Towards A Delaware Transparency Agenda
Premature? No.
It’s long past time to drive a stake through the secrecy that practitioners of the Delaware Way have used to perpetuate the casual corruption at its core.
We’ll have a new governor who ran against some of the worst elements of the Delaware Way. We’ll be free of the likes of John Carney, Bethany Hall-Long, and their minions.
We’ll have a far less corrupt General Assembly, rid of the likes of Pete Schwartzkopf, Val Longhurst, and Mike Ramone.
Delaware Way secrecy has been employed for decades precisely to keep the prying eyes of the public away from what goes on behind the curtain. Even though the deals that are cut are paid for by, wait for it, the public.
This agenda is by no means complete, and I urge you to add to the list. Let’s start.
1. Create an Office of Inspector General. I have admittedly been an agnostic on this proposal in the past, and it’s imperative that the office be free from the influence of those who would appoint the IG. However, we now know that there are next to no safeguards on all manners of governmental corruption in Delaware. Were it me, I’d appoint someone like Karl Baker to the position and give him carte blanche to investigate all the stuff that the insiders don’t want exposed. Oh, and to have the power to refer wrongdoing to the Attorney General.
2. Pass Rep. Kim Williams’ Bill On ‘Dual State Employees’. Not only have several elected state employees gotten away with it, they have been aided and abetted by their other employers, all of whom receive large sums of state money. Williams’ bill as proposed would address both issues.
4. Require Transparency for all State-Elected Officials. Remember when Ruth Ann’s minion at the Department of Labor refused to release the timecards of Tony DeLuca and his paramour, citing privacy of personnel records? He was simply hiding their double-dipping from the public. As was Del-Tech when it employed Larry Mitchell as ‘Director Of Security’. As good as Rep. Williams’ proposals are, they don’t assign enforcement power to anybody, nor does it enumerate consequences for those defrauding the public. Larry Mitchell committed fraud against the taxpayers of this state. So did Bethany Hall Long. Hold future fraudsters accountable.
3. Pass Comprehensive LEOBOR Reform. Never again should police agencies cite personnel policies as a means of hiding police misconduct from the public. Legislation should also create a statewide police review board with real teeth, including public hearings.
4. Inventory ALL Quasi-Public State Agencies, And Eliminate Their FOIA Exemptions. By which I mean all agencies created by state government that spend public dollars, but are exempted from FOIA. We should start by sunsetting John Carney’s secret Business Development scheme whereby millions of dollars are approved in rubber-stamp fashion by a group of insiders with no public deliberation or disclosure required. That, BTW, used to be the way the Joint Sunset Committee functioned under Nancy Cook–they’d go into ‘executive session’, make their decisions, and then simply do a series of pro-forma votes once they came back into public session. Many others should be terminated, including the cops’ cash stash call SLEAF, where all the money stolen by the cops via civil forfeiture are divvied up to, wait for it, police agencies. Yep, they exempted themselves from FOIA. Oh, did I mention the University Of Delaware? We saw how they fought the State Auditor’s attempt to get basic information out of them. Stop playing around–they want all that money, they open the books, and they comply with the law. There must be dozens of other agencies using this loophole. That’s where you come in.
5. Strengthen Lobbyist Disclosures. Including that lobbyists reveal not only which bills they have lobbied on, but what positions they took on said bills and on whose behalf, and specify which legislators they lobbied. Also, find a way for the Public Integrity Commission to interface with the Department Of Elections so that there’s a one-stop shop to see contributions from lobbyists and their clients to specific legislators. If they’re gonna buy legislators, we have a right to know which ones, how much the legislators were paid, and on behalf of which pieces of legislation. Perhaps such a data base could be overseen by the Inspector General.
6. Strengthen Enforcement Of Election Laws. Enough of this Alphonse-Gaston dance where the AG can’t/won’t investigate anything unless the Department of Elections refers something to it. We saw how Bethany Hall Long and Anthony Albence conspired to keep blatant election law violations ‘in-house’. DOE has demonstrated neither the interest nor the capability to investigate anything, so I think that responsibility might as well be given to the Attorney General with the attendant transfer of funds, and have some staff specifically assigned to review all of the reports and to take action when appropriate, with the added component of a complaints-driven process as well.
7. Strengthen Legislative Ethics Procedures. The House Democratic Caucus turned this into a travesty. When you have unethical members in leadership, you will almost invariably either have rules that are too lax, or you have leaders who won’t enforce rules on their buddies. In particular, they can strengthen the rules on conflict-of-interest voting. As in, you can’t vote for any appropriation where a legislator will personally benefit from it. As in Nicole Poore and Jobs For Delaware Graduates, Val Longhurst and the Police Athletic League, Larry Mitchell and Del-Tech. You get the picture. This stuff is rampant. Mike Ramone was one of the worst flouters of ethics in Dover. Had his entire caucus refuse to cooperate until he got that bill passed so he could short-change the lifeguards at his swim facility, voted for that ‘penny-stock’ exchange in which he was heavily invested. This stuff has to be made transparent. We didn’t know about Ramone’s conflict of interest until the Philly papers uncovered it after the fact. Legislators must be made to publicly state their conflicts of interest with perhaps the possible sanction of losing a day’s pay if they fail to do so.
8. End ALL Unnecessary Secrecy Engaged In By the Department Of State. How many failed port deals have Bullock, Carney, et al closed with no public input? Is there no way to protect Delaware’s corporate status without encouraging world-class criminals to hide assets here? We’re talking drug money, arms shipments, things that most people consider ‘bad’. I’d like to see the new Governor appoint a working group to seriously determine how to make DOS’ machinations more transparent.
9. Weaken The Governor’s Absolute Right To ‘Executive Privilege’. From this WHYY article:
The governor’s office has what the Delaware Attorney General’s Office has recognized in state law as “executive privilege.”
Gov. Carney has used it in the past, for example to redact correspondence regarding the moving of the Rodney Square bus terminal in 2018. The documents were heavily redacted. Delaware Coalition for Open Government spokesman John Flaherty, who requested the emails, appealed the censorship to the AG’s office, but it decided the governor’s emails could stay private.
Meyer said as governor, he would want to give government employees and elected officials space to communicate freely without “everything showing up on the front page in the newspaper.” But he said the public also has the right to know if there are any backdoor deals happening.
“I think there are situations now where the public’s not getting access to information and emails they should have a right to access,” he said.
If elected governor, Meyer said he supports the release of his emails in certain circumstances. However, he would want to protect attorney-client communication, which is a current FOIA exemption.
Carney has perhaps been the most blatant practitioner of hiding stuff from the public. This needs to be dialed back as much as possible to prevent these backdoor deals from staying hidden.
10. Roll Back The Number Of FOIA Exemptions Currently Used By State Government. Again, from the WHYY article:
There are 19 exemptions that Delaware government agencies and public entities can use to withhold documents from the public. Those include criminal records, investigative files and autopsy records. That means police reports, inmate causes of death and restitution paid to victims are excluded from public disclosure.
Meyer appears amenable to some trimming down of the exemptions:
Meyer said he would direct his administration to review the exemptions to make sure they’re not being misused.
“I can think of situations where we would want some FOIA protections, or for situations under investigation,” he said. “But I think it’s being too often used today to withhold information that the public has a right to know.”
BINGO.
There is legitimate hope for enacting some of these proposals as early as next year. With a governor who doesn’t trade in secrecy and a more progressive General Assembly, this can and should be a priority for the next Legislative Session.
I’ve clearly not covered everything. Please share what items you would like to see as part of a Transparency Agenda, and let us know what you like, don’t like, or would like to see changed, about the proposals I’ve laid out there.
How do ethical members of the state legislature make it work financially ( assuming you’re a parent)? They make about 50k, are in session for about half the year (are they receiving healthcare benefits for the whole year?)…that must be difficult if your skillset/experience doesn’t lend well to contract/per diem work.
I know we’re a small state, but it seems like we’d be better off paying our legislators for a full-year session and forbidding them from working elsewhere to avoid conflicts of interest. Surely there are other responsibilities we could give them, require more time meeting with constituents, to justify the increased pay.
We can’t deny them the opportunity to make a living. Yes, they get healthcare benefits. Plus a generous pension after a relatively brief time in office.
Session rarely starts before 2 pm. There are only 50 session days or so a year. People can make it work if they really want the job.
Plus, legislators who serve in leadership, or serve on either JFC, Bond Bill Committee, or Sunset Committee make extra.
Plus, legislators make more in base pay the longer they serve.
Delaware’s median income for an individual is $40,210 as of 2022.
You local legislator isn’t an Amazon picker. They are usually professionals. Saying they should be limited to 50k is insane and you would lose a tremendous alot of talent.
It’s a “part time” legislature. In that respect, these people should be able to support their families and not go broke being in public service.
As I have said before if people are getting mad about their second jobs or time being take away, kick salaries over 80k and consider it full time.
You can’t hamstring people tho because you want to sit on your high horse
Did we ever establish if John used his state email or a “secret” email for the Rodney square emails? If they originated from his state email, they should be archived and I believe Meyer could un-redact and release them. People who were close to the situation at the time have indicated that the back and forth with some of the developers downtown used some pretty explicit language to describe “bus people” in Rodney square and how they wanted the “problem” “fixed”
I think with few legislators we have, it is well worth it to pay them full time – and let them serve full time as “public servant” being their full time
career.
If they have certifications or licenses to maintain, that should be permissible – but let’s have Delaware legislators solely focused on serving us.
They also should have to suspend directly
operating their private businesses.
Just eliminate the double dipping & making this extra income a secondary focus.
From my perspective, there was a significant difference in constituent services/relations offered by those who did not have a second job to use a legitimate or non legitimate excuse for being unresponsive.
I think we would have a much improved slate of candidate who have a true passion for public service vs. the ego boost of the title/pay.
There’s no way if they are capable humans that after an election loss, they will not have the connections to get back into a job.
Maybe they should have to make tough career choices like the rest of us non-elected folk & truly take it seriously on how their legislative work impacts our lives.
This assumes that they will work full-time at what you want them to work at. They won’t.
A total of 10 American states have full-time legislators. I don’t think we should join them.
Agree. Many of the states with full-time legislatures are larger, and, in those states, lawyers dominate the bodies.
What’s that saying?–if you want a job done well, get a busy person to do it. There is no empirical evidence that I’ve seen to support the argument that full-time legislators will do a ‘better’ job at constituent services. For example, even if Colin Bonini would have doubled his constituent service efforts, two times zero still equals zero.
The Texas legislature meets only in odd-numbered years. Imagine the damage they’d cause if they met every year.
I agree with all it, the state government needs a good and thorough house cleaning. I also see it as a by product of the hated “Delaware Way”, as in ‘what they don’t know will never hurt them”. All I would say in addition is that a system of mandatory audits by a third party would be a good way to nip many of these things in the bud and show where the money is going.
“a system of mandatory audits by a third party ”
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