Welcome to Delaware Get Money Out!

HCR 5, the Free and Fair Elections Resolution, sets out to make sure that American elections are “free from the disproportional influence of special interests and fair enough that any citizen can be elected into office,” and does so by calling for a states-led convention for proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution as described in Article V of the same.  It had the backing of many Delawareans, not just the 16 supporters we could cram into the room, which included individuals from Wolf-PAC, American Promise Delaware, and the Delaware Coalition for Open Government.

Our sponsor, Rep. David Bentz, is a champion for many electoral reform bills like this one.  He laid out for the committee how every year elections get more expensive and require more fundraising to win, and that Congress has become less responsive to the people as a result and is doing nothing about the issue.  He concluded that HCR 5 represents the only mechanism at Delaware’s disposal for obtaining necessary Constitutional change and effective campaign finance reform, but also a way to send a strong message to Congress and prod its members into action.

The HCR 5 hearing crew with our sponsor Rep. David Bentz at Legislative Hall.

DGMO Organizer Nathan Schreppler, a Delaware native and father of two living in Middletown, he spoke about one of his reasons for leading the group: “About a year and a half ago my mother-in-law was diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 59. Without getting into the details, this disease can progress quickly and will inevitably require assisted living to the tune of $4,000 to $8,000 a month . . . .  I don’t expect a bailout, I don’t even know if my situation should be helped through government action. What I do know is that I want Congress men and women that honestly look at it. That don’t weigh special interest donations over average Americans. I want a government that I believe in and then I’ll deal with the rest.”

His fellow Organizer Travis Bicher of Claymont, who had only been in Delaware a few years, testified that he still did all he could to move the issue forward, namely talking to the public, his county council, the state’s Congressional delegation, and of course the General Assembly, noting that “we can’t risk setting aside any tool available to us in the fight to end the corrupting influence of money in our political system” and that a convention application “would be by far the strongest and most effective method of getting this issue to move forward in Congress, as history has shown.”  A college graduate, he cited the student loan debt crisis as his driving motivation.

We also heard from Chris Asay of Dover, a massage therapist who’s lived in Delaware for 25 years, who was there for the future of his kids and to do something about the long list of issues not being addressed by Congress.  He noted that the popularity of campaign finance reform sits at 80% of Americans and also that fears of a convention leading to a different amendment are unjustified, saying “only an amendment like that could possibly be ratified by 38 states. This means that it only takes 13 states to stop something too extreme or unpopular. This is a very high threshold. It is the very same threshold for Congress, which in its history has introduced over 11,000 amendments, and only 27 have made the grade.”  

Mike Keenan of Newark, a 2nd-generation Delawarean working IT at Christian Care, spoke about how he got involved in politics at an early age and how he’s felt our representative democracy slipping away over the years, decrying the Supreme Court for making it “legal for those with enough money to purchase the reins of government.”  He pointed to the 17th Amendment as an example of what to do: “We were one state shy of the 2/3 needed to force a convention, Congress capitulated and proposed the amendment themselves. We have the Bill of Rights because New York and Virginia called for a convention to propose those amendments. 4 out of the last 10 Amendments included state-level resolutions just like HCR 5.  The states pushed for an Article V Convention, and Congress had to listen.”

Questions were fielded with assistance from Wolf-PAC’s legal advisor Sam Fieldman, who is an expert on the Article V Convention and claims to have read every source on the subject.  In response to the concerns of the Chair, Rep. Valerie Longhurst, about not having rules in place, Fieldman described exactly what the rules would be and what Congress has tried to institute previously.  More importantly, he pointed out that there weren’t any for the Article V ratifying conventions used to pass the 21st Amendment or for the original ratification of the Constitution, noting that rules are only made when they become relevant.

The post-game locker room speech.

Of course, the unfounded fear of the “runaway” convention, the idea that delegates would go renegade and somehow force an off-topic amendment into place, was raised again and again during hearing.  This despite Rep. Bentz addressing it in his opening statement by pointing to official published works weighing against this from groups like the Department of Justice, the American Bar Association, and the Congressional Research Service, and to the text of Article V itself.  

Rep. Longhurst ended by noting that everyone in the room, including the opposition, was in agreement that campaign finance reform is desperately needed in the country, but felt that HCR 5 is too risky.  She concluded saying she didn’t know how we would ever manage tackling money in politics at the Congressional level, an unsatisfying sentiment echoed by Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf before he moved to table.

A disappointing conclusion to be sure, but it’s further than we’ve gotten in a few years, and the tone this time was much more congenial.  With more organizational and public outreach, we can (and will!) pass this session. If you want to help us out in our next campaign, join at DEGetMoneyOut.org/Sign-Up!