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.