Some Days It Just Pays To Get Out Of Bed

  So I had skipped a couple of the Sussex GOP monthly meetings. Between work, and really just not being very interested in the circus, I hadn’t taken the time to go.   But my good friend Steve Grossman asked if I was going this month, and since I had nothing to do, and got off work in time to make the early start time, I said sure.

Man, timing is everything. I am so happy I decided to go this month, as has been the case so many times in the past, this Committee did not fail to provide an evening of entertainment.

The night began with the introduction of the next Delaware GOP State Chairman, Mike Harrington. I say next because, as of now no one else wants the job, and why would they?

Mr. Harrington has a long history in Delaware, and the Republican Party, which he spent most of his time talking about. Please forgive my rudeness, but I really could care less what his pedigree is, I wanted to here what he will do to move the GOP forward in Delaware. He finally got around to it right before he had to leave to go to the Kent County GOP meeting.

While I agree with his goals, they are cliché and I have yet to see, in recent years, a Chairman who has been able to deliver on the promise. “Fund-raising, fund-raising, fund-raising”. Okay, hope you can Mr. Harrington. By the way, he was handed a copy of the Sussex GOP’s Treasurer’s Report as he was leaving. That ought to give him an idea of the uphill battle he faces when it comes to fund-raising, though if I read the report correctly, last month the Sussex GOP raised $2329.00 with a dinner at the Georgia House. But considering they spent $2942.1o, including $1716.01 for the cost of putting on the dinner at the GH, and add in all the other monthly expenses, like $240.00 for the CHEER Center to hold the meetings, $135.42 for electric at the Headquarters, $525.00 for rent at the Headquarters, $160.67 for Verizon, $150.00 total for the web and webmaster. After all this, they spent $613.10 more than they took in for March, and already in April, they have taken in nothing so far, and have expenses of $761.89. So yeah Mr. Harrington, fund-raising, fund-raising, fund-raising. But at least he got a better picture when he got to Kent County.

Second goal, build the grassroots and volunteers. Okay, how? Considering the image being presented by the people representing the party, how do you encourage more people to join and work for the GOP? Same question about another goal of registering more people to be Republican. Maybe you first focus on getting them to vote Republican, and you do that with his third goal, candidate recruitment. Find the right candidates, whatever that means, and people will vote for them.

And finally, and I am still laughing at this one, party unity. Obviously no one has explained PUMA to Mr. Harrington. Party Unity My Ass! Good luck.

Following Mr. Harrington, there were some routine things to take care of, like approving the minute and the Treasurer’s Report and such.  And then Rep. Ruth Briggs King was introduced to speak about the bill to legalize marijuana. Rep. Briggs-King is in opposition of legalization of pot. Sen. Colin Bonini who is in favor, had been asked to also speak, but backed out at the last-minute.

Rep. Briggs-King gave many statistics as to why she is opposed based on medical findings and also because we have heard in the past about how the revenue from gambling, lottery, sports betting, slots, cigarette tax all were going to solve our fiscal problems and pay for education. The same argument is being made for marijuana, and it will fail to deliver as well. I did find it interesting the number of licenses, and regulations, and oversight agencies which will be created to run this new industry. So tell me all you small government conservative, Republican, libertarian types, how does that fit in your idea of smaller government?

Skipping around the agenda, the Vice Chair  Don Petitmermet gave an update of the “independent” audit, which he stated will for evermore in the future be called an “independent” review of the Sussex County GOP Executive Committee’s finances. Now since they are calling it an “independent” review, you might assume they have brought in an outside firm to go over the books, right? Well you would be wrong, they are doing their own “independent”  review of themselves. “This word independent, I do not think it means, what they think it means”. You just can’t make this stuff up. One of the issues mentioned is missing checks. Missing Checks? How do you have missing checks? Seems to me, one person would be responsible for the checks, and when a check was used, it would be written down with the check number and who it was given to, and for what. Why would there be blank checks just floating around in the world? WOW!

And now we come to the climax, some vulgar people might call it the money shot, but I won’t, oh wait, I just did, oh well.

So at the end of the meeting, Chairman Billy Carroll brought up the issue of Sen. Dave Lawson and Sen. Colin Bonini having walked out of the Senate during a Muslim prayer, and Sen. Lawson’s comments about the prayer and the Muslim community in general. The comments were not flattering, and have drawn both praise and criticism of Sen. Lawson, and Sen. Bonini to a lesser extent. Sen. Lawson was also censured by Senate Pro-Tem Dave McBride that day.

It was proposed that the Sussex Committee pass a resolution in support of the two Senators. But first they would have to suspend the rule, which they did without hesitation.

Before the resolution could be formulated, Sen. Bryant Richardson felt the need to relate his feelings about what happened on the floor of the Senate, since he was there.

His first comment seemed like cover, he said he did not walk out, because he was “stunned”.    And said Senator Hocker was also stunned.

He stated he couldn’t believe they had brought, “those people” in there. Those people? Really? WOW!

Sen. Richardson then related, “those” people said their prayer from the Quran, “in whatever language that is”.  WOW! Someone help me please. This is an educated man, a man who portrays himself as a man of faith. So one would think he would have some working knowledge of other faiths. But to call them “those” people, and to denigrate what they say, because it was spoken in another language, WOW.

At this point the mood of the room was quite anti-Muslim and seemed in support of Sen. Lawson. This was when Rep. Briggs-King spoke up, saying,  it might be a bad idea to make a big deal about this, and draw more attention to it, because then you would have the ACLU involved and they would take away all prayer in Leg Hall. She also pointed out that some of the things which had been said, I assume she meant by Sen. Lawson, would have a negative effect. That the very people he had insulted were members of our communities, and had served our community.

Rep. Dave Wilson made a similar point, but seemed to want to point out this was a “Senate deal”, and something like this couldn’t happen in the House because in the House, the prayers were said by the Representatives, and there are no Muslims. He again pointed out, from apolitical point of view, it would be better to let the “sleeping dog lie”.

Rep. Rich Collins spoke also, but he was more focused on how the committee and the party should ignore this momentary glitch, and to focus on getting Republicans elected.

Following the advise of the elected officials, Chairman Carroll suggested the resolution be tabled, which it was almost unanimously, with only one or two voting against tabling it.

I have in the past been highly critical of this committee, and Chairman Carroll, and though I think they did it for the wrong reasons, I commend them for not passing the resolution in support of the bigoted words of Sen. Lawson.

Let us go back to Mr. Harrington’s goal of growing the party. Just how does insulting, and endorsing that insult, of a sector of our community grow the party. Not only Muslims were offended by the words, but also open-minded people, who see the words as bigoted, and support of those words in the same light.

Finally, after the meeting it was pointed out, that the entire 36th Representative District had protested the meeting, lead by the Chair, Trish Dunlap. The protest was in response to the fact, the Sussex GOP Committee had not put out an announcement of support of Senator Lawson immediately. One can only imagine their anger following the failure of the resolution last night. Will they now resign from the committee? This is exactly the image the GOP needs to avoid, if they have any hope of growing the party.

There are two videos of the meeting on Delaware Right’s Facebook page.