Delaware Has A Surgeon-General–Or Does It?:
Delaware House and Senate leaders are expected to meet Wednesday to decide whether or not they will sign off on using roughly $270,000 in taxpayer funding for the creation of an Office of Surgeon General, which Gov. Matt Meyer implemented without their knowledge.
Meyer established a state-level surgeon general within the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services through an executive order last month. For the position, he tapped Neil Hockstein, who has been serving patients in Delaware for 20 years as an otolaryngologist, or ear, nose and throat doctor.
Hockstein founded and is the chief medical officer of Parallel ENT & Allergy of Delaware, which has four locations throughout New Castle County.
Hockstein said while he will report to DHSS Secretary Christen Linke Young and supervise the Division of Public Health, he will also report to the governor. Despite the position still pending approval from the state Office of the Controller General, he officially started Monday.
Joint Finance Committee Chairman state Sen. Trey Paradee and other lawmakers said they were stunned to learn of DHSS’ intent to reclassify a nursing supervisor role into the surgeon general position last month.
A spokesperson with the Senate Democratic Majority Caucus said the request was submitted to the Department of Human Resources on July 1, as sleep-deprived lawmakers left Legislative Hall after an all-night final day of session.
Paradee said he’s concerned that Meyer may have violated state hiring rules.
“The governor just can’t go out and award a six-figure or a $200,000-plus salary to any individual. It just doesn’t work that way,” Paradee said. “You either follow the rules of hiring a new state employee, involving advertising a position and going through that whole process at DHR, or you go the other route and through legislation, create this agency.”
My position? Anything that renders Paradee apoplectic gives me a soupcon of satisfaction. Think the same holds true for Meyer.
On Balance, A Pretty Good Night For Progressive Candidates. Yes, El-Sayed will prevail in Michigan. Stayed up until midnight looking at the map and doing the figuring. Not nearly enough votes remaining in Wayne County to flip the result. Anyway:
Michigan Senate:
Abdul El-Sayed, appearing on MS NOW on Wednesday morning even as votes are still being counted in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, is attempting to pivot toward November, saying that NBC News has declared him the winner. (The Associated Press and The New York Times have not yet called the race.)
Speaking of his opponent, Representative Haley Stevens, El-Sayed said: “We understand that she still wants to hold onto a path. We’re focused on trying to figure how we bring the party together to defeat Mike Rogers in November.”
Republican state Senate President Ty Masterson will face Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher in Kansas’ election for governor this fall, NBC News projects, setting up a contest that represents the GOP’s best gubernatorial pickup opportunity this year.
Both candidates won their respective primaries on Tuesday. Masterson rode an endorsement from President Donald Trump to emerge from a crowded GOP field, while Holscher focused on a progressive, anti-establishment message to defeat a fellow state Sen. Ethan Corson, who was backed by term-limited Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
Holscher pitched herself in ads as someone who “gets that working people are tired of being sold out by both parties.” She also made her support for a proposed moratorium on new data center construction a big part of her message.
Corson massively outspent Holscher in the primary, and leaned heavily on his support from Kelly, who won two terms in a state Trump won by double digits in the past three presidential contests.
One of his recent TV ads featured Kelly praising him as someone who can “stand up to Trump and ICE” and has the “strength and judgement and backbone” for the state’s top job. Another ad, run by a pro-Corson PAC called Heartland Priorities, showed Kelly lauding Corson for having a “record of standing up for Kansas values” and for “stepping up and fighting back” against Trump.
A grass-roots organizer and climate activist prevailed in the Democratic primary for a battleground House district in Michigan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, scoring another victory for the party’s progressive wing in a district pivotal for the fight to control Congress.
The organizer, William Lawrence, 35, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led environmental group, defeated two more moderate candidates to advance to the general election against Representative Tom Barrett, a first-term Republican who is one of the more vulnerable Republican incumbents.
Backed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mr. Lawrence centered his campaign on opposing data centers, increasing taxes on billionaires and passing legislation for universal health care. He also said he would end arms sales to Israel.
“Tonight the people of Michigan’s 7th district sent a clear message: They are tired of Silicon Valley billionaires and D.C. insiders determining the future of our towns and our country,” Mr. Lawrence said in a statement on Tuesday night. “They want an unbought representative who isn’t afraid to stand up to leaders of both parties and fight for working people.”
Representative Shri Thanedar, who is in his second term, is known for regularly introducing impeachment resolutions against the president. He is trying to fend off a progressive challenge from State Representative Donavan McKinney. The divisive primary, in a solidly blue Detroit-area district, has split Democrats in Washington.
Voters in the St. Louis area summarily rejected the comeback attempt by former Rep. Cori Bush. I’m talkin’ landslide, as in 59-37. Probably a combination of black voters rejecting a DSA candidate and perhaps a personal dislike of Bush.
Oh, and in both Kansas and Missouri, voters crushed proposed Rethug anti-democratic referenda.
Here, though, is the coolest result of the night. From Downballot:
Tom Smith, a former General Motors engineer who dropped out of the Republican primary last month in Michigan’s 8th Representative District , holds a 50-33 advantage over Navy veteran Amir Hassan, Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate to take on Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet.
The AP has not called the race even though an estimated 99% of the vote has been tabulated, possibly due to uncertainty about what happens next for the GOP nomination.
Smith, who has not reported raising any money, released a statement on July 16 declaring that he was leaving the contest and endorsing Al Lemmo, the third GOP candidate on the ballot.
Smith did not let Trump’s support for Hassan, a former prison guard at Guantanamo Bay who would have been the first Muslim Republican to serve in Congress, deter him from dubbing the perceived frontrunner “possible Trojan Horse candidate and lifelong Democrat Amir Haneef Hassan.”
But while Republican voters agreed Hassan was an unacceptable choice, just 16% of them backed Lemmo. Smith, who remained on the ballot despite dropping out, does not appear to have said anything publicly in the hours since his unexpected—and unwanted—victory.
Hey, whaddaya want from me? I’m a political junkie.
Here’s How I Know Todd Blanche Has The Votes To Be Confirmed As AG:
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced on Tuesday she would oppose Todd Blanche’s nomination, meaning he can only lose one more Republican senator and still be confirmed as President Donald Trump’s attorney general.
Collins’ announcement, posted to X on the morning after he was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, sets up a potentially bumpy ride for Blanche on the Senate floor after he successfully mollified two other Senate Republicans who publicly aired concerns about him.
Senate leaders hope to hold Blanche’s confirmation vote this week before the upper chamber heads home for the August recess. But the acting attorney general can only afford to lose two Republican senators and still be confirmed with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., absent from the upper chamber.
Et tu, Fetterman?
‘We Didn’t Need That $100 Billion Anyway’:
The Trump administration has refunded about $100bn from the tariffs it collected before the US supreme court ruled them illegal, according to reports.
The $100bn (£74bn) figure, which represents 60% of the total $165bn collected from Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, was reported by customs officials to the US court of international trade (CIT) on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times.
Tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, have been a key part of Trump’s economic plan since he took office again last year.
In February, the supreme court struck down a chunk of the extra tariffs Trump had imposed, forcing the government to return money to the companies that had paid them.
But no money to the consumers who overpaid for stuff due to the tariffs.
What do you want to talk about?
That Spotlight article is wild. Meyer trying to ram through a $200k (plus benefits) job for a childhood friend with no application process and no oversight from the GA is suspicious, even if the overall goal is laudable. Any state employee will tell you that getting a position reclassified takes months (sometimes more than a year), and the governor just waves a wand to double the pay for a friend? Come on…
If Bethany tried the same thing with her friend Dr. Gibney, people here would be apoplectic themselves — and they’d be right to be.
Just because Paradee isn’t a fan favorite here doesn’t mean he’s wrong. It’s just another example of this governor trying to circumvent and stick it to the GA rather than trying to build bridges. That’s going to backfire spectacularly at some point.