The Echo

Chip Flowers is going where other have gone before - and failed.  He's taking on the Governor and attempting to limit his control of the state treasury.  Few know that treasury position better than Jack - who was elected state treasurer ad naseum until he danced across Carney in the primary six or so years ago and sailed into the governorship.

According to today's NJ:  http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130707/NEWS02/307070041/Treasurer-Markell-appointees-should-go

The conflict between State Treasurer Chip Flowers and the state board tasked with overseeing $2 billion in state investments grew larger last week, as Flowers called for board members appointed by Gov. Jack Markell to resign and demanded that a Wilmington Trust executive no longer be involved with state business.

Some members of the Cash Management Policy Board have threatened to resign if the tensions with Flowers aren’t resolved. Last-minute legislation offered by Markell would have stripped the popularly-elected Flowers of some of his power and given more authority to the unelected board, but lawmakers didn’t act on the bill before adjourning the regular session last week. 

We've heard those threats of resignation before and worse.  We all know that Markell manipulates appointed boards and very publicly at that. When the Delaware Health Resources Board appeared close to denying Markell's Alabama-based Health South Corp. its bid to build an unneeded rehab facility in Middletown, the Gov. when full force, replacing board members who would vote as directed and who most certainly would disregard the approved formula for determining whether more rehab beds were in fact needed.  (They weren't.) Markell called all of this job-building when in fact it is nothing more than job-shifting - employees moving from one facility to another to essentially follow the patients/demand.  And of course, any jobs that may actually be created are in administration and duplicative - the same type of positions that are at the root for calling for school consolidation.

We all know that our Gov. doesn't take well to challenges, especially when they come from other publicly elected officials - calling on the sainted voices of those who have even more power than he to condemn and crucify.  In true Markellian form and in light of the challenges that Flowers has presented, the Gov. spear-headed a last ditch effort in the final hours of 2013 legislative session to turn Flowers into a eunuch. 

With a single day left in the legislative session that ended June 30, Senate President Pro Tem Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, introduced legislation authored by Markell’s office to gut Flowers’ powers, giving the board total control over the state’s $2 billion portfolio.The bill also would have exempted the board from the Administrative Procedures Act, which would require the board to publish and accept comments on policy decisions. Blevins did not bring the legislation up for debate last Sunday after a private meeting with Flowers, Bullock and Cook appeared to resolve some of the issues between the board and the treasurer. Not all Democrats were on board with the bill. http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130707/NEWS02/307070041/Treasurer-Markell-appointees-should-go

Clearly, there was some backroom wheeling and dealing.  And thankfully, Blevins thought better of putting a bad piece of legislation - one that actually seeks to offend the purpose of an open government and our representative democracy - out for the dutiful walkabout.

All that said, Flowers is now in the fight of his life - with Blevins threatening to walk the Gov's bill again come the new legislative session.  Old Treasurer vs New Treasurer?  Who will Reign Supreme?