DL Open Thread: Friday, May 16, 2025
The Shit Hits The Fan. Boy, does it. Read the entire thing. There’s so much to unpack that I can only scratch the surface with excerpts:
State Rep. Sherae’a Moore’s (D-Middletown) removal from the House Education Committee has sparked a larger conversation around due process and Democratic infighting within the Delaware legislature.
Moore argues her removal from the committee and its leadership was a coordinated political attack by House Education Chair Kim Williams (D-Stanton) and House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown (D-New Castle).
Speaker Minor-Brown and Rep. Williams argue the move was due to Moore’s previous lack of licensure while teaching in the state, as well as a suggested bill amendment that would have professionally benefited her.
W-wait–Moore never introduced said amendment? She was thrown off the committee due to a suggested amendment? Yes:
“For her to lie, saying that the amendment had nothing to do with her and saying, ‘I don’t know why this needs to be on record,’ that was a lie. She knew it had everything to do with her,” Rep. Williams told Delaware Public Media. “She needs to get her stuff together. That’s not my fault, that’s not the speaker’s fault. I respect what the leadership has done. Speaker Minor-Brown has done an exceptional job. I’m proud of the work our leadership has done.”
Here’s why I think that Moore got thrown off the committee–and why Kim Williams needs to have her wings clipped:
But Rep. Moore remains an advocate for universal free school meals in Delaware and reintroduced her bill this legislative session on March 13, which now carries a $45 million annual fiscal note with a year-over-year phased-in approach.
Less than two weeks later, Rep. Williams introduced her own bill that would have expanded eligibility for free meals from 185% of the federal poverty level to at or below 225%, which carried an annual fiscal note of around $10 million.
Rep. Moore made her distaste over Rep. William’s decision to file her own competing bill clear during the legislation’s committee hearing, but both lawmakers blame the lack of collaboration on the other.
Rep. Moore sent a letter to Democratic leadership requesting their mediation on the matter, arguing Rep. Williams had not expressed any interest in working on a compromise.
Williams flat-out stole Moore’s initiative. After all, she is in a position to make sure that Moore’s proposal never goes anywhere–both as Chair of the Education Committee and as the House Chair of the Joint Finance Committee. Rather than explore common ground, as Moore reportedly sought, she just threw her weight around. She has too much power and doesn’t use it wisely.
We finally see the surfacing of an ongoing battle within the Caucus–the unwillingness of the Speaker and others to allow progressives to, in many cases, pursue policies that are at the heart of both the Democratic platform and that are popular with voters:
This legislative session marks the highest number of Working Families Party (WFP) — a progressive grassroots political party — members in the Delaware General Assembly to date.
Around one-third of the 27-member Democratic caucus have been endorsed by WFP, and public division between the more progressive group and the remainder of the caucus continues to grow.
Rep. Moore is a member of WFP, as well as State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-Newark), who believes Rep. Moore’s removal from the committee was undoubtedly political.
“For Rep. Williams to say that Rep. Moore introduced an amendment improperly is also factually false because she didn’t introduce an amendment. So what are we even talking about? She also wasn’t present the day that we voted on the bill. So you can’t even say that she voted no on a bill because it impacts her personally. She wasn’t present. She didn’t lobby members to support it or not support it or lobby members to introduce an amendment. She did none of that. So to me, what I see is political actors in the speaker and Chair Williams choosing to try to justify actions that they’ve decided to make that are not just and that’s why it’s so confusing. I’ve had members of the public — I’ve had a lot of folks reach out to me in the last couple of days asking, what is this really about? Because it’s clear that it’s not about licensure,” Rep. Wilson-Anton added.
Kids, here’s the real reason:
“What’s disappointing is the expectations of members of the progressive wing of the caucus are completely different than the expectations for the rest of the members. We’re treated as if we’re not equal members of the caucus. We’re not seen as valuable members of the caucus. And I think the way that Rep. Williams has conducted herself when it comes to universal school meals is the perfect example of that double standard,” Rep. Wilson-Anton said.
There’s so much more. I, for one, am glad that it’s finally out in the open.
Y’know, this piece stands on its own. Feel free to comment on this, or on anything else that might ordinarily find its way into an Open Thread. Oh, and, yes, you can talk about that bill the Speaker has introduced which is far more blatant in protecting practitioners in her own profession of nursing than anything that has ever been suggested by Rep. Moore. Seriously, ‘We’ll give you three violations before we make anything public?’ How is that in the public interest?
What do you want to talk about?
LOL… Williams stole her lunch money.
Seriously though, what is a progressive doing advocating for free lunch for people who make more than median income? I mean, that would be nice and all, but not a good look compared to competing priorities in Delaware. And likely to fail, or be amended downward.
I don’t know the etiquette of how bills get introduced, but you’d think Moore would have worked out any compromises with the chair of the Education committee before introducing the bill, to avoid situations exactly like this. I mean, that’s what Sarah would have done, right? Who’s grandstanding here?
Because universality is the keystone of progressive politics? What do you believe in anyway?
No, progressive taxation is the keystone of progressive politics. It’s in the name.
But jokes about kids being hungry at school is very funny!! Har har. Lunch money joke.
Don’t worry you and your ilk are gonna have a lot of time for chuckles when you’re demolished in September.
It will give me great joy to dump these dipshits in the middle of the recession. I’m noticing you’re running out of fake jobs to give your buddies. Poor Bethany has to raise her own money for her fake charity. Buddy is getting to wet his beak one last time (can’t be that many years left statistically anyway) – I’d get out while you still can.
“kids being hungry at school”
Well-off suburbanites aren’t hungry at school or anywhere else. But your attempt to misdirect the discussion is noted.
Universal free school lunch is a good idea, but it isn’t the budget hill for progressives to die on.
So as someone who worked as a dv advocate, food can be a method of control. Rationing food or grocery money is a common form of financial abuse.
It shouldn’t be, but it is.
“But jokes about kids being hungry at school is very funny!! Har har. Lunch money joke.”
The phrase “stealing your lunch money” is a reference to bullying. Try to keep up. Or does the stick up your ass get in the way?
You show the same empathy for hungry kids and progressives as you do for Gazans.
DRINK!!
You’re full of shit. Minor-Brown and Williams have lorded it over the progressive members of the Caucus. They’ve been dismissive of their proposals.
The etiquette is that you don’t steal someone else’s bill. One thing the article makes clear is that Williams has too much power, and uses that power to diminish other representatives.
I get that leadership has the personality of thugs and mean girls. Still, leadership is responsible to avoid a string of bills that fail on the floor because they are too ambitious with respect to the budget. Even among progressives, free lunch for well-off suburbanites is not the highest priority.
Why would it feed all children? A better question would be why the hell not?
We all remember the shame kids who had to rely on those programs felt when others saw they were unable to pay for their meals. Making it universal protects the disadvantaged kids from bullying and stigma.
And you know there are some parents who can’t give their kids lunch money but would never go on record as needing assistance.
I think it’s especially rich for Mimi to talk about Rae having “students in her hand” and clutch her pearls about honest – whilst she stomped around and begged for people to support her scumbag friend Bethany Hall-Long. Who she wanted to be GOVERNOR of the entire state. Who was found by a former FBI leader to be a lying piece of shit.
These people are dumb and craven. I’m glad the reporter printed Kim’s quotes verbatim because you can hear how stupid she sounds in real life. It’s a joke and we deserve better than all of them. Throw them all the fuck out.
Well, in fairness to Mimi, at least she and BHL had double-, and in Mimi’s case, triple-dealing in common.
I’ve never been clear on whether BHL was as awful as people made her out to be. Sure, the financial discrepancies were HIGHLY problematic, as were the thugs who supported her. But if I’m being honest I do wonder if she’s got Stockholm Syndrome. It appears that all of the ethical challenges surrounding her originated with her dirtbag husband. Had she filed for divorce and acknowledged the problem rather than denying it I would have had no problem with her candidacy.
Ethics dictates that if legislation would benefit numerous citizens, it is immaterial if it would also benefit its sponsor, at least that is the official determination I have received from PIC/AG back when I complained about Paul Clark land use legislation that would have put dollars directly into his pocket via his land use attorney spouse.
The entire ethics-based premise for removal by Mimi and Kim here is suspect and apparently wrong.
Yes, especially when Nurse Mimi introduced legislation that would protect nurses who violate the tenets of the profession from sanctions. I mean, how exactly, does that protect the public?
It doesn’t. Does the opposite. Someone should file an Ethics complaint against the Speaker.
FYI nursing is also a hotbed of thugs and mean girls. Office politics in most nursing organizations is a snakepit. State sanctions are brought by political appointees on the board.
The word “nursing” could be replaced by any job field and the sentence would still be accurate. The best part of working for yourself is the lack of office politics.
except working for yourself has a draw back that those in the medical field “enjoy” – nurses/doctors have the highest likelihood of having affairs. not far behind are teachers
The “mean girls” club down there is something else. (from val, to BHL, to Mimi etc)
Also, when the WFP is 1/3 of your Caucus, it’s time to stop treating them like it’s one crazy member….its 1/3 of your caucus. It’s math…want to be an effective leader? Bring them in the fold or watch this Dover drama/dysfunction eat you alive. My two cents.
If WFP-aligned members want leverage they are going to have to start withholding votes. Be careful what you wish for.
Do you possess any humanity at all, puck? It’s crazy to watch you get more and more brazen as it becomes more and more apparent that people like you are losing the control you’ve enjoyed for so long.
That said, if we stopped giving millions to corporations like Merck and Aldi and Incyte, we’d be able to feed our kids, which is going to become more and more important as more and more people can’t afford to live comfortably, which is now 60% of the population.
By the way, many of the state’s districts already do the free lunch thing for all students. The ones that don’t are mostly the districts that can’t afford to do it because they’re low-income and don’t have the necessary tax base.
Why do you love Kim and Mimi so much? What is it that they do for you?
WTF are you talking about dummy. I said free lunch for all students would be great. Can you not read or do you just choose to ignore the parts that conflict with your left-of-the-left zealotry?
You are beating on your own fucking caricature of me that you made, because that is easier for you than processing what I actually said.
This is about political choices and competing priorities, which WFP is especially bad at.
Can Democrats afford to crash and burn on a $45M bill to fund well-off suburbanites, when a $10M bill to fund the actually hungry is on offer?
Who would you take $35M from so the likes of CSW and Newark Charter students can have free lunch?
I actually think schools should provide a lot of wrap-around services, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, take-home food, and medical and mental heath care, and they should be paid for by taxing the rich. Work on that for a change instead of taking cheap shots at allies.
It would be great if those services don’t need to be means-tested but budget realities probably will make that likely.
AFAIK Delaware has a lot of schools still under Community Eligibility rules which means if the overall income levels are below a certain point, all students get free lunch. My kid went to one of those schools and got free lunch even though we could afford it.
https://education.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/snp_2023-24_cep_school_list.pdf
And get a grip. Deal with concepts instead of going straight to ad hominem.
In my world, CSW and NCS wouldn’t exist and we’d have properly functioning public schools like those in Maryland and New Jersey. For the most part, charters in this state are garbage and the concept is steeped in racism.
I agree that schools should offer a ton of wraparound services, and getting everyone lunch would be a major step in that direction. You know who keeps trying to thwart it? The non-WFP members of the Democratic caucus. Meanwhile, look at the epilogue language they sneak into the bond bill and see how many BS pet projects they put in and add up all those costs. Then get back to me. I already told you who I’d take money from in my comment above. Who’s the one who doesn’t read?
The difference between you and me is that I don’t see lunch for kids as a political choice. You want to know what is political? An Education Committee chair using a personal vendetta against another legislator to make the teaching shortage worse in our state by demanding certification timelines that are pretty close to unreasonable. Kim Williams doesn’t give a shit about kids or schools, period.
Finally, you and I will never be allies because you think kids are political footballs, that keeping rents low is what causes poor housing options, and that massacring innocent people and wiping an entire people off their indigenous land is warranted. This is why you have no humanity, and this is why no one takes you seriously when you say you care about anyone but yourself and your ilk.
Well, one tiny sliver of common ground is I think the Williams number 225% of poverty level is too low for certain populations, and a compromise is warranted.
If I may take some time out from this pie throwing for some actual math. Feel free to check my numbers if I’m wrong.
So Williams’s bill would kick in at $48K for a family of 2, or $72K for a family of 4. That sounds like a lot to us oldsters but it’s really not anymore.
Keep in mind that all students already get free lunch at CEP schools (as long as the federal funding holds out).
So the hungry students left out under the Williams bill are those going to a non-CEP school AND also making less than $48/72K.
How many students is that, and how many dollars for their lunch? I don’t know, but it’s not zero. Probably a lot less than the $35M difference between the Williams and Moore bills. So some compromise is in order, based on evidence.
Oh and we also agree that charters like CSW and NCS shouldn’t exist.
“if we stopped giving millions to corporations like Merck and Aldi and Incyte”
I agree. Wake me up when somebody introduces THAT bill, and I’ll be for it. Until then, it’s the art of the possible.
Thank you, puck. Federal funding concerns are a large part of what’s driving Rep. Moore’s efforts, especially in light of, as you said, $72K being less than dirt for a family of four in the current times. If you’re below 120% AMI at this point, you’re struggling, and that is a LOT more than the numbers Kim’s bill covers. Besides, if we aren’t spending money to feed kids, that money will come out from somewhere else because kids’ mental health, physical health, and academic performance will suffer due to hunger. That leads to more special ed services, intervention programs, behavioral supports, etc. We can either pay to make sure kids are nutritionally sound or pay the price elsewhere.
She’s sponsoring legislation that will keep information concerning violations of professional standards by nurses from the public.
I’m sure that supporters of Mimi could try to rationalize this. One of my first jobs in Leg Hall was as the Research Analyst for the Joint Sunset Committee. Had a bill like this come before our committee, I would have argued that this was not in the public interest because, in fact, it would have enabled those practicing in a sub-standard manner to serve unsuspecting patients.
In fact, I still am.
I wouldn’t want to give the political appointees on the Board of Nursing the ability to publicly smear a nurse without due process. Remember – snakepit.
Here are the members of the Board of Nursing. Tell me, exactly, who are the political appointees on this Board? Yes, they are appointed by the Governor, but the standards for membership are stipulated in the Code:
Kimberly Hopkins, RN Nurse Educator Member, President
Jacqueline Mainwaring, CRNA, APRN Member, Vice President
Stephanie Evans-Mitchell, FNP, PMH NP, APRN Member
Carol Abdill, RN Member
Marlo Metz, RN Member
Pamela James, RN Member
Danielle Lowe, RN Member
Joshua Barnes, RN Member
Christina Hushen, RN Member
Patricia Dickerson, LPN Member
Gayle Melvin, Public Member
Tiarra Davis, Public Member
William Hare, Public Member
Prameela Kaza, Public Member
Roger Akin, Esq., Public Member
BTW, there is no public smearing process in the Code.
You’ve irritated my last nerve. Any more trolling from you and you’re gone.
El Som, I know trump is president but can you stop treating this blog like Russian state media. You delete comments you disagree with and spread conspiracy theories on a regular basis.
You are entitled to your opinion opinions and conspiracies but let them stand on whatever merit they may have.
God forbid someone be held accountable for gross incompetence…
Ironically the topic was on dismissiveness and bullying in Dover.
What conspiracy theories are those, pray tell?
Even if that bill is fine, Speaker Minor-Brown introducing it the same day looks really bad. It’s blatant hypocrisy.
I am in licensed profession far less critical than Nursiing. I served on and chaired the Commission that regulate the profession and while not physical life and death bad behavior can cause financial harm to the public. All of the Commissions hearing decisions are public as they should be. Rep. Minor-Brown’s attempt to hide vital information from the public is disqualifying in my humble opinion.