Booth in a Box
Sen. Joe Booth has been quite taken aback by the negative reaction from the people and from the Markell Administration over his .357 Magnum … er ah HB 357 bill. He has now taken to calling Governor Markell a liar.
Booth accused Markell of spreading misinformation, stoking the fears of preachers and anti-violence workers who staged the rally in front of a day care center. But John Thompson, a Delaware gun rights lobbyist who wrote the bill for Booth and Atkins, said on Tuesday that he did, in fact, intend for it to apply to the places Markell and the protesters fear would be forced to allow guns.
Hey Boothie, perhaps you and John Thompson need to get together and talk. Thompson, who is the head of the DSSA, an affliate of the NRA, said he intends the bill to gut all gun control regulations throughout the state of Delaware.
“This bill was written to reach any regulation by a state agency that would prohibit firearm possession or ownership,” said Thompson, a lawyer and the sportsmen’s association’s lobbyist in Legislative Hall.
So what happened here is that Booth let some freakin NRA lobbyist write his own legislation, and then Booth, the typical Republican that he is, didin’t do his homework. He doesn’t bother to actually read the legislation before he files it, and yet proceeds to tell the media and draft a bill synopsis that says the bill only applies to public housing agency. So who was spreading misinformation here, Boothie? And then little boy Boothie tells the teacher that it was really the Governor’s fault he didn’t do his homework, because the Governor didn’t call to remind him to do it.
“A simple courtesy call from the governor would have resolved any confusion about the bill,” [Booth said]. […] “It’s just a little unusual for the governor to stake out his claim without even discussing it with us,” Booth said. “Then again, the governor was in Germany, so he hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss it with us.”
You see, the problem here is that the only confusion about the bill that exists anywhere is in Booth’s own mind. The people who actually read the bill, and the person who wrote the bill, all agree that the bill guts all gun control regulations promulgated by the State of Delaware. Only Booth is confused, and that is because he didn’t read his own bill. Still, Booth continues on, stammering fast like a child caught in a lie.
Booth said any accusations that lawmakers were trying to sneak the bill through the General Assembly with deceptive wording are unfounded [except that they are well founded if you listen to the bill’s real author]. “I don’t think there was any sneaking,” he said. “What I think was sneaky or underhanded was giving a very liberal interpretation of the bill.”
This is rich!!! Once again, he is calling Jack Markell a liar, all because little Boothie didn’t read his own bill and because he had someone else do his homework, and he got caught. And unless Joe Booth thinks John Thompson and the NRA are now liberal organizations, the Governor’s interpretation of the bill is the actual interpretation of it. John Thompson and Jack Markell are in agreement as to what the bill says and what the bill does. Only Joe Booth, who didn’t write or read the bill, is left out in the cold here.
Now, you notice that John Atkins has been silent in all of this. And that is because he is a gun nut, and is opposed to all gun control regulations and legislation. John Atkins read the bill and was perfectly fine with it. And that is a perfectly legitimate position to have. It is the wrong position, but a position nonetheless. Indeed, many people downstate in Sussex County are opposed to gun control legislation. Say what you will about John Atkins (and I will say alot about the man), he is at least representative of those constituents in Sussex County.
Why isn’t Joe Booth? Booth has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off where this bill is concerned. He puts his name on a bill written by an NRA lobbyist and then is surprised that the bill overturns all gun control legislation? Really, Joe? As a Sussex County Senator, you have to wonder why Joe Booth didn’t go the Atkins route. He wouldn’t get in trouble with his constituents if he had gone all Second Amendment on our asses. So why is he dancing around?
Could it be that Joe Booth fancies himself a future in statewide politics? If that is the case, he knows full well that the bill as written won’t fly up north, where two thirds of the votes in the state are. And if that is the case, this whole episode shows that Downstate Joey is not ready for primetime.
Tags: Joe Booth
Al M. was right. Little league level political baseball here.
Joe Booth was trying to Castle but Markell was too smart to let him.
This is great local analysis.
Joe Booth got caught up in his own — and the rest of the GA that voted for this — laziness.
The lesson here is that if no one else is reading these bills, apparently someone in Jack Markell’s office is giving them all a pretty close reading. There are plenty of Senators and Reps who voted for this who should be ashamed of themselves.
Cassandra, it hasnt been voted on yet, you dumbass. Looks like Booth isnt the only one that didnt do his homework?
Anon is correct that HB 357 hasn’t been voted on yet. It has not even been assigned to a committee at last check. It has only been prefiled. And in its current form, it will never see the light of day.
pwnd!
The problem for you, anon, is that Cassandra is no dumbass. Sure, you can call her names for making this mistake, but I dare say it pales in comparison to, I dunno, letting a lobbyist write your own legislation and then never reading it, and then covering up that failure by calling the Governor a liar and the NRA a liberal organization.
I mean, if anyone was pwned this week, it was Joe Booth.
Don’t worry, anon, cassandra_m is always right because if you disagree with her you’re automatically a liar and a fool. If she says that it has been voted on then it has been voted on, even if it hasn’t, OK? She’s kind of like Humpty Dumpty: “Words mean what I say they do. No more, and no less.”
She may not be a dumbass, but that sure was a lazy move.
Not so much lazy as in mistaking this for another piece of legislation I’ve seen correspondence on. My mistake and apologies for that.
Unfortunately for A1, he would still be a liar and a fool — because he still needs to continue to make stuff up in order to be appropriately victimized and still quite wrong.
How about that Howard Dean calling for passage of the HCR this week? Now we’ll see who is rewriting language here.
“”This bill has already passed the Senate by a large majority,” Dean told the crowd gathered at D.C.’s Dupont Circle. “This bill has passed the House. We need a final vote. The president is right. The American people deserve a final vote.”
That isn’t saying that the bill should be passed. No where does Dean say that. Good try, though.
It also isn’t saying “kill the bill” or vote no. I like Dean, but he’s playing politics here by covering his bases. No matter which way the vote goes Dean has a talking point. Which is fine, but hardly admirable.
See what I mean? Here is A1 working overtime to pretend that Howard Dean is still in the kill the bill caucus. Rewriting language and other people’s intentions.
And on top of this DFA is fundraising to continue the fight for a Public Option even after HCR passes. (DFA is doing what I think everyone who wants this HCR bill to get better — pass what is there now and get geared up to start fixing it.)
The thing about Howard Dean is that he says what is on his mind. This is why we adore him, really. If he was still looking to kill the bill, he would be saying this in no uncertain terms and not running around rallying for the bill or telling people he is glad the President is keeping up this fight.
But we’ll just let A1 tell us — what did he call it? — oh yes:
“Words mean what I say they do. No more, and no less.”
If he wanted to pass it, “he would be saying this in no uncertain terms,” but he hasn’t had anything good to say about passing this bill, only negative. pandora is right, he is playing politics, but it is pretty clear he doesn’t like it.
Well… if he’s playing politics (and I believe he is) then you’ll forgive me for marginalizing him?
OK,I’m still an embryo.What’s pwnd mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn
pandora, the dems wouldn’t be where they are without Dean having had “played politics” with his fifty state strategy. Playing politics is what politicians do. It is “the art of the compromise,” remember?
Personally, I hope he primaries Obomba.
Thanks nemski.
There may not have been a vote yet, but a dozen people have cosponsored this. Almost all of them are R’s including the house r leader.
Booth may have pulled the wool over our eyes friends. Booth goal = protect second ammendment right for those in state housing. 1. Approach: Sponsor / introduce broad bill that covers the issue as well as brings up potential problems. 2. Elected officials pick apart the broad bill isolate the issue that needs to be corrected. 3. Introduce an ammended .357 bill that protects second ammendment rights for those in state housing al other gun control issues put to rest. 4. Pass the bill in the house, senate, and govener signs into law.
Markell only helped him on this one the only thing is you may see it become a democrat bill since the majority in both the house and senate are democratic. In any event the bill will be passed and Booth gets his way.
Very similar to Markell introducing his plan to reign in our budget I think is started at 10% pay cut for state workers?
That is effective politics. The strategy may not be the same when you are in the minority and you will get banged up along the way but the fact of the matter is in the end he gets the bill. If it does in fact play out like that I would give him a 10 for strategy and I would also give Markell an assist.
Ah. A for effort to salvage Booth’s rep here, but it is a pretty large stretch to believe that there was this much sophisticated strategy out of a guy who had other people write his homework and who got caught flatfooted by not even reading what those other people submitted for him.
The strategy is not sophisticated at all. It it the legislative process. 1) Bills or ideas for bills are brought forward or introduced by lawmakers. 2) After much deliberation bills are often changed in order to pass. 3) Bills are voted on. 4) It is passed and signed into law or shot down.
Every single bill goes through the same process if we had one lawmaker that could draft legislation that never needed to be amended he/she should be governer. Lets keep an eye on this one and see where it goes.
BTW the bill is a House Bill any way and also signed off on by 25 other people.
But still doesn’t exactly cover how he got caught so flat-footed here, sputtering about what this may or may not cover. The story here is that the NRA and its Delaware enablers got caught red-handed trying to undo alot of law under the pretense of doing one thing.
This isn’t effective politics when you get caught and you get caught in broad daylight.
i agree to disagree. i am usually with you on your posts but maybe now and they we may disagree. my point is that an argument can be made that every law maker is flat-footed and without out the legislative process we would have bills like the original .357 that would pass with no objection and then we would surely be in trouble. if we watch this one closely and the gun ban gets lifted for public housing i would say effective indeed.
If Booth had given a slick answer like “Well, if the legislature decides that we should remove some of those provisions or tighten it up a little, then that’s what we’ll do.” Then I would lend some credence to the slick intellect of Booth and Atkins. However, his response was, “this bill does no such thing!”
Fail.
This is from the same article that was used above.
From the News Journal:
“Thompson said he used the term “public body” in the legislation broadly. Booth said he never meant a “public body” to include schools and buses.
Booth chalked it up to a misunderstanding. He said he will be happy to make the necessary changes to limit the bill’s reach to public housing agencies.”
credence?