Greenwood Republican challenges Simpson
Incumbent Sussex County legislators are seeing plenty of opposition this election cycle – seven of the county’s ten sitting members of the General Assembly face a challenger.
Republican Matthew Opaliski filed July 10 to challenge Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson, R-Milford, in the Tuesday, Sept. 11 primary election. The winner of the primary will run unopposed in the Tuesday, Nov. 6 general election.
Opaliski said if elected he would work to repeal laws, including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and a bill to allow online gambling, sports betting and Keno in Delaware.
Opaliski ran unsuccessfully for Senate District 19 in 2002 and 2006 against Democratic Sen. Thurman Adams. “I learned a lot, met some great people,” he said.
He also ran in a 2009 special election after Adams died of pancreatic cancer, but Sen. Joe Booth, R-Georgetown secured the seat.
Last year, legislators redrew election district lines to account for shifts in population, and Opaliski was moved into Senate District 18. Now Opaliski is challenging Simpson, another Republican incumbent, to represent voters in the district.
Opaliski said Simpson is a nice guy, but he is allowing the majority party to advance its agenda. “Because he’s there to go along and get along,” Opaliski said. “Gary’s very passive.”
Last legislative session, Simpson introduced only three bills; two passed the General Assembly – one to take abandoned cars off the road, another to approve a Milford Charter change. “It’s not like groundbreaking stuff,” Opaliski said.
Opaliski said he follows Delaware politics the way a football fanatic follows the National Football League season. “I’m very passionate about it,” he said.
The legislature passes too many bills without researching the effects they might have, Opaliski said. “Most things sail right through because everyone just goes along to get along,” he said. “I’d be putting amendments on almost every bill, I’m sure.”
In particular, Opaliski said he would work to limit the regulatory authority of state agencies like Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Delaware Department of Transportation.
Opaliski said he is concerned legislators give state agencies the power to impact the state financially or take away property rights.
“You don’t just give a state agency the authority to write its own rules,” he said. “When you leave it up to a bureaucracy to write its own regulations, they’re going to write on the side of the bureaucracy.”
Many Republican elected officials use the fact that they are the minority party as a crutch, Opaliski said. If elected, he said he would slow majority party bills by drafting amendments. “They can’t stop you from introducing amendments to slow their bills down,” he said.
Opaliski said legislators should worry more about the needs of their constituents and less about getting along with one another. “If I got elected, I wouldn’t be making many friends in Dover,” he said.
Opaliski, 38, has worked for J.C. Ehrlich Pest Control in Bridgeville for nine years. He and his wife, Ivy Opaliski, bought a house in Greenwood in 1998, where they still live with their four children.
For more information, visit opaliskicampaign.com.
