COMMITTEES

JOHN A. KOWALKO
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
Twenty - Fifth District

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
STATE OF DELAWARE

Energy, Chair
Education
Health & Human Development
Manufactured Housing
Natural Resources

LEGISLATIVE HALL
DOVER, DELAWARE 19901

Dear Speaker Schwartzkopf,

On Saturday, January 3, you called me to inform me that you were removing me from the
House Education Committee despite my written submission that it was my number one choice of
assignment. I realize that remaining silent on this important development would only contribute
to what is best described as an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion that threatens to envelop
our caucus and the entire House of Representatives. Every elected representative has a moral
obligation to encourage their peers to think and act in the best interests of the public and the State
without restraint imposed unfairly by use of coercive and divisive tactics wielded by those in
power. Therefore, it is my duty to challenge and publicly refute those who presume to hold an
ultimate right to coerce or demand an allegiance to them or their agenda without regard to the
publics needs and interests. If I remain publicly silent in this matter, then the type of political
persuasion that you seem to embrace will be legitimized. Your action against me is an attempt to
stifle dissent and dissenting opinions. It is your expressed attitude that the public and media
should not be informed of important policy matters and business as usual should prevail.
Contentious issues should be left cloaked in secrecy while conducting back-room arrangements
accessible only to the like-minded and powerful. I will not support this Delaware Way.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am sending you and copying leadership and the media this open letter,
hopeful that you will accept the delineation of your role as my peer selected to represent my
caucus as a leader of equals and respect the relationship you are entitled to have with each of us.
The Speaker of the Delaware House of Representatives is supposed to be a leader of the
House. As a leader, the Speaker should exemplify the qualities desired in the House
membership. Most importantly, the Speaker should command respect by showing respect. In
your phone call, you informed me of your decision to remove me from the House Education
Committee because you said I have become an activist, and you cant be a legislator and an
activist. Your phone call to me included other similar criticisms of my conduct, specifically my
willingness to engage the community and the media, but you refused to provide a single piece of
concrete evidence to substantiate your claims that my public statements denigrated my fellow
caucus members or impeded the effectiveness of the committee process. Is an activist someone
who listens to his community and represents his constituents? Is an activist someone who strives
to works towards the best interests of the people of his State? Is an activist someone who is
willing to stand on the street corner with the working people who are fighting for their rights? Is
an activist someone who speaks out against injustice and unfairness? Is an activist someone who
is willing to use his elected position to engage in public dialogue about issues that are important
to the public, instead of dealing with those issues in secret behind closed doors? If so, then every
legislator should be an activist, and anyone who isnt, does not deserve to hold that position as a
Representative of the people.

COMMITTEES
JOHN A. KOWALKO
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
Twenty - Fifth District

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
STATE OF DELAWARE

Energy, Chair
Education
Health & Human Development
Manufactured Housing
Natural Resources

LEGISLATIVE HALL
DOVER, DELAWARE 19901

Lets be honest. This is about you maintaining the Delaware Way. The reprisals you
have taken, during your time as Speaker of the House, against those who dared to challenge your
leadership or political aspirations are well documented. This Delaware Way, where deals and
compromises are inked out in private without any public input and accessible only to a connected
group of good ol boys, appears to have taken on a reinvigorated tone of monolithic control by
a small group who intend to subjugate their peers into supporting specific agendas or else suffer
the consequences. It is a system of rewards and punishment meted out with the intent to coerce
and intimidate any individuals and mute any dialogue that might challenge those agendas. This
compromises the sanctity of the Separation of Powers and obscures the transparency that the
public is guaranteed by our laws and our moral obligations to them. The greatest threat posed by
this type of dictatorial atmosphere is to the publics right to know and the publics right to fair
representation by their elected representative.
Based on your stated reasons to me, I can only conclude that you believe your
appointment as Speaker has given you the right to impose and demand restrictions on the
individual members of our caucus as regards their engagement with the media and the public in
general. During the phone conversation you initiated where you informed me of your decision to
remove me from the House Education Committee, you stated a number of times that I discussed
politics and issues on the blogs, on the radio, and in the media. You said, You carry your
message to the blogs, to the papers, and on the radio, and you can't be a legislator and be an
activist. You repeatedly chided me for being an activist and insisted that an activist could not
be a legislator, nor should a legislator be an activist. When I responded that a good legislator has
to be an activist on behalf of the publics interest, your response was Im not going to reward
that type of behavior by appointing you to the Education Committee.
Instead of rewarding me for speaking out on behalf of my constituents, you are going
to punish me for daring to oppose you and the specific agenda you support. I have been an
engaged member of the Education Committee for eight years, and I have attended close to 100%
of the committee meetings without ever having been disruptive to the process or disrespectful to
my colleagues. When you asserted that, because I am an activist, I could not be depended on
to compromise on legislation and would be disruptive to the committee process, you made that
claim in spite of the facts. You also ignored the actual function of the committee process, where
the point is to provide the appropriate place for public dialogue regarding both dissent and
approval of issues. The process does not and never has demanded a consensus or compromise
on policies and proposed bills. The obvious truth is that once a majority vote of committee
members is attained, then the legislation would be permitted to proceed to the floor. It could
then be placed on the agenda for a floor discussion and vote unless you, as the Speaker, refuse to
place it on the agenda or refuse to allow that agenda item to be worked. No single vote of an
individual committee member can, by itself, keep a bill in committee or release it to the floor,
although you, as Speaker, can impede that bill from being considered or voted on. It is patently

COMMITTEES
JOHN A. KOWALKO
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
Twenty - Fifth District

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
STATE OF DELAWARE

Energy, Chair
Education
Health & Human Development
Manufactured Housing
Natural Resources

LEGISLATIVE HALL
DOVER, DELAWARE 19901

obvious to any informed observer that my eight-year history of service, and the fact that the
committee rules do not allow what you suggest, show that you have a personal agenda to
determine whether to reward or punish individual members of the House.
When you removed me as Chair and member of the Joint Sunset Committee after the last
election, I obviously understood that it was the fact that I and others challenged your bid for the
position of Speaker of the House that led you to demote and remove me and my likeminded
peers. While to the victor goes the spoils might be applicable as a motive, the extent of your
meting out punishment to those who challenged your bid for Speaker left a destructive tear in the
fabric of a system that deserves to have the most qualified and knowledgeable legislators
assigned to represent the interests of all Delawareans. Unfortunately, my reluctance to confront
your vindictive nature at that time only strengthened your resolve to impose the dictatorial
atmosphere of fear and compliance among some of my colleagues. My failure at that time to
confront an unjust system of retribution may have contributed to your willingness to exercise a
punitive posturing and demand allegiance that you have not necessarily earned.
I have been Chair of the House Energy Committee for six years, but in the two years you
have been Speaker not a single bill was assigned to the Energy Committee. Are you going to
seriously attempt to make the claim that not one single bill relevant to energy in Delaware was
filed in the past two years? I know that is not true, as I filed many of them myself. Your
removal of my Chairmanship of the House Energy Committee this year, indeed with no
conversation or reason even given, can only be explained by your feeling that your previous
punishment was not enough. I can only surmise that my vocal objections to the Governors
proposed Newark Power Plant, and its well-earned rejection, was so effective that it had to be
further silenced.
I have long been recognized for my effective work on energy issues in Delaware. As I
stated to you, I have also been long engaged in all matters affecting public education, both in
Delaware and in the national dialogue regard current reform proposals. I have substantial
credentials and experience in the fields of public education and energy, and I will not allow your
attempts to enforce the Delaware Way to stifle my ability to provide that to the public
dialogue. I am proud of my accomplishments on behalf of Delaware and my constituents. I do
not need your permission to continue to fight for my constituents, as you portended to provide in
our conversation. As a proud resident of Delaware, it is my duty as an elected official and my
moral obligation as a human being to fight for my beliefs as to what is right and what is wrong to
the upmost of my ability.
Previous Speakers earned respect by showing respect, and you should not confuse
earning respect with instigating fear and accepting subservience. Your blatant attempt to isolate
and punish dissenting voices is an unconscionable behavior that has no place in the Democratic
Party. Your willingness and commitment to the secretive, good-ol-boy Delaware Way, and
your stated belief that, in your own words, Part of my job is to carry the water for the Governor

COMMITTEES
JOHN A. KOWALKO
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
Twenty - Fifth District

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
STATE OF DELAWARE

Energy, Chair
Education
Health & Human Development
Manufactured Housing
Natural Resources

LEGISLATIVE HALL
DOVER, DELAWARE 19901

and its just that simple, contradicts the democratic principles of our country. Left
unchallenged, your tactics will continue to damage the willingness of other legislators to think
and speak freely and to publicly express justifiable criticisms on important issues. Left hidden,
your tactics will continue to damage the democratic principles of our country and hurt the
publics ability to know about important issues and make up their own mind about the best ways
to tackle those issues in our State.