Meet The New Gestapo, Same As The Old Gestapo
On Return Day, House members and staff wore ‘495’ stickers, celebrating the end of the short, but far-too-long, reign of Val Longhurst as Speaker. 495 days. Such humorous stickers are a staple of Return Day.
Undaunted, the House Democratic Caucus elected the remnants of the Mean Girls’ Club to lead them. Further into the abyss.
You would think that, at the least, the new/old leadership would learn from Val’s defeat, and resolve to create a more collegial atmosphere and to treat staff better than Speaker Pete and Our PAL Val did. It’s not like it would take much to improve on their Reign Of Terror.
You, however, would be incorrect. I can’t even believe that I’m about to write this, but it’s true.
Rather than create a less tense work environment, Mimi Minor-Brown and Keri Evelyn Harris have decided instead to require all House staff to sign, wait for it, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s). You know, the agreements that the likes of Donald Trump and Vince McMahon require in order to hide their personal, business, and ethical misbehavior from the public. In this case, though, the NDA’s are designed to ensure that staff not disclose legal, personal or ethical misbehavior of public officials. How can that possibly be legal? For example, if a state employee knows that the Speaker is still stealing money from her other ‘jobs’, they couldn’t report it. An excerpt:
Former Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes; Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long; and House Majority Leader Rep. Melissa Minor-Brown, D-New Castle, all worked at the University of Delaware while serving as elected leaders. Minor-Brown also worked for Delaware Technical Community College, according to the report.
At Delaware Technical Community College, the audit states payroll was not properly documented, verified or reduced for hours officials spent serving in an elected position coincident with their workday.
“We also found that state Rep. Melissa Minor-Brown, an official employed part-time by the college received compensation for coincident time,” the audit reads.
Any revealing of sexual harassment or job-related harassment would not be permitted with the NDA’s. In fact, the sole purpose of NDA’s in this case would be to hide behavior of public officials from the public that employs them. Well, not the sole purpose. This policy will ensure that the best people employed by the Caucus will not work under these conditions. Nothing but shills need apply.
Need I remind you that these are Democratic officials who have been chosen for leadership positions? Not what one would envision from a party that claims to protect working people. This is what the House Democratic Caucus now officially stands for–anti-democratic NDA’s designed to stifle the flow of public information. All in service to a verified triple-dipper at taxpayers’ expense and a sell-out who went from snowing people like me with her ‘Queen For A Day’ sob story to someone who revels in retribution.
I don’t think this is legal. We have whistleblower statutes to protect state employees. Can the General Assembly exempt themselves from those laws? Even so, is this the message the Democratic Caucus wants to send to the public? That they can break the law, can mistreat staff w/o fear of being exposed? If I’m the Rethugs, I’m making an issue of this. There could well be more than enough D’s to join with them to kill this rule. I also call on the ACLU to challenge this policy and, yes, for AFSCME to seek to organize these ‘at-will’ employees.
Here’s the big picture. Criticize Val Longhurst all you want. But she was a keen judge of character when it came to choosing people every bit as amoral and vicious as she was for leadership.
You’d think that the Caucus would have recognized that doubling down on instilling fear was a loser’s game. As in Val Longhurst: Loser.
You would have been wrong. Calling it now: Mimi Minor-Brown and Keri Evelyn Harris will find out just what a career-ending mistake they’ve made. In the mean time, challengers to (at least) Stephanie Bolden, Franklin Cooke, Lumpy Carson, Bill Bush, and no doubt a few more, start your engines.
Wow. Does anyone have a copy? Someone should post it.
Hate to break it to Mimi and Kerri but they aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box so they may be unaware that no one is going to take legal action if someone violates them. You think the AG is going to take the case? Do they have money for lawyers (no)? It’s totally unenforceable. It’s just a scare tactic.
My advice to the employees is sign them and do what you want. It’s not a real threat. It’s bullshit made up by bullshit artists. They may not even know any of this because you work for idiots now.
But sign it. Wipe your ass with it. And do and say whatever you want.
And the aclu should offer to defend anyone for free.
And now you know how a dead political party like the Delaware GOP could be brought back to life.
Hey WFP friends, recruiting in the new Castle and Dover areas looks like a top priority! Note there are TWO districts in greater New Castle needing to be flipped!
An Open Offer To Minor Mimi: You can respond to this free of any negative feedback from me. Floor will be all yours.
Only one caveat: You merely have to prove that you’ve returned the taxpayers’ money that you stole for work you didn’t do. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, does it?
El Som, that condition is truly unreasonable. The relevant records are so bad, or nonexistent, that there’s no way she’ll be able to determine how much she ripped off from the state.
Ya gotta credit Mimi with being a good grifter — smart enough not to leave a paper trail.
Ya gotta credit the UD, and ESPECIALLY Del-Tech, for perfecting the formula of giving all these legislators ‘jobs’, only asking in return for complete support for their annual budget requests to the General Assembly.
Lonnie George U was, and remains, the gift that keeps on giving to legislative grifters.
This policy will ensure that the best people employed by the Caucus will not work under these conditions. Nothing but shills need apply.
Not fair, staffers can’t have multiple state jobs at once. Some of them actually work for money to live.
Believe me, I get it. But the good ones have options in state government that don’t require placing their integrity in a blind trust.
The caucus was decidedly raucous, but the good news is that the new members got an up close and personal view of the utter lack of integrity of leadership. My advice to Ed is to either resign or disavow the antics of KEH and MMB. Buckle up its gonna be a bumpy ride. Ps: FOP Frank is hands down the worst member of the caucus
Franklin Cooke is such a delicate flower that he’s triggered by the fact that a WFP incumbent was at an event in his district (the route 9 library is for public use, Mr. Cooke. No one was trying to primary your stupid ass).
KEH and MMB are proof positive that even women don’t look out for women. It’s unfortunate that neither of them are attractive enough to have experienced sexual harassment. Perhaps if they weren’t as ugly on the outside as they are on the inside they would recognize that NO ONE, especially women and other minorities, should have to sign an NDA as an employment condition. They are both sellouts and I will donate to anyone who primaries them if this is how they are going to treat people.
I don’t see what their physical characteristics have to do with it. Tone that down.
That said, the NDAs are all the evidence I need to surmise that they intend to break the law.
There’s been some stress among the new leadership. Val has purportedly shared with Mimi an enemies list of people she wants Mimi to take revenge out on. But now there’s problems bc it has come to light that Val told a fellow caucus member that she thought Mimi was a simpleton. Val also is teaming up with Mike Quaranta and Bobby “Big Byrd” to form a PAC to take progressives out next cycle.
I don’t believe this.
Even with leadership and Val acting like the Mean Girls table in junior high, this is after all the General Assembly.
And, if Mike Quaranta and Bobby Byrd haven’t yet figured out that all the money they raise can’t take down grassroots organizations, let ’em throw more money down the drain. Val Longhurst had over $100 K, was the Speaker of the House, and it made no difference.
If we are peddling in rumors, I heard from multiple members of the GA that Val found out that after Kamela’s win, Mimi boasted to folks that while she was outwardly supporting Val, she had been privately encouraging people to vote for Kam. Val was so incensed by this that she wanted KEH to challenge Mimi for Speaker. If this is true, I can’t see Val giving Mimi her “enemies list.” Mimi was ON the enemies list less than 24 hours after Val lost the primary election.
Not peddling rumors here. My source is someone who was in the caucus room during the vote.
wait, wasn’t that was actually from the plot of “Mean Girls?”
Maybe? Never saw that movie. Also my source told me that after failing to get him the votes for speaker, Sherry Dorsey Walker tried to convince Mimi to dump Kerri Harris and prop up Larry Lambert for Majority Leader
See, that’s bullshit. Sherry Dorsey Walker isn’t even in the House any more. Her term expired on Election Day.
You need better sources.
She’s not but she was calling around whipping votes for Larry for speaker and then he didn’t have enough so she tried to get Mimi to dump Kerri for Larry as majority leader.
Those that know don’t say and those that say don’t know 🙂
Each year there is a study published by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and each year the findings are consistent; the large majority of fraud that is uncovered is reported by inside whistleblowers and by far the most effective anti-fraud measures are those that encourage and protect whistleblowing. I suppose it’s unsurprising that our electeds are taking the opposite approach.
Yep. Minor Mimi and Sellout Kerri want to silence the whistleblowers.
All I’m going to say is that someone has a brilliant plan to turn this NDA bullshit on its ear. It will take a few months (at least) but there’s a workaround in progress that will serve as a checkmate.
In the interim the aides should do whatever the fuck they want. Those NDAs are not legally enforceable and I highly doubt that they’d even attempt to enforce them on Kathy Jennings watch.