Educating kids today is both a challenge and an immense reward. At times it feels like a puzzle. With children from such diverse backgrounds and experiences, it is contingent upon the educational community to meet the needs of all students. We need to realize that those varied backgrounds inform the students we see every day and those experiences may not align with rigid standards or tests handed down from the state. As educators, we know our students best and we should be afforded the flexibility to work with them in the ways we know will make them successful.

Choose Carefully and Execute Relentlessly

Jack Welch used to say you need a Philosophy you can put on the
back of your business card and here is what we need in order to
support private sector job creation.  Choose Carefully and Execute
Relentlessly.

Most of the usual government actions will have no positive effects
on our slow growth, no growth future. We must escape the Dead Weight
of Tradition called the Delaware Way and realize wages; salaries and
benefits must be supported through labor and capital productivity.
Random emotional efforts to increase prosperity, which don’t increase
productivity such as subsidies and tax breaks upon selected industries
are ineffective.

The proper focus of government is to support improvement in the
productivity of labor and capital. Delaware must:

1. Build human capital through education. Delaware must increase
school choice options at every level, reduce the bureaucratic
fingerprints and costs on schools by at least 25%, hire more Para
professionals then match teacher training with school curriculum and
ALL testing.  Stop the endless new efforts, acronyms and slogans.

2.  Support entrepreneurship through sensible easy to understand tax
compliance, which supports savings, growth and investment, fast/fair
land use decisions and enforce property rights. Inertia, byzantine
processes and having government as the largest employer in Delaware
hurts job creation.

3. Efficiently provide public goods such as infrastructure, public
safety and set a long-term reliable fiscal future for the state and
country.  Dollars and time wasted on the vagaries of government
destroys jobs.

Governments must Choose Carefully and Execute Relentlessly or we will
suffer endlessly.

I would like to thank all of the citizens who came out to meet their elected officials in the 35th district town hall meeting tonight.  I would also like to thank the elected officials who came out to speak with the public.

Those who attended had a chance to hear from, and ask questions of,  House Minority Leader Danny Short, Sen. Minority Leader Gary Simpson, Rep. Dave Wilson, Senator Brian Pettyjohn, Sussex County Council President Mike Vincent and Sussex County Councilman Sam Wilson.

I would like to also thank two Election District Chairman, Bill Atwood and Steve Mc Carron from the 2nd of the 35th, who put in their time and effort to organize this event. Thanks guys, great job.

We had around fifty people show up, and all were respectful in their questioning of the officials. The topics ranged from entrances to developments, to gun laws and education.

I think this event showed that we can communicate with our elected representatives in a respectful give and take, where all parties walk away knowing something they didn’t before.

We live in a representative republic, and that means that we elect people to go to our capitals and represent their districts.  The best way for them to do this is for them to hear from those who elected them. It is unreasonable to think that an elected official can somehow contact each and every citizen within their districts. That is why events like the one held tonight in Bridgeville is so important to the process. By holding this event, it was made possible for the two parties in this partnership we call democracy to come together and have an exchange of ideas and information.

For those who knew of this event and simply chose not to come, well please stop complaining that your elected officials aren’t listening. They were there tonight to do just that, so where were you?

Finally I would like to thank the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Company for the use of their facility.

Seeing as the bill to repeal the death penalty in Delaware has just passed the state Senate, you might be wondering why I chose such a title.  Well it wasn’t intended to anger any special interest group, that’s for sure.

I will get to the title later, right now let me talk about the Senate vote. It was as close as it could be, 11-10 in favor of repealing the death penalty. An amendment was added that would keep the seventeen who are already on death row, on death row. This is but a small victory for those who wanted the bill to fail.

I would  like to commend my senator, Brian Pettyjohn  for his vote in opposition of the bill. Not surprising, since a large part of his district is in the Georgetown area, and emotions are still raw over the murder of police officer Chad Spicer. Thank you Senator Pettyjohn.

Prior to the actual vote, a lot was made of the fact that Republican senator Gary Simpson was a co-sponsor.  But today the story seemed to be all about the vote cast by Senator Ernie Lopez. Senator Lopez is a freshman senator, and also a Republican, and he voted in favor of repealing the death penalty.

Senator Lopez was interviewed on the Susan Monday Show on Delaware 105.9 today.  Prior to his appearance on the show the host, Susan Monday, took calls asking if people felt betrayed by those senators who had voted for repeal.  Several people called in and stated that they  did feel betrayed by the vote of Sen. Lopez, one caller expressed her displeasure,  by stating that she was active in her community, and that Sen. Lopez had not bothered to contact her, to ask how she felt he should vote on such an important issue.

Can we please, for one moment come into the real world? Why would any voter think that an elected official would call every voter in the district and ask their opinion? I wonder, did this caller actually try to contact Senator Lopez? This is a representative republic, and that means it is a partnership, between the voters and the elected officials. If a voter is interested in a particular issue, then they should contact their representatives within government that are concerned with that issue. I would also add that any voter who took the time to get to know Mr. Lopez during the election process would have known where he was on this issue, as he had answered that question on occasion.

Sen. Lopez spoke of the many people who he did speak with prior to casting the vote. I have always found Sen.  Lopez to be approachable and open-minded. I have asked him tough questions and always gotten what I found to be honest answers. Personally I am disappointed in the vote that Sen. Lopez cast, but he is not my senator, and I respect the reason he gave for voting the way he did. He stated that between talking with the people within his district, and his personal faith, he felt that he must vote to repeal the death penalty.  Many of the same people who will now criticize Sen. Lopez for this vote, are the same people who feel we need more faith in government. Well that is exactly what they have gotten with Sen. Lopez, he brings his faith with him to office.

Now back to the title of this piece. I had the opportunity today to speak with Delaware’s  Speaker of the House, Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf (D) on this very issue. Rep. Schwartzkopf told me on the record that he was opposed to repealing the death penalty, and that when the bill came to the floor of the House of Representatives, that he would cast a no vote to repeal.

The Speaker also stated that he would not however, play any political games with assigning this bill to committee. He stated that the bill should go to the judiciary committee, and that is most likely the committee that will handle the bill for the House. This, even though some have suggested to the Speaker, that he should send it to the administration committee where it would most likely die.

I have to be honest, as much as I would like to see the bill die in committee, I can respect the Speaker’s reasoning. That being, that the bill should face an up or down vote on the floor, and let the opposing sides find the votes they need.

In the past I have been critical of Mr.. Schwartzkopf, but in this case, I have to thank him for his honesty when speaking with me, and also for, in my opinion, being on the right side of this issue, even though it will be against the Democrat line.

Speaker Schwartzkopf also mentioned that he was not sure at this time whether there were enough votes in the House to pass this bill, hence the title of my post.

One final thing on the issue of the death penalty. It was my contention all along that the original bill was in danger of being found unconstitutional if passed because it would have crossed the line separating the separate branches of government. First the original bill would have commuted the death sentences of the seventeen already on death row. This would have veered into both the judicial  branch and the executive branch.

First of all, those cases were already adjudicated by rightfully seated courts and juries, this legislation would have overturned those sentences. And correct me if I am wrong, but I believe only the executive can commute death sentences in Delaware. Thus the reason for the amendment.

I believe that Governor Jack Markell was hoping to sit back and keep his hands clean on this one, allowing the General Assembly to pass this bill and only having to sign it after the fact.

Now if he wishes to allow any, or all of the seventeen, to have their death sentences commuted, Gov. Markell will have to do it himself, on a case by case basis.

I will wait and see if Speaker Schwartzkopf’s feelings on the chances of the bill passing the House are correct. But I won’t wait for my Representative to call me and ask my opinion, and I suggest that if this issue is important to you, that you not wait either, call them and tell them what you think. Then if they go against you wishes, you at least have a real gripe.

Rainbows and Lollipops Rainbows and Lollipops

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