The 2015 MVP (Most Valuable to the Progressive Cause in Delaware) Awards

As always, counting down from #10 (or is it eleven, or, with the Progressive Six, is it 17, or, with some repeats within the Progressive Six, is it 14?):

10-A. Governor Jack Markell

No, not for his body of work in 2015.  But Jack Markell didn’t hesitate to call out the fearmongerers who wanted Markell to oppose any relocation of Syrian refugees to Delaware.  He in no uncertain terms blew up their arguments.  His stand contrasted with dim bulb John Carney’s vote in Congress calling for a halt to any resettling of Syrian refugees.  Markell, after some initial rope-a-doping, also came out in support of death penalty repeal.  Wonder where Carney stands? Or if he even has a position.

10. Sen. Karen Peterson

There’s a reason why she is ranked (by me) as Delaware’s best legislator.  This year, she upped the stakes on death penalty repeal by getting a clean bill (no exceptions) passed in the Senate, and then by calling out House leadership for refusing to enable the bill to be brought up for consideration. She also introduced and passed legislation “providing for recording and maintaining a record of all deliberations made by public bodies during any public hearings, including any discussion made ‘off the record'”.  The bill passed the Senate unanimously, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee, then was reassigned to Pete & Val’s House Administration Committee, where it has languished since April 22.  Gee, I wonder why.

9. The ‘Progressive Six’

If you’re already sensing a recurring theme of people standing up to the unethical and heavy-handed ‘leadership’ of Pistol Pete and Vindictive Val, you are correct.  In this case, six state representatives voted against the horrific, bad, not-very-good, deal cut by Speaker Pete with Senate Rethugs.  The ‘Six’ are Reps. Baumbach, Bennett, Kowalko, Lynn, Matthews, and Kim Williams. Let’s hope that the Six, joined by other responsible legislators, force some progressive changes in order to address what looks like a dire fiscal situation for FY ’17.

8. Rep. Sean Lynn

I admit it. I had my doubts as to whether Lynn could even come close to matching the record of his predecessor, Rep. Darryl Scott.  The Dover area has not traditionally turned out progressive legislators, and I feared that some backsliding was inevitable when Scott retired (I hope not permanently).  But Lynn has taken up Scott’s cause celebre, repeal of the death penalty, and is working assiduously to get the bill to the House floor.   He also supports alternative, more progressive methods, for balancing the budget going forward, and he stands with those challenging Gov. Markell’s ill-considered education policy.

7. Rep. Kim Williams

The election of Kim Williams, a school board member, to the General Assembly, heralded the ratcheting-up of informed opposition to the state’s ill-conceived education policies.  Her dogged and consistent challenges to those misbegotten policies have borne fruit as more and more legislators have come to recognize that she knows what she’s talking about.  In addition, she sponsored and had enacted into law HB 75, which enables Family Court to consider expungement of a juvenile record when the individual has demonstrated rehabilitation despite ‘multiple youthful indiscretions’.

6. Claire Snyder-Hall

A former State Senate candidate, Snyder-Hall is the Program Director and Lobbyist for Common Cause of Delaware.  Eschewing the traditionally genteel manner in which Common Cause has chastised ethically-challenged public officials, Snyder-Hall sharply and directly criticized Pistol Pete and Vindictive Val for larding up caucus staff paychecks while giving their collective fingers to state employees.  And then there’s this challenge to the Delaware Way lack of ethics.  She’s royally pissed off her Sussex County counterpart, Speaker Schwartzkopf.  She needs to get elected to something.  Hey, how about as an antidote to ‘Carny’?

5. Sen. Bryan Townsend

Congressional run or no congressional run, Townsend simply doesn’t play it safe. In addition to being the Senate’s leading challenger to the education status quo, Townsend sponsored and, in many instances, passed, a broad array of progressive legislation this year.  Some examples:

SB 141: Cleaned up the mess of our state’s escheat laws.  Signed.
SB 66: Helps jurisdictions with long-term residential vacancy rates over 3% to form land banks to address the vacancies. Signed.
SB 59: Provides a mechanism for undocumented immigrants to secure driving privileges in the state. Signed.
SB 47:  Ensures improved representation for indigent clients while streamlining administrative costs to save money. Signed.

I don’t think that any legislator is more inquisitive and thoughtful about their legislative initiatives than Townsend.  Hmmm, a good legislator. Isn’t the United States House of Representatives…a legislative body?

4. Rep. Sean Matthews

A first-termer as our Most Valuable Legislator of the Year? Yes.  Not merely, or even primarily, because of his stellar progressive record this year.  But also because he wrote perhaps the clearest explanation as to why the Markell/Murphy/Rodel team is so wrong on education. If you read only one think piece this year, make it Matthews’. The statistics have borne out exactly what he wrote.  As virtually any teacher could tell us, there is a direct correlation between the economic status of students and test results.  How the leaders of our state could have ignored this demonstrable truth for so long eludes me.  Instead of  providing additional resources to schools serving these populations, Markell/Murphy/Rodel have punished them, buried students in pointless testing, and even tried taking some schools over.  Matthews’ incisive critique has influenced legislators and has helped to kick off the beginning of the end to this elitist top-down education policy.  Matthews was also on the progressive side of virtually every issue.  The upgrade from Dennis E. Williams to Matthews is incalculable.

3. Leo Strine, Chief Justice, Delaware Supreme Court

Strine has led the challenge to Delaware’s severe and inflexible sentencing laws.  He has publicly challenged the mandatory sentencing laws that have led to a disproportionate number of minorities being incarcerated. On January 21 at a Delaware State Bar Association breakfast honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King,  Strine said Delaware can’t “incarcerate our way to public safety” and noted “shocking disparities”  in incarceration rates for blacks in Delaware. And, in a statement that incurred the ire of Sen. Greg Lavelle, Strine said, “You don’t want to be in a state where incarceration rates are associated with North Korea.” Strine’s leadership bore fruit as Delaware eliminated minimum mandatory sentences for non-violent drug-related offenses.

2. Attorney General Matt Denn

Denn also played a leading role in eliminating the minimum mandatories, in effect serving as the ‘anti-Jane Brady’.  Twenty years of wrong-headed public policy finally being rectified.  In addition, Denn came up with what has, up until now, been the only strategy that has effectively reduced violent crime in Wilmington. Although, in its infinite lack of wisdom, the General Assembly failed to fund the program’s continuation in June, Denn has now convinced the Joint Finance Committee to provide funds to restart the program.  Denn, with the assistance of the JFC, has placed one caveat on the release of the funds: Mayor Dennis Williams must provide information on how city police are currently being utilized. Assuming that Wilmington’s Blusterer-In-Chief releases the data, not only will Wilmington receive the funds, but utilization of current resources will be improved.  Oh, BTW, in January, Denn created within the AG’s office the Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust. Matt Denn was our best public official in 2015.  Not for the first time.

 

1.  Rashmi Rangan

How many times have I asked the question, “Won’t somebody, anybody, challenge this egregious wrong?”  Lots of times.  Whether it’s the illegal actions of the corrupt Minner team or the illegality of Tony DeLuca serving as both a legislator and as an administrator of a public agency, the answer has always been, no, nobody will challenge this egregious wrong.  The budget that was forced through the General Assembly this year was an egregious wrong.  Specifically, the (I believe) illegal application of settlement funds to help balance the operating budget. This misuse of funds violated the specific purposes for which the funds could be used.  While the AG strongly criticized the misuse of the funds, he either chose not to challenge, or was not in a position to challenge, the General Assembly’s cavalier actions.  Enter Rashmi Rangan.  On July 27, Rangan, on behalf of the The Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council called on U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate what DCRAC claims (and I completely agree) was an illegal appropriation of said funds by the Delaware General Assembly.  Apparently devoid of any other ideas, the General Assembly simply grabbed a wad of the settlement cash to balance the budget.  I am enclosing her full letter to Lynch to demonstrate how cynical this grab was.  Rangan and DCRAC have performed an invaluable public service here.  Let’s all hope that this money goes where it was supposed to go. Which, BTW, was not to fund cops for Sussex County or more wasted Ag-Lands preservation. And, now, the letter:

 “July 27, 2015

Attorney General Lynch
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20530

Re: August 2014 Settlement Agreement with Bank of America

Dear Attorney General Lynch:

In August 2014 the Department of Justice announced a “historic” settlement involving $16.65 billion in relief for financial fraud leading up to and during the financial crisis. Under Paragraph 9 of the Settlement $45,000,000 was committed to the remediation of harms to the State of Delaware allegedly resulting from unlawful conduct by Bank of America. Paragraph 9 explicitly states, “The payment to the State of Delaware shall be used, to the maximum extent possible, for purposes of providing restitution and remediating harms to the State and its communities allegedly resulting from the unlawful conduct of [Bank of America], including efforts to address the mortgage and foreclosure crisis, financial fraud and deception, and housing related issues.” Moreover, in a contemporaneous press release issued by the Delaware Attorney General, the funds at issue here “must be used to remediate the harm Delaware communities suffered as a result of the housing crisis, . . . .”

The Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council, Inc. (DCRAC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure equitable treatment and equal access to credit and capital for Delawareans. Since its founding in 1987, it has commented on the abusive and discriminatory mortgage lending practices that have visited misery upon low- and moderate income and minority communities.

We have learned that the General Assembly of the State of Delaware has retained $30,000,000 in settlement funds to close the expected budget gap in the next fiscal year in a manner that does not comply, in our view, with the terms of the Settlement Agreement. There exists a real danger that this sizeable chunk of remedial relief will not be used by the State of Delaware for the purpose of providing restitution or remediating harms to Delaware and its victim communities.

It has become all too clear that the Settlement Agreement, however vigilant to the need for a monitor to oversee the conduct of Bank of America, did not foresee the need for a monitor to oversee the distribution of $16.65 billion by the state government signatories. Regrettably, it falls to DCRAC to allege non-compliance by the State of Delaware, a designated plaintiff in the Settlement Agreement, with the terms of the Settlement Agreement. Such non-compliance with the monetary distribution requirements of the Settlement Agreement, as well as the contemporaneous publicly announced intentions of the United States and Delaware with regard to the use of this “historic” $16.65 billion in monetary compensation, renders illusory the promise of justice for a much abused and exploited community in the State of Delaware.

DCRAC requests that the Department of Justice conduct an inquiry into the allocation of $45,000,000 under the Settlement Agreement by the State of Delaware to determine whether its disbursement was in accord with the meaning and intent of the Agreement. If necessary, we would urge the Department of Justice to present the matter to the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, to ensure compliance by the State of Delaware with the Settlement Agreement and recoup any funds that have been misappropriated.

Thank you for your timely attention to the matters set out herein.”

Letter of the Year. Written by the MVP of the Year. Rashmi Rangan.