Russ McCabe, a Milton resident, Milford native and former director of the Delaware State Archives, is going for a new job this November. Just a few months after retiring from the archives, he’s entered the race to replace retiring Rep. V. George Carey (R-36th) in the General Assembly.
“We need to maintain a strong voice in the state legislature. We’ve lost a couple of the prominent members of the General Assembly from southern Delaware in the last few years, and we’re losing another with George’s retirement,” McCabe said. “There’s a void there.”
McCabe is no stranger to state government; he’s worked there as a historian for years. This would be his first time as a legislator, and his second elected office; he was Sussex County Recorder of Deeds from 1987-1991.
“After Rep. Carey announced that he was retiring, I started getting calls, and after a while it seemed like I couldn’t leave the house without somebody asking me, ‘why don’t you do this?’” McCabe said. “I decided, I have the time, I think I have the skills, and I certainly have the desire.”
McCabe will run on the Democratic ticket in November, assuming he passes the primary. So far, he and Republican Harvey Kenton are the only candidates for the seat.
“Who sits on the General Assembly in the next few years is very important — we’re at a watershed period right now,” McCabe said. “We’re going to have the opportunity to guide the path of things for the next generation or two.”
He said he wants to take full advantage of that opportunity, especially where it concerns the state’s money troubles.
“My goal is very basic: I think we need to do everything that we can, and be as creative as we can, to create a growing and diverse economy,” he said.
Diversity is especially important, McCabe said, because having the economy depend too much on one thing — business taxes — is what allowed the state to get into its current financial crisis.
“Corporate and banking revenue was absolutely key to Delaware’s economy, so when they were hit by the recession, we were deeply affected too,” he said.
The key, McCabe said, is to look for any examples of how to get out of similar crises, and learn from them.
“We need to really take a good look at economic success stories — in the private sector as well as government — and see what we can do to bring ourselves out of this,” he said. “We need to be creative, and I think one of the advantages of our small size is that you can do creative things and they’re much more easily accomplished because we have a private and public sector that generally know each other and work well together.”
Meanwhile, increasing efficiency would help recovery reach the taxpayers.
“Every penny we take out of a taxpayer’s pocket can’t go back into the local economy,” he said.
“The more streamlined we can get the government, the less of their money we’ll need.”
On the economy and all other topics, McCabe said, he would look to what his constituents want first.
“As a state legislator, I think the most important thing you can do is listen to your constituents,” he said. “I remember a poll from a few years ago that showed that people from every party agree on 95 percent of things before the legislature. We just focus too much on that 5 percent where we disagree, to the point where sometimes it’s all we talk about. We need to get some focus on that 95 percent, and get things done that everybody agrees are important.”
Milford, Del. —
