Earlier this month, I published a piece in a local Delaware outlet, outlining what I think is coming down the pike to Dover in the next legislative session.
Dael Norwood, “What Rough Beast Slouches Toward Dover?,” Delaware Call, January 13, 2026, https://delawarecall.com/2026/01/13/what-rough-beast-slouches-toward-dover/.
When they meet again in Dover this session, Delaware’s legislators face a real problem. Decades of dependence on corporate franchise revenues have accustomed the state, and its voters, to government on the cheap; and in an economy already primed for recession, that’s dangerous. Worse, state leaders’ history of servility has undermined their ability to resist oligarchs’ demands. As former Weinberg Center Director Charles Elson has observed, SB 21 demonstrated that spending a little money will let you “overturn a Delaware court decision” – and between that legislation, and the Delaware Supreme Court’s subsequent Musk-friendly judgement, the state’s claims to offer balanced law or objective expertise have been revealed to be merely marketing. So why would any robber baron consider Delaware’s government anything but a kept pet?
In that light, it seems clear that the question for the coming General Assembly session is notwhether Delaware legislators will bend to meet the will of outside oligarchs, but how far – and what else will break, as a result, when they do.
Dael A. Norwood 