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GEORGETOWN, Delaware—Local residents who have a personal stake in the economic future of Sussex County “shall not be silenced” and ought to “have their voices heard” on the merits of a proposed right-to-work ordinance, the sponsor of the measure told The Daily Signal.

Open debate of the right-to-work proposal was expected to move a step closer to reality Tuesday during a Sussex County Council meeting. Council member Rob Arlett planned to reintroduce the ordinance with modified language inserted to satisfy legal concerns.

“All along, my desire has been to have a public hearing, with a public discussion, so we can hear from our constituents and from the general public,” Arlett said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“As elected council members, we serve the members of the public and they have every right to chime in and to have their voices heard and to be educated on this matter. Not everyone is familiar with right to work and what it means, and so this is an opportunity for everyone to learn more.”

Right-to-work laws prohibit private sector employers from entering into agreements that make union membership and payment of union dues a condition of employment.

A total of 28 states are right-to-work states, with …read more

Legislation to codify the U.S. attorney general’s recent ban on diverting millions in legal settlements to outside groups is now in the Senate’s court, following last week’s House action.

The Justice Department practice, widely criticized as a $1 billion “slush fund” benefiting liberal advocacy groups in the last 30 months of the Obama administration alone, would be outlawed under the House bill.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is sponsor of the Senate version of legislation to prohibit U.S. government officials from creating and enforcing settlement agreements with corporations and other entities that steer funds in the form of donations to third-party, special-interest groups.

Lankford, who introduced his bill in February, co-sponsored similar legislation last year.

The Obama administration reached settlements agreements with financial institutions at the epicenter of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when financial agreements known as mortgage-backed securities imploded.

Financial institutions that entered into settlements with the Obama Justice Department included Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.

A joint investigation by the House Judiciary and Financial Services committees pried loose internal documents on the Justice Department practice during the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

In a June 5 memorandum to every U.S. attorney …read more

President Barack Obama’s Justice Department created a “slush fund” of nearly $1 billion using legal settlements with banks and steered those funds to political allies on the left while excluding conservative groups, internal documents show.

The financial institutions, which made legal settlements with the Obama administration regarding mortgage securities that imploded during the 2008 financial crisis, include Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.

Public records of the settlement agreements with the Justice Department show that when cash donations to liberal groups are combined with other donations in the form of loans and a separate settlement with Volkswagen of America Inc., the slush fund may have topped $3 billion.

The House Judiciary Committee obtained the internal Justice Department documents as part of an investigation conducted in conjunction with the House Financial Services Committee.

Tony West, an associate attorney general during the Obama administration who is now a top official at PepsiCo Inc., figures prominently in a chain of email messages involving his staff members, the records show.

The emails also suggest the Obama administration’s targeting of conservative organizations was not limited to the actions of Lois Lerner, the official who was in charge …read more

GEORGETOWN, Delaware—A right-to-work measure in one of this state’s three counties remains on the agenda despite the objections of a government attorney and dozens of union members who showed up in force.

Sussex County doesn’t have the power under Delaware’s home rule statute to pass the legislation against forced unionization, the county council’s lawyer warned Tuesday during a discussion of the bill.

“My opinion is that this is not something granted to Sussex County, and we don’t have the authority under home rule,” J. Everett Moore, the lawyer, told the Sussex County Council.

If the council passes the measure proposed by member Rob Arlett, the council’s lawyer said, someone will take it to court.

But the five lawmakers, all Republicans, plan to reintroduce the measure officially after making technical changes he recommended.

The action in Delaware isn’t occurring in a vacuum. In New Mexico, the Sandoval County Council has held two public hearings on its own proposed right-to-work ordinance, and is set to vote on it Nov. 2.

A total of 28 states are now right-to-work states, with Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia making the move since 2012. The U.S. territory of Guam also is a right-to-work jurisdiction.

Kentucky stands out because its counties …read more

Try asking the nation’s top environmental protection official to “describe the shortcomings of the scientific evidence for climate change,” and what type of data he might find persuasive on the subject.

You might shake loose news of major policy changes designed to end what President Donald Trump’s team sees as potential conflicts of interest that undermine the value of scientific advice to the government agency.

That opportunity came Tuesday for an audience member during The Heritage Foundation’s annual President’s Club meeting in Washington, where Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who now heads up the Environmental Protection Agency, took on that question.

Pruitt revealed that he will issue a directive aimed at ensuring the “independence, transparency, and objectivity” of experts who serve on the agency’s scientific advisory boards. He suggested he may rule out science advisers with a history of taking EPA grants, sometimes “to the tune of literally tens of millions of dollars.”

“I think what’s most important at the agencies is to have scientific advisers who are objective, independent-minded, providing transparent recommendations to me as the administrator and to our office on the decisions that we’re making on the efficacy of rules …read more

Anyone traveling along the roadways that run parallel to that part of the Delaware River where George Washington staged his famous Christmas night crossing in 1776 is sure to encounter signs that take aim at an energy project known as the PennEast Pipeline.

Some of those signs invoke revolutionary language with statements that claim “We the People Say No to PennEast.”

Other signs say: “Don’t Let them Poison Our Water! Stop PennEast,” “Pipeline Blast Zone, Stop PennEast,” “Just Say No! Stop PennEast,” and “Stop the Fracking Pipelines.”

The messages opposing the natural gas pipeline can be spotted along roadways on both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the river.

Any day now, the six energy companies that are part of the PennEast Pipeline project expect to get a green light to proceed from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the interstate transmission of natural gas, oil, and electricity. That approval would come in the form of a certificate allowing construction and operation of the pipeline.

The anti-pipeline signs and mailings mention ReThinkEnergy, a coalition of environmentalists who have received substantial funding from the Philadelphia-based William Penn Foundation.

Under current plans, the proposed 120-mile-long, 36-inch-diameter, underground pipeline would originate just …read more

SEAFORD, Delaware – One Delaware county is poised to change its economic climate, with a council member prepared to fight for a right-to-work ordinance being introduced Tuesday.

“This is not about ruffling political feathers, but is about the status quo no longer being tolerable for Sussex County and … the need for private sector jobs,” said Councilman Rob Arlett in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“Actual real wages have decreased in Delaware,” added Artlett. “Why should that be OK?”

Right-to-work laws prohibit private sector employers from entering into agreements that make union membership and payment of union dues a condition of employment.

If Sussex County passes a right-to-work ordinance, it could signal change for the northeast region of the country, where no states are currently right-to-work, according to the National Right to Work Committee.

The all Republican Sussex County Council needs at least three votes out of five for the ordinance to become law. The introduction of ordinance Tuesday begins the legal process that will allow for public discussion and debate of the proposal at a future date.

Arlett planned to give a presentation Tuesday based on a discussion he had with a private sector employer. That employer decided he could not …read more

GREENVILLE, Delaware–When he appeared on the CBS reality television series “Undercover Boss” in October 2013, Anthony Wedo worked alongside cashiers, servers, grill cooks, dishwashers, and managers to find out what was happening inside his company.

Wedo was president and CEO of Buffets Inc., which operated hundreds of buffet-style restaurants under the names Old Country Buffet and HomeTown Buffet and had 18,000 employees in 35 states. He sold the company in 2015 after implementing workplace changes based in part on his undercover experience.

Now he wants to be part of a bigger change by getting behind right-to-work legislation about to be proposed in one of the three counties in his home state of Delaware.

Elected officials in Sussex County, Delaware, were expected to make a public announcement on the right-to-work bill as early as Tuesday.

If such a timetable holds, the five-member Sussex County Council could vote on the proposal at its meeting Oct. 10, with three votes needed to pass it. All of the council members are Republicans.

The effort is proceeding in tandem with a similar proposal in Sandoval County, New Mexico, where the first of two public hearings before the county commission is scheduled for Thursday.

Wedo, now chairman, president, and CEO of …read more

These legal excesses enrich trial lawyers but do nothing to preserve endangered species. …read more

These legal excesses enrich trial lawyers but do nothing to preserve endangered species. …read more