Pete Schwartzkopf Rips Dover Downs a New One

Filed in Delaware by on April 30, 2018

As El Somnambulo predicted last week, the casino giveway relief bill that sailed through the state Senate on a 17-3 vote faces a tougher road in the House, where its chief opponent is the most powerful man in the legislature, House speaker Pete Schwartzkopf.

Schwartzkopf has long been a critic of Delaware’s racinos, and for the best of reasons — he tried to push the General Assembly to allow a fourth casino in Sussex County to take advantage of seasonal tourism, only to run into the buzzsaw of lawmakers who enjoy their high-roller-club perks too much to cross their benefactors. That Schwartzkopf stood to become head of security for his proposed fourth casino might taint his motive, but there’s no denying he was on the right side of the argument; the state has no responsibility for keeping the casinos profitable.

The lopsided Senate vote clearly spooked him, though. The indispensable Matt Bittle of the Delaware State News was on hand last Thursday as Schwartzkopf unloaded:

“For years and years and years, we guaranteed them a certain profit. We kept every bit of competition away from them. We wouldn’t let anybody even come to the table. You go all the way back to ‘94, when they went into place — I mean, they limited competition by saying you could only have a casino if you had an active, working racetrack, and there were only three in the state.

“Our job is to provide services and to put a budget together and not guarantee people a certain amount of profit. So what we’ve done right now is taking $20 million out of our budget when it could have been $5 million or it could have been $6 million and the rest of that money could have stayed in our budget. The casinos have give us a lot of money over the years, but they’ve also made a lot of money over the years.”

As that passage indicates, the probable outcome here is some reduction in taxes on the casinos, but one with a smaller financial impact.

Perhaps more notable is Schwartzkopf’s shot at Gov. John Carney for cooking up this bill with the state Senate and leaving Pete and the House on the outside. “This has been a total breakdown in communication,” the speaker said. Schwartzkopt said that he won’t bury the bill and will give it a hearing — forcing that was the point of the lopsided Senate vote — but it’s obvious he considers this a snub by the governor.

It takes a special lack of political skill to piss off a powerful politician of your own party. John Carney has just that lack.

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  1. jason330 says:

    Being on the same side of this with Schwartzkopf makes me feel queasy.

  2. Alby says:

    Blind squirrel, acorn. Do the math.

  3. Let’s not forget that Brian Bushweller, who is behind the casino bailout, didn’t vote for the minimum wage increase, which meant that the bill didn’t pass. Carrying water for multimillionaires while screwing the average worker, that’s Sen. Bushweller.

  4. Alby says:

    Again, do the math. That would raise wages for some casino workers, wouldn’t it?