaned on Old Man McDowell and made him retire….. Beautiful
Minor-Brown announced, Mulrooney retired. It’s true that there was a construction union challenge to her, but he had no chance running as a non-incumbent.
Don’t think the caucus took sides, but I could be wrong.
Turns out there were three candidates in that primary. The results:
Melissa Minor Brown: 1278
Michael Burns: 547
David Roberts: 429
I don’t think the caucus took sides.
Delaware has too many legislative districts. A solution would be if a district only fields one candidate for a legislative seat, it should be merged with a larger one which at least provides residents with a choice.
All districts have more or less the same number of people in each.
Call it representative democracy, or proportional democracy.
That pesky Constitution requires it.
Residents also have the choice of running themselves.
To El Som’s point: Delaware has the third-lowest number of state legislators, but it’s only 11th in legislators per capita. For example, North Dakota has 200,000 fewer residents than Delaware – but it has 47 state senators and 94 representatives, and they’re paid almost as much as Delaware’s are.
Hawkeye has a point, too. If you look at it from a performance standpoint, we can’t find worthy candidates to fill the number of elective offices that exist in this state. As a result we elect a lot of dead wood, most obvious in the number of retired cops and volunteer firehall officials.
The problem with trying to address that by shrinking the number of elective offices: There’s no guarantee it’s the dead wood that would get pruned.
It’s what happens when you pick a successor out of the legislative staffers…
What? Madinah Wilson-Anton was a legislative staffer. She’s one of our best. Pretty sure David Bentz was as well. Again, top-notch.
So what’s your point? Sean is a teacher, not a former legislative staffer.
One staffer who I’d like to see run for a seat in the legislature is Kyle Schwab. Solid dude, good progressive.
Dennis E didn’t pick Sean Matthews and Sean wasn’t even his staffer. Sean didn’t even serve as a staffer in the legislature. Bentz was Barbieri’s staffer, but he turned out to be a good legislator.
Correct. Sean defeated Williams in a primary, then skunked him in a rematch two years later.
Sean worked on Dennis Williams’ campaign. He was not a legislative staffer. Som good people have come from the legislative staffs. Medinah, Benz, if I recall Eugene Young was a staffer. Mostly the House side has had the diaper dandies, as Dick Vitale would say.
Young worked for Cory Booker