Today is June 30^th, the Delaware General Assembly’s witching hour.  If bills aren’t passed today, they disappear forever—or at least until next year.  This year features the additional drama of a still-unbalanced budget.  I suspect that after all the posturing is done, a budget very similar to the one that was voted down last week will get passed.  Any legislator who was serious about making significant changes to the budget and not just preening for the cameras (not mentioning any names) would have been involved a long time ago, not one legislative day before the end of the session.

I had a good year with the General Assembly.  Working across party lines, I got a bill passed to protect homeowners from having their homeowners insurance policies cancelled because of their making claims—a bill that no one would have predicted three years ago we could pass.  I also got some important bills passed to increase enrollment in the CHIP program to get health insurance for low income children, and to increase the number of doctors available to serve our veterans at the Elsmere VA Hospital.

Of course, we still have two big ones on the “incomplete” list—my bi-partisan bills to allow Delaware to regulate health insurance rates (as 40 other states already do), and to create a statewide health insurance purchasing pool for individuals, families, and small businesses.  The State Senate did the right thing—in spite of furious lobbying against the bills by the health insurance lobby, both bills passed the State Senate with overwhelming bi-partisan majorities (Senator Charles Copeland being one of the only three to side with the insurance lobbyists against the bi-partisan rate regulation bill).  But the health insurance lobbyists have succeeded in bottling both bills up in the House of Representatives Economic Development, Banking and Insurance Committee, the place where good health insurance reform bills often go to die.

Looking back at the last four years, I have gotten an awful lot done with the General Assembly, ranging from one of the nation’s toughest restrictions against the use of credit scoring, to the expansion of family health insurance coverage to include young adults aged 18-24, to dramatic increases in the fines that the state can assess against insurance companies that treat people wrong, to contributing to a major reform to control our state’s workers compensation premiums.   To get all this done and more, I’ve worked successfully with Republicans and Democrats in both chambers.   It is a pretty dramatic contrast with my opponent in the Lieutenant Governor’s race.

 Allow me to preface this entry with a disclaimer: if it seems less lucid than usual, it is because Zach woke up at 2:00 a.m. and began belting out the chorus to the Beatles “Get Back” over and over again.  This was not covered in any of the parenting books.

Now let me skip to the good news first: we got a bill passed on Wednesday which will help the VA Hospital in Elsmere get some critically needed doctors on staff, to help deal with a serious shortage of surgical care.  This is an unequivocal good thing for our veterans, who deserve it.

The story behind the story is a different matter.  This bill had been sitting in the House of Representatives for several days.  Then on Wednesday, out of the blue while I was literally standing out in the hallway, the bill was suddenly brought up—along with a secret amendment that had never been distributed before, clearly written by insurance lobbyists, which would have completely gutted the bill and made it inapplicable to any of the doctors who are currently willing to help out at the VA Hospital.  The amendment sponsor apparently muttered something about how it was supposed to fix some “constitutional problems” with the bill.

The amendment probably would have passed and veterans would have taken it in the chops at the hands of the insurance lobbyists, but for the hero of the day: State Representative Bill Oberle—yes, a Republican—who wasn’t at all familiar with the bill, but thought the amendment looked fishy enough to get up and start asking questions about it.  I wandered into the House chamber, expecting to once again sit around for hours waiting for the bill to be considered, heard what was happening, and said something out loud that cannot be reprinted in this family-oriented blog.

It all turned out fine—I was allowed to testify about the bill, explained that the amendment would basically kill the bill and that there were no constitutional problems with the bill at all, and the amendment sponsor withdrew her own amendment and then gave a speech which essentially suggested that her trying to kill the bill had been the equivalent of an MTV Punked episode.

What does it have to do with the campaign for Lieutenant Governor?  This kind of funny stuff goes on all the time in Dover, and often kids are the ones who lose out.  It is going to be my mission as Lieutenant Governor to make sure that kids don’t lose out to the special interest groups that too often carry the day in the halls of government.  The veterans bill is a good example of how one good person willing to stand up to the special interest groups, in this case Bill Oberle, can change everything. 

Monday night, in what I assume was some sort of loyalty test, my good friends in the Delaware Manufactured Homeowners Association invited me to attend their monthly meeting at the Indian River Fire Company in Oak Orchard.  If you haven’t been to Oak Orchard, there is a simple way to find it: get on Mapquest, find the furthest point from Matt’s home that you can drive and still remain in the state of Delaware, and you will probably be in or around Oak Orchard.

But I gladly went, because I never turn down an invitation from DMHOA.  Its President, the soft-spoken and demure Ed Speraw, is one of my 82 honorary campaign co-chairs (even though he is a card-carrying Republican).  And many of its members have been some of my longest-standing supporters.  That is a good thing, because they are one of the largest groups in the state—Ed believes that there may be over 100,000 Delawareans living in manufactured housing.  I got a wonderful reception from the DMHOA folks—they made the long trip well worth it, and I got to listen to my various ESPN podcasts all the way home in the car to prepare myself for the rigors of the NBA draft coming up this week.

Yesterday, over a dozen DMHOA members were present in Legislative Hall to watch the House of Representatives pass legislation to allow manufactured homeowners a ‘right of first refusal’ when the owners of the parks that their homes sit on put those parks on the market.  DMHOA proposed this bill, DMHOA fought for this bill, and in the end, they won most of what they were seeking because they were organized, they were determined, and they were right.

Some of the members wandered over to the State Senate to join me in watching my landmark homeowners insurance bill pass the Senate.  The bill is now on its way to the Governor for her signature, and when she signs it, we will become the 5^th or 6^th toughest state in America when it comes to homeowners insurance carriers canceling policyholders’ policies when they come up for renewal.  This is a big deal for all homeowners, but it is an especially big deal for manufactured homeowners who have more limited options when it comes to insurance for their homes.

This state’s manufactured homeowners are one more group that is going to be with me in November, because they know that I have been with them when they needed me.   But next time, Ed, if you are going to make me drive two hours home at night, do you think you could spring a little extra for caffeinated coffee at the refreshments table?

Once again, loyal readers of this blog are witnessing history unfolding.  I am (probably for good reason) the only candidate in the state’s history to have a bloopers film from my announcement tour.  You can watch it here.  Most of the clips are self-explanatory—the second clip is me not realizing that Zach was standing next to me and yelling “hi” to everyone, and therefore thinking that when my wife was pointing in my direction and saying “shush,” that she was telling me to shut up.

If watching the bloopers piques your curiosity about the actual announcement speech, you can still see it here.  

There are some real differences between me and my opponent for Lieutenant Governor.  One is that he has much nicer suits than I do.  This will not change between now and election day, unless my children develop a sudden taste for Ramen noodles or their pre-school adopts a “two for the price of one” clearance sale for the summer.  A second difference  is that I’ve actually worked with members of both parties to get things done in the Delaware General Assembly.  Now let’s stop for a reality check here: I am not a member of the Delaware General Assembly.  He is—has been for six years.  So he is the one who is supposed to be passing bills, not me.  But the fact is, I’ve actually gotten some very important things done in the General Assembly.  He hasn’t.

I bring it up this week because some of our efforts are coming to fruition.  This week the Republican-run House of Representatives passed a homeowners insurance protection bill I wrote (which my opponent voted against when he had a chance) that will make Delaware one of the toughest states in America when it comes to protecting homeowners from having their policies cancelled.  This was a three year fight where we had our share of setbacks along the way, but by holding our ground, and working with legislators of both parties, we ended up with an even tougher bill than the one I wrote back in 2005.  The bill should be approved by the State Senate today or next week.  Special thanks to Senator Dave Sokola and Representative Val Longhurst, who worked hard to negotiate a bill we could get through the House, but still makes us one of the best states in America when it comes to protecting homeowners.

We also had a signing ceremony yesterday for a bi-partisan bill I wrote to use our state’s free and reduced price lunch program to expand enrollment in the CHIP program that provides low-cost health insurance to kids whose families are between 100% and 200% of poverty. This is an area where we have to do better–as I have said during the campaign, we need to get every kid covered when it comes to health insurance, and half of our uninsured kids are eligible for either CHIP or Medicaid. This bill is another step toward fulfilling that goal.

More success stories are on the way before June 30^th of this year.  I’ve had some bills that I was unable to pass–most significantly my health insurance reform bills that have been buried in a desk drawer in the House of Representatives.  But there are an awful lot of success stories, real things I was able to get done for Delawareans by working across party lines to pass important bills.  These are good things for the people of Delaware, but they also reveal a lot about the Lieutenant Governor’s race.  I think people have had enough of typical Dover politicians beating their chests, holding press conferences, calling their opponents names (other than “nice suit wearer,” which I think is acceptable), and then siding with the special interests to create gridlock in the General Assembly.  They want elected officials who will go to Dover and get things done.  That’s what I’ve done for the last four years, and I think people will see that when they are making their choice in November.

The Dover Post’s coverage of my announcement tour described Adam and Zach as “gamboling” around the podium during my speech. According to Bartleby.com, the reference website I often use for words and quotes, to gambol means “to leap about playfully” and synonyms include caper, cavort, frisk, frollick, rollick and romp. You are now free to sprinkle it into your conversations this week.

I am off this morning to beg some people for campaign donations.  Tune in tomorrow for some great news about some important bills we are getting passed in the closing days of the General Assembly.

This was a busy weekend.  Most of Sunday was consumed by Father’s Day activities (including a visit from my dad, who the boys treated to an air guitar concert with the inflatable Wiggles guitars they won at the Italian Festival).  But the highlight of Saturday was Separation Day in Old New Castle.

I owned a house on Delaware Street in Old New Castle for about five years before I got married.  I might have lived there even longer, but after Mrs. Denn and I got engaged she stated that my house had one bathroom, hers in Wilmington had two, and we were not going to start out our lives together sharing a bathroom.  Anyway, Separation Day is a little bit like homecoming for me.  Alyssa, Alissa, Julie, and Erica were there to put stickers on people and carry the Mother of All Banners, and I was there primarily to haul the boys in their wagon.  High point: Zach and Adam jumped out of the wagon near the grandstand, Adam took over pulling the wagon and Zach began to shake hands with people along the sidewalk.  Low point: Adam got back in the wagon and let me resume pulling it, and just as I was walking in front of the grandstand and saying hi to the crowd, I heard them collectively gasp and saw that Zach had tried to dive back into the wagon while it was moving and instead had face planted on the pavement.  No blood, no tears, I scooped him up and kept on moving, but it’s not exactly how we had planned the big finish.

All together now: “We know, we know, you’re running for Lieutenant Governor!  Stop with it already!” 

We have now posted a video of the announcement speech, parts of which were cut and pasted from each of our three stops.  You will take away from it two things: (a) that guy really cares about kids, and (b) that guy sure looks hot, maybe he should get a towel or something.  You can see the video here.  Additionally, you can check out a picture of the boys just prior to their brawl in Dover in the Dover Post by clicking here.  The reporter gently referred to their jockeying for position as “gamboling around the podium.”

Coming next week: announcement tour bloopers.  I wish I were kidding.

Every once in a while, sometimes quietly, good things happen in Dover. Yesterday was one of those days. While some of their colleagues were busy pounding their chests and holding press conferences to launch partisan attacks, Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives worked together to pass a bill that I wrote to expand enrollment in our CHIP program, which provides low-cost health insurance to children whose families are between 100% and 200% of poverty. And funding for the bill is going to be provided by my office, through money that I have saved by running my office better than it had run in the past.

The idea is simple. Delaware’s CHIP program is tragically underenrolled—on any given day, only about 5,000 of the 13,000 eligible kids are enrolled. Federally-funded free and reduced price school lunch programs have a wealth of information about kids who meet the income eligibility requirements for the CHIP program. What this bill does is to set up a system where eligible kids will be identified through their enrollment in the free and reduced price lunch program, and their families will be encouraged to sign their kids up for low-cost health insurance. There are more details, some of them designed to protect family privacy, but that is the essence of it.

It will cost some money to put the apparatus in place to run this new program. That money is coming from my office, even though my office has no formal responsibility for the CHIP program. I decided to step up and provide the funds in order to avoid any excuses for not passing the bill, and I was able to provide the funds because we have managed to reorganize the finances of the Insurance Department in a way that has made more funds available to spend on important programs, without having any impact on Delaware taxpayers.

Is this bill going to solve all of our problems with the CHIP program or health insurance for kids? Heck no. But it is a great start, and an important step. I want to thank all of the sponsors of the bill—again, both Democrats and Republicans—for their help in getting this one done.