Putting things into practice
If you're a local who's fired up about what I said the other day, here's a chance to help.
It’s amazing how things work sometimes.
Unlike, say, an Adam Schiff - who’s under fire for allegations he claimed his primary residence was in Maryland while representing California in the House - Republicans tend to be more honest. So it is with now-former Rep. Ruth Briggs King (RBK), who suddenly resigned her 37th District House seat earlier this week as she’s moving to a residence in the adjacent 35th District.
The extremely popular representative, who hadn’t faced an election opponent since 2016 when RBK dispatched her Democrat challenger by 24 points, leaves a seat whose district was severely eaten up in the last redistricting by the relocated House District 4, moving westward to be more focused on the Georgetown area and points immediately south and east of town. It may be a somewhat more vulnerable district, although not as much as House District 20 which lies to its northeast and flipped to the Democrats last year. That gave the Blue team two of the ten House districts in Sussex County, districts centered on Rehoboth Beach and Lewes.
It also means we will have an election at the oddest of times. This is per the House GOP:
Under state law, when there is a vacancy in the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House must issue a Writ of Election within 10 days of the creation of today’s vacancy in order for a Special Election to occur. The Department of Elections then must set the Special Election for 30-35 days after the Writ of Election is issued.
Given RBK’s November 15 date of resignation, it’s likely the Writ will be put up ASAP as surely the Department of Elections wouldn’t want an election during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Based on maximum times, the latest an election could occur would be December 29. However, that option may be preferred over the idea of a Saturday election (such as their last Special Election was in 2022) that would have to occur on December 23; a weekend when most people are shopping for last-minute gifts or traveling for the holidays. A writ put out today would place the timing no sooner than December 18, making Tuesday, December 19 a possibility.
Due to the expedited timing of the election, there will be no primary, and the Republicans have already selected their candidate, Valerie Jones Giltner. No word as of yet who the Democrats will put up and whether any of the minor parties will be involved. It may be just the major parties; then again, to fill the balance of the term is to get a leg up for the regular legislative election coming up in just less than a year. The winner will get to participate in the second half of the current session in Dover, which gets underway in January and extends through the end of June.
(One thing I did learn over the few days since I wrote my most recent 2024 piece is that my Senator is running for another term, so chances are we will have a reasonable status quo in my area. It’s the rest of the state that’s effed up.)
But keep in mind that this is just my little corner of the world we’re talking about here - as I noted, the last Special Election in Delaware came in 2022. When you consider that Delaware has one of the smallest total delegations in the country (just 62 members between their House and Senate) it’s more likely those of you reading outside the First State could have opportunities, depending on state law regarding midterm departures. (This is why creating a bench is so important.)
But state law on succession is key. During my time in the political arena, I participated in similar situations because I sat on the Republican Central Committee of a Maryland county affected by vacancies, and Maryland state law at the time dictated the Central Committee of the officeholder’s party of affected counties would select a successor if a Delegate or State Senator failed to complete their term. (They did not have special elections for this purpose.)
In this case, due to the timing of the Republican Delegate’s passing (he had already announced he was not running for another term and died in the midst of primary season, after the General Assembly session was over) we just appointed his wife as a placeholder for the last few months of his term. Our main concern on that one was not putting our thumb on the primary scale and making someone an “incumbent.” (Ironically, the Democrats had a similar situation in the previous election cycle, appointing a popular local mayor to be interim Delegate a few weeks prior to the filing deadline and basically clearing the field for his eventual election a few months later.)
This was a process fraght with peril, too. A few years later there was a situation in a very Republican rural Senate district where four counties had to provide input and deadlocked 2-2 on their preferred candidate. That left the choice up to the Democrat governor, who naturally picked the more moderate of the two Republicans.
On the other side of the coin, though, we later had an instance in our county where the incumbent County Councilman passed away barely months into a four-year term. In that case, we were looking for someone who could serve and also defend the seat in an election three-plus years later - but our job in this case was only to select a pool of four candidates, the winner to be chosen by our County Council. (They didn’t pick our first, unanimous choice.) Later the county’s charter was revised to provide for special elections in those situations, in part because of this incident.
Long story short: it pays to know the score, because savvy activists can take advantage to advance their interests. I’m paying attention to how this process goes, filing it away for future reference.
If it takes savvy, well, let’s get more savvy on our side.
Don’t forget: you can also Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.