DeLuca Probed By Feds
Federal officials are investigating whether Senate President Pro Tem Anthony DeLuca’s job at the state’s Department of Labor violates a federal law enacted to prevent elected officials from exploiting government jobs for personal or political gain, The News Journal has learned.
Well, settlement policing isn’t moving in the direction of explain it as long as people use the law as a club in the direction of annoy. skippertee on Arrogance, Thy Name Is Wisconsin GOP | Mar 26th 7:27 pm.
Not sure what you mean by that, but DeLuca can be excused for thinking that he did nothing wrong. Using the DE Senate to set up a lifetime sinecure carries the legitimacy of longstanding tradition. It is why many run for the DE Senate.
This could mean the end of a way of life for Delaware’s politicians, the trajedy of no more lifelong employment and re election combined. How will they live? How will they get thier relatives jobs? How will they hang on until the day they die? Oh the humanity of it.
Hey, bring it on!
If DeLuca had any sense of honor he would stand down from one of his jobs until this probe was over.
And this is a *really* good job by Chad Livengood. Kudos to him and hope he keeps this up…..
Remember when Colin Bonini voted for DeLuca for pro-tem and David Anderson said it was a good decision. Good times.
The Hatch Act prohibits Federal employees, and state and local employees whose programs are funded by the Federal government (like state extension agents who are funded by the USDA) from holding partisan public office. They cannot run in a partisan election, even as an independent. Tiny Tony will have a choice – leave his state job or give up his Senate seat. And if he refuses to do either, the OSC can order his removal and bar him from employment with the Federal government, or any state job that is funded by the Feds.
Tick, tock, Tony. The clock is ticking. You need to make a decision and make it soon or it will be made for you.
And I, for one, hope the probe is deep, intense and very uncomfortable for Tiny Tony.
That sounds pretty kinky, skippertee 🙂
The Delaware Constitution needs to be amended so that no state legislator can also hold a job with any state, county, or local government. Period. Grandfather existing legislators if you must (otherwise you’d never get it passed), but the days of sweetheart deals must end. Both R’s and D’s have done it. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it must end.
Solutions that end with the one word sentence, “Period,” typically feel good to write. The problem is that you are locking out a big segment of society and unethical behavior is not restricted to people who work in state, county, or local governments. What about people who work for real estate companies? They have plenty of opportunity to use a legislative position unethically.
Treat the ethics baby, not the bath water.
Mark H-Unless he “lawyers up”, Tiny Tony must be subjected to the harshest probing allowed under law.
He knows the score and the questions he will receive from both “good” and “bad” inquisitors.
Let’s see how fast he thinks on his feet,or knees,if he dares to answer those questions without counsel present.
I predict he doesn’t have the BALLS to answer questions without a mouthpiece.
In my view, the solution to these kinds of problems is to make elected legislative offices full time jobs and pay the legislators enough money that they don’t need to employed doing anything else in either the public or private sector. In fact, I would make it a legal condition of holding office that the elected official cannot be employed at anything else.
Petersen was New Castle County President and worked for the Dept of Labor in the 70’s or 80’s.. would you consider the SAME rules apply to her if her time in office were occuring today?? Parallel to this DeLuca case…..?? I dont see the difference in the two.
Doesnt Peterson still work for the Dept. of Labor. How bout Helene Keeley, Bob Marshall and a host of thers. Its time for the double dipping and double state pensions to end. Pick a job legislators there are plenty of people ready and willing to serve and have only one job.
My understanding is that Peterson got her BEFORE she attained elected office. DeLuca got his state job AFTER he attained elected office. Big difference. I also understand that Peterson no longer works for the Dept of Labor.
Peterson does not work for the Dep’t of Labor. Marshall does not. Keeley does, but I suspect in a job not funded with Fed funds. If I’m wrong, then she’ll have something similar to deal with.
The difference is that this job was specifically crafted for DeLuca by Ruth Ann Minner, who hated Karen Peterson, Secretary of Labor Tom Sharp, who recruited DeLuca to run, and Mark Brainard, who ran DeLuca’s campaigns and subsequently became chief of staff for Minner. It was a $60,000-plus annual gift unrelated to DeLuca’s qualifications for ANY job at DOL. It remains an utter waste of taxpayer money.
DeLuca’s sole defense at this point is that he is not ‘technically’ guilty of a crime. I’ll leave that to the lawyers to determine.
My point is that this is the rot at the core of the Delaware Way. If this ethical malfeasance is allowed to continue, don’t ever expect your legislators to be responsive to public concerns. “Technically not guilty of a crime” should NOT be an acceptable standard for elective public service, far from it.
There ARE honest legislators dedicated to serving the public. But the preponderance of them have some angle that they’re working to either directly or indirectly benefit themselves and/or their families.
In fact, until I read Chad Livengood’s article (and articles like these are why we need newspapers), I didn’t know that the profoundly-undistinguished John Viola was hooked up with DOL. Trust me, they’re not paying him for his brains, unless they are required by law to meet a certain numbskull quota.
Dana – would you really want to pay most of these legislators a full time salary for what they do?
For the record I think Viola works for the DOL and Mulrhooney might?
El, can you clear this up?
I think Mulroony teaches at Delcastle High.
I’m not sure though.
Mulrooney teaches at the Skills Center.
Peterson was supervisor of labor law enforcement when she was county council president. This is the same area where DeLuca works. Hard to figure how she escaped the maw of the Hatch Act during that time.
Dana: There’s no exemption for those who have their state jobs before being elected. That’s why Sheila McMahon had to drop out of the Senate race against Neal in ’92, and why others have likewise had to forego candidacy.
@ AQC-So therefore, no conflict of interest?
Just kidding. Mikes alright.
Only a couple of programs at the Delaware Skills Center are funded with Federal $$’s. Mike’s program is not one of them.
And I think Mike’s alright as well.
Peterson was at DOL while council president but that was before discrmination was part of that office. Discrimination became part of that office AFTER she left office.
Gov. Markell was just on “Morning Joe”.
I came in half way through, I think. He came off looking pretty good from what I saw.
Savor the irony of Tony DeLuca discriminating against the Sunset Committee staffer who is disabled by the mold in Leg Hall. I wonder if her work this year to bring the State Real Estate Commission under Sunset review has anything to do with DeLuca’s paybacks here.
I just read the testimony from the public hearing in February
http://legis.delaware.gov/Sunset/Sunset.nsf/eb00d5abf8dfa0d785256c92007158fd/62a957c184264ee18525784900612e69?OpenDocument
It looks like complaints from people who bought into the Capano-built Odessa National may have started the review.
Home buyers were not happy with the commission for ignoring their plight which now has been settled by the Attorney General’s office.
In Delaware, a builder can sell real estate out of their subdivision office without a license and so there is no punitive result when they do things like lie about the amenities the new homeowner will be paying for. In the Odessa National case it was hundreds of dollars a year for non-existent swimming pools and club houses.
I could imagine that DeLuca (who has always traveled close to Minner and Brainard and the rest of the crony crowd who bent over backward to help Delaware residential development put money into their campaigns) hates that the developers hate that the Realty authority is being reviewed.
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Barring State employees from running for office seems a step too far. I would say I could support removing pension benefits form legislative pay. No one should be assuming they will stay in elected government service for the rest of their life.
In the same vein, not allowing legislators to have another job would make it nearly impossible for anyone but the retired, and/or independently wealthy to seek office. If I work for 10 years at some job, quit to serve in leg hall, then dont get re-elected, what do I do then?
Thanks, PI. GOP was terrified of KP in the 1980s and would have loved to get rid of her bloodlessly, as with a Hatch case.
“not allowing legislators to have another job would make it nearly impossible for anyone but the retired, and/or independently wealthy to seek office. If I work for 10 years at some job, quit to serve in leg hall, then dont get re-elected, what do I do then?”
I think that if the legislators worked full time and were paid well–say, in six figures–that would provide plenty of reassurance/incentive for many people to run for office. Given that median personal income for individuals in the USA is $25,149, a six figure income would be a significant step up for most individuals.
Do you have a picture of this bozo?
DeLuca is a pompous unqualified imbecile, but, don’t kid yourselves about Karen Peterson. Karen does what will somehow serve Karen!
The best solution is to bar members of the General Assembly from any government jobs. I said “period” before and I’ll say it again. Period. How many of these folks with public jobs now managed to get elected when they were working in the private sector? I think the answer is all of them. And how and why do they get their nice cushy state jobs? Could it be because they are elected officials?
The fact is there can be no accountability for a member of the General Assembly when he is working a state job. No one will have the guts to fire or even give an honest review. The list of offenders is long and includes people in both parties. The General Assembly is not, nor should it ever be, a path to public employment. Resign if you want the public job, but don’t do both.
If anything, we should shorten the legislative session. The session could just as easily end May 31, rather than June 30, and just as much could get done. Nothing happens in January or February for most of them anyway.
I don’t see how you could bar a public employee from running for office. Perhaps their jobs should be frozen if they get elected. No promotion, no new positiion while they are in office. And, if you aren’t a public employee when you become a Legislator, you cannot become a public employee while you’re in office. Every Legislator who is in public office should be expected to post their accountability for hours worked in either place of employment. Under no circumstances should a Legislator be getting paid twice for the same hours. They should not be given free reign to come and go from a state job just to attend a breakfast or luncheon or coffee during regular business hours. They should not sit on any money committees and they should not be assigned to any committee having a direct link to their Department.
The Delaware courts have a different view. They ruled a state police officer could not hold legislative office because his job put him under the executive branch. That should hold true for anyone else, DeLuca included.
Anon: You don’t bar them from running. You bar them from holding the two jobs concurrently.
Geezer: absolutely right on. Cronyism is not democracy. Sick of paying two or three pensions for these parttimers.