Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., Jan. 12, 2016.

My outlook for January: Real interesting real fast. Just like today’s Al Show will be.

The second session of the 148th General Assembly kicks off today.  Since it’s not a new General Assembly, everything that was in place on July 1 remains in place today.  It’s gonna be a wild and wooly month.  You can look forward to:

1. Votes on overriding the veto of HB 50-the ‘opt-out’ bill. The bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.  The House vote was overwhelming, 36-3, so it should get through the House in comfortable fashion. The final Senate vote was 15-6, so that is the chamber where Markell might be able to flip a couple of senators.  I will be especially interested to see whether her run for Lieutenant Governor might play into Sen. Bethany Hall-Long switching sides.  I’d like to point out that HB 50 has already had a key impact.  The decision by the Department of Education to cancel the ‘Smarter Balanced’ test for juniors in favor of the SAT would almost certainly not have been made without the catalyst of HB 50.  In fact, you may recall that Sen. Bryan Townsend introduced and passed an amendment extending the opt-out provision to high school juniors.  That amendment is no longer necessary, for the best of reasons.

2. JFC, Matt Denn, and Mayor Dennis Williams in standoff over emergency police funding.  Dennis Williams is the best argument I’ve seen for enacting legislation to provide for the impeachment of elected officials.  Yes, even more so than the disastrously-incompetent Karen Weldin Stewart.  The Joint Finance Committee has approved $1.5 million for emergency policing initiatives in Wilmington.  The one string attached is that Wilmington must share the current deployment figures with them and with Attorney General Matt Denn.  Williams has told his former colleagues, mostly through his mouthpiece, to go bleep themselves.  The weak argument they make is that the state could be preparing to take over the Wilmington police.  Sure, because there’s nothing that the state wants to do more than that.  The real reason (because there can be no other) is that the information will be of tremendous embarrassment to the Mayor, you know, the guy who would cure the city’s violent crime problem in his first six months in office. All the more reason to require its release.  Mayor Williams: It’s not about you. You’ve already proven to be an abject failure.  The least you could do in the  time that you have left is to let people who have a clue as to what they’re doing try to rescue your sorry ass and, more importantly, to do the job that you have proven you could not do. Will Williams even deign to meet with the JFC? I, for one, no longer care what he does as long as he’s no longer Wilmington’s mayor by year’s end.

3. Death penalty repeal. The bill passed the Senate.  Gov. Markell has said that he will sign it.  Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf has buried it in an inhospitable committee.  First-term Rep. Sean Lynn of Dover has said that he will try to petition it out of committee, which would require a majority of House members to vote to release the bill.  Does he have the votes? Will he, at some point, have the votes? Or, are the reps so scared of Pete ‘n Val that they’ll fold like they’ve done before?

4. Markell really wants corporate tax changes ASAP.  Purportedly to remove ‘disincentives’ for job creation:

Corporations: “We reallyreally want to create jobs, but those disincentives are killing us.”

Markell: “Whatever you need, just tell me, it’s yours.”

The bill has been introduced and is already scheduled for a Wednesday committee hearing.  On the face of it, the bill would change the computation of corporate taxes in order to not punish property holdings in Delaware or creation of additional jobs, which the current equations purportedly do.  Pretty much everybody is on the bill as sponsors.  I say go slow.  If rushing this through in January prevents a full consideration of the bill’s implications, slow down the train.  Nothing is lost if the bill isn’t passed until later in session. When the practitioners of the Delaware Way are this harmonious, a few sour notes need to be sounded.

5. This one’s so important, it hasn’t even been introduced yet, which is why I can’t link to it.  Here’s another feel-good bill that also appears to be on the January fast train to passage.  Although the bill (assigned number: HB 240) hasn’t even been introduced, it’s on Wednesday’s House Education Committee agenda.  It will supposedly expand after-school programs.  I think most of us agree that this is a good thing.  Uh, where’s the money gonna come from? What are the details? Why the rush? Those are rhetorical questions.  It’s a nice touchy-feely bill that will look good on everybody’s campaign brochures.  Much like the so-called corporate tax reform package.

6.  Matt Denn’s Proposed Use of Mortgage Settlement Funds.

Here’s what Attorney General Matt Denn wants:

Substance abuse treatment: $3 million over three years to be spent on providing drug treatment opportunities for inmates with substance abuse disorders who are either nearing release from prison or have just been released from prison.

Prison re-entry programs: $3 million over three years be spent on competitive grants to nonprofit organizations that assist inmates being released from correctional facilities to avoid new criminal offenses.

Community policing and community support: $4.7 million for the state’s Neighborhood Building Blocks Fund, which can make grants for a broad array of government and nonprofit efforts to support economically impacted neighborhoods.

Foreclosure prevention: $1.5 million for the Delaware Mortgage Assistance Program to help Delaware homeowners prevent foreclosures on their primary properties.Home purchase opportunities for foreclosure victims: $4 million for the        Downtown Development Districts program, to be used for the purpose of providing down payment assistance to homeowners willing to purchase homes in Downtown Development Districts. First priority would be given to persons and families who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and the present.

Affordable housing: $5 million for the Delaware State Housing Authority’s Strong Neighborhoods Revolving Housing Fund, which is dedicated to the creation of affordable housing in economically impacted areas.

Support for high-poverty elementary schools: $4.8 million to providing $100,000 a year for three years to each of the state’s 16 highest-poverty elementary schools, to allow them to hire additional teachers or paraprofessionals to work with the students from low-income areas who attend school there every day.

After-school and summer programs: $3 million over three years for after-school and summer programs targeted at students who live in low-income areas of the state. (Say…maybe that’s where funding for HB 240 will come from.)

I know it’s beating a deceased equine, but wouldn’t it be great if our governor had a vision like this? Or the anointed next governor?

7. Beware Of:  

…Any move by the Chamber, the Business Roundtable, and the Governor to push their supposed ‘revenue-neutral’ package that actually benefits the wealthy.

…Any attempt by Mark Brainard and Sen. Harris McDowell to push through the Del-Tech property tax which would raise your taxes if Del-Tech’s Board of Trustees say so.

8. DelDem’s Progressive ‘Honey-Do’ List.  I’m sure he would also add Sen. Peterson’s proposed ban of large capacity gun magazines to the list. Don’t know if anything here other than the attempt to override HB 50 will take place in January.

Since I’m off from work this week, I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview of Wednesday’s committee meetings.

Until then, what did I miss, and whaddayathink?