Republicans have tapped attorney and former attorney general candidate Ted Kittila to run against Democrat and former Wilmington City councilman Bud Freel in the March 5 special election to replace former Rep. Gerald Brady.
Brady, a Wilmington Democrat, announced his resignation in late January shortly before police charged him with two misdemeanor counts of shoplifting.
The district centers on the liberal Trolley Square area and the Highlands, and has more than twice as many Democratic voters as Republican ones. As a Democrat with ample name recognition, 69-year-old Freel is all but guaranteed to win.
No other candidates are running for the House seat, which will only exist for about eight months because the district is disappearing due to redistricting to make way for a new district in red Sussex County.
Kittila, 48 of Greenville, ran an unsuccessful bid against former Attorney General Matt Denn in 2014. He is a founding partner of the corporate litigation law firm Halloran Farkas + Kittila LLP, which has offices in five states and D.C.
The General Assembly is in session until June 30, giving the special election winner less than four months of lawmaking power. After that, the statehouse goes on a six-month break.
Those four months, however, will prove crucial for fragile, high-profile bills teetering on the brink of passage in the House.
Brady had planned to vote for bills to require a permit to purchase a gun, legalize marijuana and increase transparency requirements in the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, among other measures that haven’t made it to a floor vote yet.
Freel has pledged to support those bills as they are written now, and Democrats need as many votes as they can get for those measures because, even with Brady’s support, the 26-person House Caucus didn’t have enough votes to pass them.
It’s unclear if Kittila would vote for these bills, or other Democratic bills. Kittila declined an interview request on Wednesday and did not answer questions over email, saying he did not have time.
Freel was a Wilmington City Council member for about 24 years, representing the city at large for about 16 years and then its 8th District for eight more years before deciding not to seek reelection at the end of 2020. Much of Wilmington’s 8th District overlaps with Brady’s district.
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Brady officially stepped down on Friday after holding the seat for 16 years.
In a Jan. 21 statement, he said he would resign from his legislative position because he had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He did not mention criminal allegations in the statement, though multiple sources told Delaware Online/The News Journal that the 65-year-old lawmaker’s resignation was linked to a shoplifting investigation.
Four days later, Newark police issued a warrant for Brady’s arrest, charging him with two counts of shoplifting at an Acme in Newark on Dec. 29 and Jan. 12. Nine bundles of firewood were among the merchandise stolen that amounted to less than $200 in each incident, according to court documents.
In November, lawmakers redrew legislative maps to accommodate for population changes found in 2020 U.S. census data. Thanks to population growth in Sussex County, Brady’s district will be essentially erased and absorbed by neighboring districts to make way for a new House district in the southern half of the state.
Lawmakers chose to erase Brady’s district specifically because Brady, before resigning last week, had initially planned to step down at the end of 2022 after widespread calls for his resignation over a leaked email he sent in June that used a racist and misogynistic phrase to describe Chinese women.
Whoever is elected to replace Brady will not be able to run for reelection, but they could run against the incumbent of the newly drawn neighboring district.
Freel, who Democrats picked over 52-year-old Red Clay school board member Adriana Bohm in a district committee meeting on Monday night, has promised to step down at the end of the year.
Kittila has not disclosed his plans.
Voters will be able to find information as soon as it’s available about early voting sites and polling places at https://elections.delaware.gov, according to Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence.
Unlike in the 2020 elections where all voters were given the chance to vote absentee due to COVID-19 social distancing protocol, voters in this election can only apply for an absentee ballot if they qualify.
Delaware does not have universal no-excuse absentee voting. Democrats are trying to pass a bill this year that would allow it. Despite previously supporting the idea, Republicans have been resistant to it and have cited fears of voter fraud after President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020.
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Sarah Gamard covers government and politics for Delaware Online/The News Journal. Reach her at (302) 324-2281 or sgamard@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahGamard.
