General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., March 31, 2011
Tony DeLuca may well leave a positive legacy on the Delaware General Assembly yet.
Thanks to the blatant manner in which he got a cushy state job and his blatant unwillingness/inability to carry out the job’s requirements, legislators have been more or less forced into introducing legislation to outlaw such shameless stealing of taxpayers’ dollars in the future. Yesterday, House Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf introduced legislation to prohibit any DeLuca/Minner/Sharp/Brainard scenarios from happening in the future. HB 75 would prohibit any legislator from getting a state job after they’ve been elected. While I see one key flaw in the bill, this is an absolutely essential first step towards cleaning out the Delaware Way rot that permeates the General Assembly. And it would not have been possible without the ever-shrinking Diminutive Despot who resides within his newly-created (at taxpayers’ expense) Fortress of Solitude.
Now, to that one key flaw. Is it mere coincidence that this bill was introduced one day after the Napoleonic Martinet introduced legislation to create one statewide Vo-Tech district? Probably, but let’s not forget the case of one Sen. Joe Booth. Like DeLuca, Booth had a job created just for him–community liaison–at the Sussex County Vo-Tech School years after he had first been elected to the Delaware General Assembly. According to Rachel Swick of the Sussex Countian:
Booth will be paid $59,452 with just more than $17,000 in benefits – for a total of $76,486 in salary and benefits. The position is being funded through a combination of state and federal grants that support business, community and school partnerships.
If abuses like these are not also outlawed in HB 75, and they are not under the initial bill, then Vo-Tech districts and their, wait for it, ilk will be the new employers of last resort. Not that they haven’t already employed many legislators over the years, including former New Castle County Vo-Tech Building Supervisor Tom Sharp. BTW, the weekly Ilk Quotient has just been satisfied. The University of Delaware (which is not officially a state institution) hired Myrna Bair while she was a state senator. You get the idea. Closing one loophole while leaving a large one will simply relocate legislators who believe they deserve a second income. And, once again, they will provide legislative access for their institutions in exchange for their jobs. Little, if nothing, will have changed.
While I congratulate the sponsors for moving the ball forward, this bill is hardly a panacea, and I believe it needs to be strengthened to have the intended impact. The ultimate legacy of Tony Deluca depends on it.
Wow, who would’a thunk that the civil unions bill would be the second lede? The Senate Administrative Services/Elections Committee released SB 30 yesterday, and it now can be placed on an agenda by its sponsor. If you support the bill, and if your senator has not already taken a position in support of the bill, now is the time to contact them and encourage them (politely and respectfully) to do so.
There is one committee meeting of note today. A joint meeting of the House and Senate Highways & Transportation Committees to hear from the Acting Secretary. No doubt, DELDOT’s dire economic straits will be discussed, but don’t be surprised if the topic of basketball hoops is brought up.
Medical marijuana is the big enchilada (often wolfed down following the ingestion of marijuana, I’ve been told) on today’s Senate agenda. The debate on SB 17 (Henry) will likely feature a flurry (obligatory snow in April reference) of witnesses on both sides. This vote looks too close to call to me. Wouldn’t be surprised if there is sort-of a test amendment that would presage the final vote. Depending on how the amendment does, the bill could either be tabled or voted upon. The bill’s sponsor can move to table the bill at any time prior to roll call.
The House agenda features several bills I highlighted in yesterday’s report that have just been released from House committees.
HB 35 (B. Short) is an exception, and it’s a notable bill that would dissolve the Board of Parole and transfer its duties elsewhere. Let me provide the entire bill synopsis to help everyone understand why this bill makes sense:
This Act dissolves the State Board of Parole and transfers its statutory functions to the Institutional Release Classification Board (“IRCB”) and the courts. This Act does not alter or narrow eligibility for parole, nor does it limit the procedural rights or remedies available to parolees. In addition, victims will have the same right of notice and opportunity to be heard as they currently have with respect to Board of Parole hearings.
Under the Truth in Sentencing (TIS) Act, the parole system was abolished for offenses committed after June 30, 1990. As a result, the caseload of the Board of Parole has decreased dramatically over the past two decades in its core areas of responsibility. As of November 2010, there were only 247 inmates in state prisons eligible for parole and 350 parolees under parole supervision. These numbers equate to approximately 5% of total incarcerated sentenced inmates and 2% of total offenders supervised in the community.
Under this Act, the Board of Parole’s authority to conduct parole and conditional release hearings will be transferred to the IRCB. In addition, the Board currently has the authority to determine whether an individual has violated the terms of his or her parole, and what sanctions to impose. Under this Act, the Department of Correction will hold a hearing to determine whether there is probable cause to believe a violation exists. If so, then the sentencing court will hold a full hearing to determine whether a violation actually occurred. In addition, the Board of Parole’s authority to hear appeals of certain sex offender tier designations will be transferred to the Sex Offender Management Board, which has significant expertise in this area. The Board’s advisory functions (i.e., to the Board of Pardons) will be transferred to the IRCB.
To me, this bill makes perfect sense from a public policy standpoint. We’ll just see if some good ol’ boys get into a lather over this. Maybe someone’s job could disappear? That’s what DOL and Vo-Tech districts are for.
Other notable bills include HB 26 (Willis), which requires digital recordings of all public meetings by the State Board of Education to be made available to the public within one business day; Rep. George’s truancy legislation discussed here yesterday; Rep. Scott’s discipline uniformity bill, also previously discussed; and a trio of bills that leave me scratching my head.
HB’s 45, 67, and 68 prohibit “any person convicted of a felony sexual offense” from holding either a nursing license, a mental health/chemical dependency professional’s license, or a licensed clinical social worker’s license in the State of Delaware. I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and hazard a guess that no ‘person convicted of a felony sexual offense’ holds such a license now. The bill also clarifies what is law now: that licensees have an obligation to report suspected sexual abuse or other offenses. In other words, these are feel-good bills that will do nothing. I’ve got nothing against them. But they will have far more impact in election brochures than in real life.
Speaking of real life, I have a question for you: Does fantasy baseball fit within your definition of real life? It does in mine, so I’m taking the next two days off to prep for our annual auction/draft on Saturday. Think I’m gonna keep that Jose Contreras for $5 now that he’s the Phils’ designated closer du jour…
Graft and double dipping have been going on in Delaware politics forever, and it won’t change much, if at all. They may limit it with rules and such. Then the leaches will find loopholes around the rules. One of the ugliest in recent years was when Ruth Ann Minner gave a Superior Court bench seat to M. Jane Brady , even after the State Bar committee that reviews such appointments recommended 17-0 against it (Brady). The Senate went right ahead with the confirmation as if the barristers meant nothing. Several of the lawyers quit the committee afterwards.
Delbert: That’s not a loophole. There’s no requirement the recommendation be followed, so it wasn’t. To throw up your hands and say a law won’t change anything is to institutionalize cynicism and undermine efforts at reform. For what it’s worth, we were told applying FOIA to the GA was impossible, too.
Could someone please list which legislators are holding a state job and please include those that work for our colleges. Thanks
Helene Keeley, John Viola, Larry Mitchell, Margaret Rose Henry, Nick Manilokas, Tony DeLuca, Joe Booth…not sure who else.
The ones that don’t currently hold a state job will get offered a good one when they “retire” anyway. So what’s it matter? It’s all graft. A 17-0 thumbs down from your colleagues on the bar, Geezer, over an important position like Sup.Court judge. If a state legislature won’t follow that, what’s the use in the committee? Some on the committee felt the same way.
The most shameful thing about the Brady appointment is that is was gleefully engineered by none other than Glen Kenton, Pete du Pont’s secretary of state and law partner, years after du Pont created the Judicial Nominating Commission as a means of preventing exactly what wound up happening with the Brady appointment.
Does the bill also forbid immediate family of legislators from state jobs?
Folks, we’re going down a slippery slope when we start legislating where people can legally work.
“Folks, we’re going down a slippery slope when we start legislating where people can legally work”
Most bogus concern on any issue is the slippery slope.
“A 17-0 thumbs down from your colleagues on the bar, Geezer, over an important position like Sup.Court judge. If a state legislature won’t follow that, what’s the use in the committee? Some on the committee felt the same way.”
I would say the committee serves no purpose — which should be obvious from the fact that its opinion is not binding.
Slippery slope! Everyone take a drink!
Whats next? Passing laws where spouses and children of lawmakers can work? How about a legislator that goes and gets his/her teaching degree after elected? If they cant teach in our schools, what good is the degree? Not sure this proposal would hold up to a court challenge anyway.
The Delaware Way has to be stopped. These people leach onto the public payroll forever and need to be excommunicated out into the real world.
It’s one thing to serve the public, it’s another thing to have the public serve you.
If it’s such a big deal, Why do they keep getting re-elected? No one cares about this. Where’s the public out cry?
There’s plenty of public outcry. The lack thereof depends upon nobody talking about it, which is apparently exactly what you want. Those days are over, and you, anon., will be taken out with the rest of the garbage.
Geezer, wrong again!
“House Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf introduced legislation to prohibit any DeLuca/Minner/Sharp/Brainard scenarios from happening in the future.”
So I obviously know who DeLuca, Sharp, and Minner are as they appeared in the above post, but I had to do some refreshing with the name Brainard. That’s an odd name to include considering he could have picked one of a dozen other, more powerful individuals. Personal beef?
That’s just as persuasive as the rest of your twaddle. If this the DEmocratic Party’s idea of defending the Delaware Way, the GOP has reason to hope after all.
Brainard was involved in the scenario to raise DeLuca to power. And where do you get the idea that Brainard isn’t powerful? He’s slotted in to fill Lonnie George’s tiny shoes at DelTech — provided he doesn’t get indicted in the DelDOT scandal.
Yet another Democratic Party troll running scared because of El Somnambulo’s truth-telling?
Seriously? Name calling? What are we on FOX News? So much for thinking an educated discussion was possible.
I’ll attempt at asking civil questions… Given that is was the Senate that elected DeLuca Pro-Temp, does this mean that every other individual outside the Body who supported DeLuca was as “involved” as Brainard? Plus, if there was a heavyweight that truly raised DeLuca to power, wasn’t it Tom Sharp, and not some employee?
Doesn’t DelTech have a Board of Trustees that approves administrative hiring? So why would he be already “slotted” to fill Lonnie George’s shoes? Similarly, why would the Board of Trustees promote someone who, in your words, might be indicted?
If the Democrats are going to send people online to defend their perfidy, they should pick people who understand the blogosphere. “Troll” is what we call someone who pretends to be interested in discussion, but is actually interested in sowing dissent.
You aren’t asking these questions for any reason but to exonerate someone, I”m not sure whom. If you don’t know how Delaware politics works — and I’m pretty sure you know exactly how it works — get a tutor who doesn’t mind answering “questions” from someone who already thinks he knows the answers.
As I don’t understand the blogosphere, I’m clearly not “working” for anyone, especially the Delaware Dems. (And I don’t really care what troll means on the internet, it has a negative connotation, especially when you use it to refer to another human being).
I am completely baffled at this utter disregard for any sort of decorum. You accuse someone of illegal behavior, and when someone attempts to get some factual information, you act all “above” it and shut down the questioning. What kind of despicable behavior is that? My questions were extremely simplistic, and could have easily proved your point if you answered them.
The “factual information” you asked for was a justification for including Mark Brainard in the post. If you know who he is, you know that he has no qualifications to hold his current position at DelTech beyond his politcal connectedness — just as Lonnie George had no qualifications for running a vo-tech college outside of his politcal connectedness.
In your second response, beyond expressing shock and horror that someone called you a troll (and really, you haven’t read the vitriolic back-and-forth on any of the other posts? Doesn’t “troll” seem rather mild by comparison?), you played dumb about how the DelTech board — shown just a few months ago to be a bunch of rubber stamps for Lonnie George — might choose to elevate Brainard to follow George.
C’mon, if you recognize the names, you can’t be as naive as you’re pretending to be. Either you’re stupid or you think we are.
Tim: I’ll explain it real slowly so that you can understand. Had you bothered to read at least a dozen previous columns spelling out the connection, I’ll do it again. Brainard’s ties to Sharp went back to his long-forgotten run for Lt. Governor (‘Be Sharp! Vote Sharp!’), and extended to his work with the Delaware State Senate. Mark Brainard was hand-picked by Tom Sharp to run DeLuca’s first two senate campaigns–DeLuca lost the first one, and won the second one.
Somewhere around 2004, Brainard assumed the role of Chief of Staff to Gov. Ruth Ann Minner. Following Minner’s narrow reelection, Brainard installed his former Senate bosses, Richard Cordrey and Tom Sharp, into cabinet positions. Sharp was appointed Secretary of Labor.
Almost immediately thereafter, Tony DeLuca was installed in a job at DOL for which he had no qualifications beyond his ties to Sharp and Brainard.
You would have to willfully ignore these facts to somehow suggest that Brainard had no hand in this. He did.
ES: This is the Democratic Party’s idea of fighting back. He’s not interested in facts, he’s drag-netting the bottom hoping to get us to say something DeLuca can use in his dreamed-of lawsuit.
This is a great bill. It was one of the items on my To-Do list when I was running for state representative. The idea was such common sense, that is seemed obvious.
I’m so happy to see that the legislators are doing the the right thing by stopping this practice.
There is one exception that I would like the legislators to consider, however. That is, is a legislator wants to teach a class or two at college, he or she should be able to do that. Perhaps an exemption could be made for part-time college instructors.
–Jim
No one elected the bar to make appointments. The candidate was so clearly qualified by any objective standards, they should be glad the elected officials ignored the obvious political bias of the committee. I can agree with you that they should be removed from the process. If that is their wish, give it to them. Sure the appointment was a political deal, but it was elevating a qualified person to a job who was otherwise blocked for political reasons.
Well, David, if I’ve got this right: the people who were supposed to be objective acted politically, and the politicians made a selection that somehow managed to be objective.
Sounds like Alice in Wonderland to me … but we’ve come to expect that from you.
I do not see any need to have a law. These politicians have to face the people at reelection time. This bill is not necessary. They are elected by the people and face re-election enough said and enough needed. It is a sad day when we start making laws to outline who our politicians should be and what they should be doing.
The same argument could be made about any person with two state jobs. Why not just make a law that no state employees can have a second state job? The argument could always be made that the first job was the reason they got the second job.
This is a crappy bill and poor policy.
“It is a sad day when we start making laws to outline who our politicians should be and what they should be doing.”
OK, so it’s a sad day. So what?
“The same argument could be made about any person with two state jobs. Why not just make a law that no state employees can have a second state job? The argument could always be made that the first job was the reason they got the second job.”
Fine by me. Your “argument” is incredibly weak, though. Few employees have so much pull that they could force themselves into a second job, and most state jobs are full-time, aren’t they?
“This is a crappy bill and poor policy.”
Says who? You? Another Democrat sent here to argue against a bill that will prove quite popular with a public sick of they people you’re defending. Ha ha ha ha ha. Good luck with that.
When I worked for the state of DE, I wasn’t allowed to have a 2nd job with any company or agency (public or private) that would create even the appearence of a conflict of interest with my state job. I don’t see why elected officials aren’t subject to the same standard.
Dana, was this a state-wide employment standard or specific to your agency? And who decides on issues of Conflict of Interest?
I agree that every state employee from every branch ought to be subject to this…..
Cassandra, I believe it was a standard set by the Administrative Office of the Courts. As such it was applied to all judicial branch employees. To illustrate, when I worked for the CASA program, which deals with kids in foster care, I wasn’t allowed to be a foster parent or to work for any company or agency that does business with the Division of Family Services (even on a subcontractural basis), which has custody of children in foster care. (The Division of Family Services is an Executive branch state agency.) This was, rightly, deemed as creating at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Ultimately, the person who decided what constituted a conflict of interest was the agency head (in consultation with the agency’s Personnel office), in my case the Chief Judge of Family Court. Now I did have a second job for a while, teaching as an adjunct at a college, but it was one that did not constitute the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Allow me to add, I also wasn’t allowed to have ANY 2nd job if it IN ANY WAY interfered w/ the performance of my duties in my state job: say, it was so time consuming that it meant I had to take off excessive amounts of time from work or I got phone calls at my state job regarding my 2nd job.
Dana brings up an excellent point: While legislators are technically part-time, DoL employees are full-time, and Sen. DeLuca clearly can’t do a full-time job while holding a top legislative position. Pro tem is time-consuming, which is why the salary attached to it is well above what a back-bencher gets. The head of DoL should be pressured to explain why he doesn’t require DeLuca to give his full-time attention to his DoL job. In most fields, public or private, a job like DeLuca’s in the Labor Dept. requires well over 40 hours/week; administrative jobs are not subject to overtime requirements. And if DeLuca’s is not an administrative job, I want to know why it pays so highly.