Our Delaware Legislature passed a law making it a crime and imposing a penalty of $250 and eight hours of community service if you release five or more balloons in the air in Delaware. Our legislature also passed laws determining when you can use fireworks and penalizes you if you use them outside the legislated window of time. Our federal government is considering the Big, Beautiful Bill that will deprive everyday Americans of Medicaid if they don’t work a certain number of hours a month.
However, our legislature doesn’t seem to have a process in place when an elected official fails to show up for work and represent the people who voted for them based on their campaign promises that we would “Do well with Stell.” If you take the time and contact the governor or any Democratic or Republican elected official, they will tell you that your elected official who is not representing you in person in the legislature can resign, or they will give you useless literature about special elections that won’t resolve the problem.
As a resident of the 20th District, I am very frustrated that the individual I voted for in November, Stell Parker Selby, has missed every vote in the legislature because of health reasons. The problem we are facing in our state, as well as at the national level, is our elected officials fail to realize that perhaps they should retire at least by age 70, and let the next generation become our elected representatives. We need a law to ensure that when an elected official fails to show up in the legislature to vote, or because of health issues or other reasons fails to be present in the legislature for at least 75% of the votes, their position is immediately deemed vacant and a special election is called by the governor.
In the private sector in Delaware, if you missed six months of work, especially in a state where we have employment at will, you would quickly find yourself looking for a new job. It is time for our legislators on both sides of the aisle to deal with a real problem our state and country are facing when we are faced with these types of problems based on elected officials’ pride taking the place of common sense.
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