* means no Delaware Democratic legislative incumbent facing a primary wants to talk about.
That bill, of course, is SS1/SB 21, which was written on the expressed behalf of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to enable them to get richer than they already were, courtesy of the State Of Delaware. Three of those facing primaries were sponsors on the bill, Sen. Ray Seigfried, and Reps. Kerri Harris and Krista Griffith. Close to a dozen more facing primaries voted for the bill.
Supporters of those looking to help the two plutocrats have been rewarded with close to $1 mill (actually, much more than that when you add in contributions from individual corporate attorneys) in propaganda in the form of social media and other campaign advertising. Plus polling and focus groups. The incumbents don’t want to talk about the bill, or the corporate cash they’ve received thanks to their support of the bill.
I’ve written about that right here.
What we haven’t discussed as much is the bill itself. Here are the first three episodes about the bill from an interview between Rob Bahnsen and Charles Elson, and why it’s bad for pretty much everybody but Musk and Zuckerberg (and perhaps Delaware Way incumbents):
As you likely know, Dr. Rob Bahnsen is running against Krista Griffith, who not only ran the bill in the House, but killed at least two key amendments that would have made the bill much better.
Know this: Every single legislator who voted for this did so knowing full well on whose behalf the legislation was being rushed through, and signed by an equally-culpable Governor.
I will post the remaining installments as they’re released. Please watch, learn, and vote.
Great Report. The MUSK-RATS should all be defeated. Corporate sell-outs. Name them all.
Didn’t Delaware Liberal endorse many of the incumbents who sponsored and voted FOR the bill?
Did we? How about YOU do the work for a change? Or does what passes for your intellect consider this a ‘gotcha’?
There were legislators who voted for the bill who also voted for the amendments that could/should have been placed on the bill.
I think we endorsed Nnamdi when he ran against Charles Potter. The difference between Potter and Shane Darby is, to put it mildly, vast.
Not to mention, if you can’t tell the difference between Delaware Way drones who pushed this legislation, and those who may have reluctantly voted for SB 21, then you haven’t been reading the blog. Which explains your diminished intellect.
At least, partially.
Wow! My comment was meant to be positive. Instead of understanding that you attacked a trans person for being trans.
Well, you are proving correct El Som’s observation on diminished intellect. Exactly where is there any comment, let alone an attack on trans individuals in his response to you? I wavered about commenting at all, but if you are going to come on here and create your own reality/victimization, you should be called out for it.
El Som did not and never would attack a trans person for being trans. And nothing in his comment to you did that.
No accountability? Just keep blindly following, huh?
Since El Som brought it up, shouldn’t we hold DL accountable for steering us wrong with KEH, Krista Griffith, etc, etc. I realize many electeds lie or later allow themselves to be bought or manipulated. However, it’s the job of the entity (and individual) to see through a candidate’s bullshit and determine whether a candidate will the opposite of what they say they’ll do. We all occasionally get have voter’s remorse. Own it. I’m just trying to have a conversation, but like many do these days, El Som shouted me down. How dare I question anything.
Open your eyes, folks. Think for yourselves without worrying what your ideological group will think about you.
Would you prefer Debbie Capano Hudson over Krista Griffith? We didn’t. A lot of elections boil down to the lesser of two evils. I never trusted Griffith because of her law enforcement background, but she was far preferable to a Republican.
I don’t remember us ever endorsing Krista except perhaps in her race against the Republican incumbent. We should have known back then what she would do in 2026?
We’ve called Kerri Evelyn Harris a turncoat right here on this blog.
You weren’t shouted down. Your first comment was trolling.
After all, ‘fu@aol.com’ isn’t really your e-mail address.
you’re arguing with an AI bot
Their first response about transphobia was a giveaway. It needed time to recalibrate.
Upvote for Jed. Yeah, the nym is a weird one for a pro-trans person.
I hope Rob doesn’t spend the rest of his campaign trying to make it about SB21. Voters don’t care, and the ones that do were never going to support Krista. The issue is way too dense to communicate to the electorate. The whole Musk bill label is a nice talking point but want to hear about how you’re going to lower costs and help create a better future. This is the equivalent of the unions going after people who stalled out the PLA bill. Very few voters know or care about it, not an issue to run on or against.
I still have yet to find someone who can articulate a solid argument for or against SB21 that doesn’t coincide with it taking away or giving them more money in their professional lives. Its essentially asking which type of corporate lawyers do you side with?
Normal people don’t care about the details, but normal people hate them some Musk, so as long as the message is “she sold out to Musk,” it helps him.
I think Elson explained the issue in terms that ordinary voters could understand.
Here’s how I explain it. Let me know if it breaks out of the box you’ve described.
The corporate franchise makes up about 1/3 of Delaware’s operating budget. It is very important. Our biggest selling point for corporations is our stability. Companies hate risk, and they hate unknowns. While Nevada and Texas can copy and paste our laws and call it a day, they cannot copy and paste decades of case law history. Therefore, the most important part of our corporate franchise setup is its branding. It’s stable, it’s predictable, and you don’t have to worry about curveballs when planning your quarterly reports. SB 21 damaged that brand, and puts Delaware’s corporate franchise at risk. If we ram significant changes through when given enough outside pressure and money pushing us to do so, then are we as predictable and stable as people thought? Is there an advantage to having decades of case law if the legislature can be pressured to upend it in three weeks or less? The ramifications of SB21 will certainly echo over the next decade. Trust takes a long time to build, and can disappear in an instant.
That’s a good summing-up of the videos.
The General Assembly upended decades of case law b/c Musk and Zuckerberg threw tantrums.
BTW, Musk and Zuckerberg abandoned Delaware anyway.
The bottom line is corporate officers want more money over stability.
Anon- Better than most I’ved heard.
Alby- Agreed, skip the docuseries and just skip to the she was a sponsor for Elon’s bill and if they ask what bill just say one that will make him a lot of money. The issue itself is convoluted and rightly so, very lawyer-ey.
I beg to differ. The Zuck Musk and billionaire issue has legs. I get almost as much engagement with my Pithy if I may brag homemade memes against the blood money caucus as I do with my social justice posts. Anecdotal but in my view dispositive.
Musk certainly isn’t popular among likely Democratic voters, but we are talking about state legislative races so I think it would behoove the challengers to also epmasize kitchen table/pocketbok/more local issues as well.
True. Good candidates CAN walk and chew gum at the same time.
Plus, voters can also relate to legislators being bought by corporate interests. Which is what has happened here.
As you know, I’ve been campaigning for Shay Frisby for well over a year now. I can’t count the number of times people have told us at the doors that they feel their voices aren’t heard due to special interests controlling what happens in Dover.
It’s all of a piece.
The Musk bill was a real mask off moment for the likes of Harris and Snyder-Hall.
Claire Snyder-Hall has revealed her true self. It’s not pretty. Her people spread the lie that Marty Rendon, a true progressive, was anti-choice because he was Catholic.
It’s a shame she dodged a primary. However, she is immediately the most vulnerable D state rep this cycle.
I’ve been disappointed with a number of Rep. Claire’s moves including her Yes vote on SB 21, but this IMO is an unfair characterization if Marty’s resignation from an LGBT activist group when they publicly protested the Dobbs Supreme Court decision actually happened. That is a major red flag.
If it *didn’t* happen, the rumor didn’t start with Claire, nor did she spread it willy-nilly–I can give a contemporaneous account that she did not initially believe it until she verified it and did not plan on running against Marty when she first heard it.
I think the bigger red flag was how she came cruising into Delaware, thinking could get a nice retirement job by bumping off one of the local yokel politicians using her political science background. When she got called out for carpetbagging she threw a hissyfit and wrote a whole book decrying the Delaware way. She finally got elected and (surprise) buys into that same system 100%. There was never any integrity there.
If an incumbent is winning on the merits the incumbent does not need a moderator in the tank for her!
That is all!
Anyone going to the Griffith / Musk ice cream event tomorrow in Goodley Park?
Someone should ask her whether Richards, Layton & Finger are paying for the ice cream.
The honest answer would be: “Not directly”.
“Like”