General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
No pre-game show today. No agendas being run, committee meeting results can wait until tomorrow.
I can’t recall a more telling, debate is not the correct word, example of kabuki theatre than what I saw and heard as the House addressed SS1/SB 21 yesterday. I was prepared for the likelihood that the bill would pass, but did not expect some of the elements that went into it. Here are my three key takeaways:
1. Speaker Mimi Minor-Brown disgraced herself and brought disrepute onto the House as a whole. Kids, she knew the bill had the votes. She knew it would pass. However, both her demeanor and her rulings from the chair were beyond the pale. Seven amendments had been placed with the bill. Because the Speaker delayed the posting of the Agenda, and because there would be no pre-file until yesterday, only the amendment sponsored by Sophie Phillips had been pre-filed. This was a deliberate tactic on the part of the Speaker. So. Rep. Phillips calls a witness to discuss the amendment, a former lawyer with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former Obama appointee. All kinds of credentials. Because it is absolutely impossible to discuss an amendment outside the context of the bill itself, the attorney tried to place the amendment in context. He was repeatedly shouted down by the Speaker, who said he had to stay on the amendment. Shouted down. She eventually literally shouted him back to his seat. I’ve never seen anything like it. She treated Rep. Phillips as if she were a petulant child. Had the Speaker been Phillips’ employer, Phillips would have had a legit HR complaint. Had someone else been the Speaker and had Minor-Brown acted like that on the floor, she would have been gaveled down. Next up was Rep. Burns with an amendment. He requested personal privilege of the floor for a witness, which has always been routine. Minor-Brown said “I don’t recall getting a request from you”. No witness.
Now, kids, keep in mind that the Speaker knew the bill would pass, she knew the amendments would fail (I’ll get to that in a moment), yet she became a martinet before our very eyes, arbitrarily and recklessly putting her thumb on the scale at every opportunity which, and keep this in mind, she didn’t have to do. Also keep in mind how she pledged at the beginning of the legislative year to lead a ‘kinder, gentler’ House. She blew up that lie yesterday, and everybody was there to see it. At least Longhurst stuck her knives in people’s backs off the House floor. I honestly can’t recall a more disgraceful public performance by a Speaker, and that’s saying something.
2. The Mindless Minions. Look, I can understand why someone might vote for this bill. Rep. Gorman made perhaps the best case when she said that she was afraid that we were gambling were we to vote the bill down, and that she was not a gambler. She also said, and I couldn’t agree more, that this was basically emergency legislation because the General Assembly has become so dependent on this money that we as a state have not sufficiently looked to diversify our economy and revenue sources. Fine, she had thought through the situation and arrived at a defensible conclusion. However, what the bill’s supporters were able to count on (which was subtly referenced by Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, more on her in a bit) was a coterie of Democratic Mindless Minions. They dutifully voted against every ‘unfriendly’ amendment and then voted for the bill. They made no comments They had no interest in engaging in the discussion, they were happy with their marching orders and content to leave (what passes for) their minds at home. These are, IMO, the people who should be singled out for primaries. When you see the names, you’ll know that it’s not just because of what happened yesterday:
Stephanie Bolden. Bill Bush. Lumpy Carson. Nnamdi Chukwuocha. Franklin Cooke. Krista Griffith. Kerri Evelyn Harris. Deb Heffernan. Kendra Johnson. Kim Williams. Speaker Minor Brown. Josue Ortega (he voted for one of the amendments, but I think it was by accident). Ed Osienski . Melanie Ross Levin. Claire Snyder-Hall (didn’t even vote for one amendment, I’d like to know why).
3. The Delaware General Assembly Does Not Deserve Madinah Wilson-Anton. Her presentation and arguments on behalf of her amendments were genius. Not because the amendments were likely to pass, even though they would have significantly improved the bill. But because she subtly unmasked the fact that the fix was in–that a group of legislators was not there to legislate, but to rubber-stamp; that Elon Musk’s name had apparently been barred from being mentioned; and that even the ‘legal giant’ Lawrence Hammermesh was part of the plot. We’ll take the last one first. Whenever floor manager Griffith wanted an amendment destroyed, she called on Hammermesh. On the last of Wilson-Anton’s amendments, he listed the reasons why he couldn’t support it. Madinah went down the list and asked if she addressed his concerns with an amended amendment, would he support it? He simply said ‘No’. No embellishment. This bill was getting to the Governor’s desk by the end of the day. By any means necessary. At that point, he was unmasked. Oh, did I mention that she did all this while engaged in a religious fast? For those who haven’t seen her in action, she’s the opposite of confrontational. She calmly peeled away the layers to reveal the truth.
It was perhaps the most masterful performance by a legislator that I’ve ever seen.
In direct contrast to the Speaker. Who was, wait for it, unmasked.
The frustrating thing is the smug assertion SB21 was necessary to preserve Delaware’s corporate franchise. There was no indication of a corporate exodus from Delaware other than a few high-profile players like Muck and Zuck.
BTW this is the day, if you haven’t already, to cancel all accounts (paid or free) with Twitter/Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram/WaPo etc.
I’m still working on cancelling Amazon Prime. I’ll likely dump it on the next fee hike.
I thought about giving up Prime……
Meet the new leadership, same as the old leadership.
Well, we knew that there were more progressive challengers.
At least this provides us with an electoral road map for 2026.
Lest you think I’m exaggerating about the Speaker’s performance, check out Karl Baker’s story:
https://spotlightdelaware.org/2025/03/26/meyer-signs-senate-bill-21/
An excerpt:
“The House’s consideration of the opponents’ amendments was particularly tense during testimony from New York University law professor and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner Robert Jackson Jr., who served as a witness on behalf of an amendment introduced by Phillips. Throughout his testimony, supporters of the bill repeatedly interjected to argue that he wasn’t addressing the amendment, but rather criticizing the bill itself.
Ultimately, House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown abruptly shut down his testimony after several tense warnings, saying, “Mr. Jackson, please excuse yourself!” A sergeant at arms then escorted a clearly shell-shocked Jackson from the House floor.”
The greedy fuckers are one thing, the under-qualified assholes who let power go to their heads another entirely.
She’s the latter.
Mimi is just Val……i mean its the same thing
Minor-Brown offered so much hope (bullshit) in the fall which makes her even a bigger failure with this regretful performance. Even though the outcome was not in doubt she could at least allowed the testimony and discussion to proceed. Arrogant and disgraceful.
since 2016 i have continued to say the same thing –
Instead of government we had a stage
Instead of ideas, a prima donna’s rage
Instead of help we were given a crowd
She didn’t say much, but she said it loud
and it works on the national and local stage
It’s rare that I agree with anything in full and completely, but I’m astonished to say I do. The Speaker’s behavior was so unnecessary and offensive. She called duly-elected Representatives by their first name. She expelled expert witnesses — including the only guy I ever heard explain the bill in words I fully understood. Some witnesses are going to be wordy. If, at the end of the night, you know you’ll get what you want, why not let them have a say? Did she think the media would cover her “strength” because she yelled instead of her weakness in capitulating to annual corporate Chicken Little? Then again, this is the same Speaker who was suggesting the billionaires were trying to kill the bill and told local dems that they should not argue with one another in public. I guess I’m most angry because it is clearly a tact she learned from her predecessor and we were promised better.
Rep. Wilson-Anton was phenomenal, while fasting. Well, hangry suits her. She played it cool, showed respect (and demanded it), and did so in a way that offered every possibility to compromise. Despite the Speaker’s inquiries of whether amendment sponsors wanted voice votes, all the amendment votes are roll call. It’ll be a good mail piece if nothing else.Griffith seemed to have little depth of knowledge, or interest in diving deep, through the whole debate. I’m barely paraphrasing when I say ‘The amendment is unfriendly because of the reasons I said.’ The reasons were basically that it wasn’t written by the corporate bar. I did think she was a corporate attorney but I guess is not… though maybe in a few years… And we still will not have addressed our reliance on corporations. Antitrust efforts are unlikely to survive Elon at the federal level, and as the monopolies continue to consolidate we will see more and more life or death bills like this. And other states will try to pass the same, because all they will need to pull away is one giant to make it worth it.
Clearly, I too have been haunted by this.