An Article V roadblock
As is often the case, one person abuses his power to gum up the works.
During practically all of the time I lived in Maryland, from 2004 to 2019, there were two men who basically had a stranglehold on Maryland state government. Outside of Maryland, the pair was anonymous but insiders knew the state revolved around the two Mikes, Miller and Busch. Respectively, they led the Maryland Senate and Maryland House of Delegates and a lot of common-sense legislation was locked in their desk drawer because the special interests they represented didn’t want the bills to see the light of day. (To be fair, they also held off some of the nuttier stuff for as long as they could, but under their rule the state still drifted almost hopelessly left.)
Aside from their respective bodies, the two Mikes were elected their final time by a total of 59,744 people in a small segment of south-central Maryland (basically the area to the south of Annapolis.) But they wielded their outsized power for years until Father Time (and illness) finally caught up with them in 2019-2020. Having been a Free State resident and having covered their politics for so long, it still seems weird to not have the Mikes in charge of the Maryland General Assembly.
Things are a little different in Delaware, of course, but this story is about a gentleman who has held his position for a decade despite the fact he has become a local anomoly: his Democrat Party has lost ground in Sussex County over the last two decades as centrist Democrats have retired or been defeated for re-election, replaced by stalwart Republicans. Peter Schwartzkopf became the Speaker of the Delaware House in 2013, and he was flanked by Republican-turned-Democrat Representative John Atkins, who only lasted one more term before being ousted by current Rep. Richard Collins. (Sussex Democrats also had the late State Senator Robert Venables, who would shortly thereafter be defeated by current Senator Bryant Richardson.) Since 2015 Schwartzkopf has been the lone Democrat representing Sussex, but he’s a powerful one in perhaps the one district in the county best favoring him based on voter registration and other electoral results. (Joe Biden carried House District 14, which is the Rehoboth/Lewes area now made famous by “Joe Jams,” by 17 points, one of just two Sussex House districts Biden carried and with a margin well ahead of House District 20’s 4 percent. By way of comparison, my district of chicken farms went 68% for Trump.)
However, unless the Republicans can somehow pick up six seats in the Delaware House of Representatives and regain the majority they lost in the 2008 election, Peter Schwartzkopf will once again be calling the shots in the Delaware House next year. (But, thanks to some late GOP recruiting, this is not out of the question: only 6 Democrats were given a free pass this time around while 8 Republicans are unopposed.)
Of course my Substack followers know an Article V convention is appealing to me.
So here’s why Schwartzkopf is a roadblock, according to Convention of States Delaware Director Ginny Watkins (all emphasis in original):
Through the hard work of our volunteer team, we have made significant progress in adding petition signers and supporters, as well as in growing the support needed to pass the COS Resolution in our legislature.
We do, however, anticipate a problem that you can help us overcome.
The Speaker of the House, Peter Schwartzkopf, has indicated that he will not allow our resolution to join a Convention of States to come to the floor of the House of Representatives for debate.
Additionally, he has refused to respond to over a dozen invitations to meet with us to discuss his position and objections. This is not how a Speaker of the House is expected to act.
When the Speaker is a Democrat, yeah, that’s how I expect him to act. That’s one thing I learned in Maryland politics. And all they are really asking him for is a meeting; I’m sure that at least some of his District 14 constituents are interested in this topic.
So the question is: how to get the subject on the House agenda and to the floor for an affirmative vote? Obviously defeating Schwartzkopf at the ballot box would be a start, but then we would probably have some faceless New Castle County machine politician running the show and that doesn’t help. And to be honest, having a bare 21-20 GOP majority would only mean that we get our state’s version of Liz Cheney, Susan Collins, or Mitt Romney to screw things up.
While the voter registration numbers mean the most positive outcome is highly unlikely, making this campaign about kitchen table issues and then subtly tying in the idea of helping to enact these common-sense federal reforms: “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress,” by voting in the affirmative for an Article V Convention of States gives our side a chance of getting a majority that’s more like the one that Democrats currently enjoy. The way things stand now enables them to have a couple votes (like your soon-to-be-former moderate Democrat Senator Bruce Ennis) peel off yet still pass gawd-awful legislation. At that point we can have our Cheney, Collins, or Romney - heck, I’d say we already have them but let’s make them part of a GOP majority where they can do less harm in voting with the Democrats.
It would be a great thing to topple the one-party rule in Delaware and finally make it a truly progressive state: progressing toward more liberty and prosperity for all of its residents by rightsizing state government. And if they can help out the cause by assisting in putting a restraint on the Uncle Sam’s Fedzilla, more’s the better.