General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., June 4, 2013
With the final budget details being worked out, the Delaware General Assembly begins its final sprint to the June 30/July 1 session finish line.
At least one issue of note has arisen since the Memorial Day two-week recess–alleged unprofessional and dangerous conduct by at least one employee of Planned Parenthood. You can bet that the Bob Venables’ and Greg Lavelles of this world will use this to further their anti-choice agendas. You can expect tougher legislation regulating clinics as a result of the scandal surrounding Dr. Liveright (his real name?) and Planned Parenthood. And, as a Planned Parenthood supporter (financially as well as philosophically), such scrutiny is deserved. One of the most powerful arguments for availability of legal abortion services is that, without them, clients (and there will always be clients) will be forced to seek less safe alternatives. However, when you have Eric Harrah, Dr. Gosnell, and Dr. Liveright serving as cautionary examples, it is incumbent on legitimate providers to demand standards above the minimum of what the law will allow. Planned Parenthood knows their foes will use any pretext to go after them, which is why I really worry about why PP gave it to them. And, in so doing, placing their clients at risk. Memo to PP and supporters: Don’t bury your heads in the sand here, face the problem head-on.
I hate to sound like a scold, but I’m also concerned that the campaign on behalf of SB 33(Ennis) needs to expand beyond attempts to ‘work the bloggers’. Don’t believe me? See: Crane, Mitch. When it came to campaigns, there was no ‘there there’. I grant you that I’m not in Dover, but all the positive publicity in the world on behalf of manufactured community residents will not succeed if proponents are not lobbying the legislators en masse. SB 33, which would require park owners to justify rent increases above the rate of inflation, is scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday. To all who support this bill, the time to contact your senators is now. To those who are organizing efforts here, keep your eye on the prize. You’ve already won over the progressive blogging community, focus your efforts on those with the votes.
I gotta admit that the Senate Agenda looks quite mundane today. YMMV.
The House Agenda features HS1/HB 28(Smyk), which targets ‘clandestine laboratories’, aka laboratories that make controlled substances off the radar screen. This an attempt to get pro-active when it comes to these labs. The labs have traditionally been one step ahead of law enforcement. They make some sort of minor molecular change in the formula for a designer drug, and authorities have to wait until the legislative process catches up with the new drug. This bill would perhaps enable earlier intervention. HS 1/HB 28 has solid bipartisan support, and will likely pass unanimously.
The House will consider another bill designed to target controlled substances, in this case, nonprescription pseudoephedrine. HB 130(Walker) would enable Delaware to cooperate with other states to ‘curb the practice of “smurfing,” whereby criminals make purchases at multiple stores to acquire illegal quantifies of PSE’. Should this bill pass, Delaware would join 25 other states in a multi-state PSE ‘blocking system’, which monitors and, if necessary, blocks real-time purchases. Real good bill, IMHO, with bipartisan support. I see Beau Biden’s fingerprints all over this one.
Rep. Walker will also run the annual bevy of bills from the Corporate Law Section of the Delaware Bar. Perhaps last year’s chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Melanie George Smith, understood what was in those bills. But Rep. Walker, along with virtually every other member of the General Assembly, almost assuredly doesn’t. Doesn’t matter. Those bills pass virtually unanimously every year. And nobody knows what’s in them. Except the members of the Corporate Bar and the huge corporations that the bills address.
That’s it for today. Please join me today for what will likely be an incendiary two hours with Al Mascitti. Mayor Williams, John Sigler, Charles ‘Bouvier de Flandres’ Copeland, Planned Parenthood, and legislative hijinks. And, for good measure, Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura. 10 am to 12 noon, WDEL 1150 AM-Newsradio.
Tags: El Somnambulo, Featured, Planned Parenthood DE, Steve Tanzer Delaware
Wow–a paragraph about the importance of proponents working SB 33 underscored by reference to my failed campaign for Insurance Commissioner as “working the bloggers”! The importance of Delaware Liberal in promoting discussion is understood. The analysis of El Somnambulo is often well reasoned. But, blaming my loss on my campaign being directed to “working the bloggers” – Amazing.
10 days before the fateful September 11, 2012 Democratic Primary, I sat in the kitchen of this same pundit during the ARden Fair and discussed the election. The conversation was positive. No concerns were raised to me about my chances. In the following week that blogger wrote and spoke about his predicion that I would win the 4 person primary. I lost by 1100 votes. The incumbent was held to 32% of the vote. I came in second. I lost.
The next day El Somnambulo said I lost because I did not campaign in New Castle County, did not go to the voters. I did not follow the advice he never gave and the pre-election criticism he never leveled. It is so easy to always be right, except when you are wrong and then blame someone else.
I lost. That loss is mine. I believe insurance consumers continue to be hurt because I did not win. However, let’s look at other predictions:
1. When I announced “experts” said I, an openly gay man from Sussex, could not beat a female incumbent from Wilmington.
2. When it became a three-person race they said Karen Weldin Stewarts was now the favorite.
3. When it became a four person ( 3 men ) race, they said she would walk away with it.
4. I worked as hard as I could. I worked the bloggers because Delaware Liberal has a voice and I needed all the attention on my qualifications I could get.
5. Against all odds, I received the first endorsement from the Kent County Democratic Committee in memory.
6. Against all odds, I received the endorsement of the New Castle Democratic Committee.
7. I was endorsed by the State Democratic Party-the first time in memory a Democratic incumbent failed to win endorsement.
8. My supporters blocked the incumbent’s endorsement by the AFL-CIO, where I recieved a 100% rating. DSEA did endorse me.
9. I worked the state, putting 60,000 miles on my car.
10. On election day, in a 4 person race, I received a majority in Sussex County and a plurality in Kent.
11. I lost Wilmington big and the rest of New Castle County was a disappointment,
12. The fact is that quiet whisper campaign against me worked in parts of Wilmington and its immediate suburbs. The whisper? That I had “abandoned my wife and children for the man he is living with now” Didn’t know my ex-wife was pregnant and carried for 18 years.
13. A union coaltion expected to endorse me endorsed the incumbent a week before the election and also received $15,000 from her campaign for “election day work”.
14. Elements in Wilmington offered to “deliver” for me in exchange for money for “workers”- $75,000 for the city; $15,000 for one district. I refused. That money came from elsewhere and for the incumbent. She became part of the city slate. She won.
If someone had told you in 2011 that an openly-gay Democrat from Sussex County would run against his old boss for Insurance Commissioner and that she is a well known Wilmingtonian and the only woman holding statewide office and that two other men would also run-one a well-known Democrat who has run statewide before..and that this guy from Sussex would come within 2% of winning, what would you have said to that?
I lost. I am not happy I lost. I am not happy that every week I hear from citizens and elected officials with complaints about the Dept of Insurance and the very issues I ran on. I lost. That is my fault. I did not lose because I relied on working the bloggers or ignored New Castle County.
Oh–SB 33 is good bill.
Wow. Revisionist history is fascinating. You were the favorite in the race, the Party endorsed you, the polls showed you ahead (at least those that Richard Korn provided for you), I supported you, and…you were invisible in New Castle County. As was your ‘grassroots’ organization.
You snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Deal with it.
I’m sure we are holding borderline illegal quantities of pseudephedrine during allergy season. And each member of my family has a different allergy season. Watch out for drugstores that enforce a limit LOWER than the law allows!
The stuff on the shelf in the deceptively identical package doesn’t work. That’s Sudafed PE, or as we call it, SudaFRAUD.
PP is doing a truly awful job of communicating and damage control these days. They’ve essentially abandoned the debate to the anti-choice crowd by keeping silent.