Almost two years ago, university alum Sophie Phillips became the youngest legislator in the state at just 26 years old, winning the 18th House District with 70% of the vote. She is the first Asian American to ever serve in the Delaware General Assembly.
With these superlatives at her back, Phillips found herself walking into a whole new culture of Delaware politics, which threw many challenges at her throughout her freshman term.
However, her first year saw a lot of successes. Despite dealing with lawmakers interrupting her – which she said they would not do to her older, male colleagues – Phillips made a lot of progress.
An environmental justice advocate, she helped pass a significant environmental package that set greenhouse gas emission goals as well as an energy package that incentivized the use of electric vehicles and helped to facilitate the transition to wind and other renewables.
“Loved my first year,” Phillips said. “Learned so much, built those relationships, got a lot done. It was so cool. That’s because I wasn’t working on anything controversial.”
Phillips was then asked to head the effort to pass the Homeless Bill of Rights. The bill would establish that no matter a person’s housing status, they have the same rights as anyone else, like eating at a restaurant and sitting on a park bench.
“This is controversial,” Phillips said. “Nobody wants anybody who’s experiencing homelessness to have rights. Period. That’s what I’ve learned over this past year.”
Marissa McClenton, environmental justice organizer for Sierra Club Delaware Chapter and a frequent collaborator with Phillips, explained that the environmental bills did not face as much pushback since they “built upon years of conversations, negotiations and work.”
“The collaboration that went into that bill created the groundwork for many of the other environmental policies that were passed later and made a lot of conversations easier in some ways,” McClenton said.
Though backers had been trying to pass it for over 12 years, the Homeless Bill of Rights was a different story.
“There were a lot of folks who were really concerned about the impact on their business,” McClenton said. “In society in general, people have this really big fear of things that are unfamiliar, and there’s a lot of fear mongering that goes into issues around homelessness and affordable housing and all of that.”
The controversy surrounding the bill brought out the complicated nature of Delaware politics. Phillips quickly learned the importance of what has been called the “Delaware Way” – the prominence of personal connections and relationships on the political stage.
“It’s all about who you know,” Phillips said. “If someone’s your friend, and even if they’ve broken the law, you will support them no matter what. Even if they’re definitely not the right person for the job […] you will back them regardless.”
Though this can happen elsewhere, Phillips said that it is especially prevalent in Delaware. Since it is such a small state, “everybody knows everybody, so it’s pretty hard to get around those relationships.”
In the process of attempting to pass the Homeless bill, Phillips said she has watched a lot of “big money interests” go up against it, influencing colleagues to vote against and even prevent it from being brought to a committee.
The roadblocks she has dealt with have created frustration with the establishment and “the power and influence that money has over our legislators and over a lot of the people in power.” This has taught her to be aware of any opposition and ensure everyone is at the table from the beginning.
“Oftentimes, if somebody wasn’t invited to the table, they’ll come to your committee hearing and they’ll say that publicly,” Phillips said. “That will sway your colleagues not to vote for the bill strictly because somebody didn’t get the opportunity to say their piece.”
To avoid this, legislators hold stakeholder meetings to make sure everyone has a voice, but Phillips has found that she must have evidence from these meetings to prove that people were or had the opportunity to be there. In the past, Phillips had to show evidence that she left voicemail and text messages for certain stakeholders who claimed that she never reached out to them.
On top of that, she has had to learn to pick only her strongest points to convince colleagues rather than “data dumping,” watching many fellow politicians convince their colleagues to vote their way (against the data) primarily through the use of anecdotes.
“It’s a lot of persuading people based on heartstrings and how it’s going to impact people more than anything,” Phillips said.
These complicated nuances and roadblocks made her second year “very stressful,” as she had to drop other issues to focus on the one bill. In the end, she had to split it up into three parts, two of which were passed: the right to not be discriminated against based on housing status when applying to a job and when applying for a mortgage or renting a house.
The public accommodations piece, which establishes that “you can do whatever in public, the same as anybody else,” has yet to pass. It is a big part of why she is running again, particularly in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision in June, which held that criminalizing sleeping outside does not violate the Constitution, but it can extend beyond just that.
Phillips explained that if the city of Newark decided that they specifically did not want homeless people to be in parking lots, “they could pass an ordinance that says if you are homeless, you can’t be here. If you’re anybody else you can.”
“It gives local governments basically just way too much control,” Phillips said. “How do you even determine if someone’s homeless, right? Like there’s a lot of stereotypes that go into that.”
Phillips now has a bill in the works to reverse that decision in Delaware. McClenton has a lot of confidence in Phillips and emphasizes the need for more young people like Phillips to become involved in politics beyond just social media.
“The majority of the people in the room are not aware of your interest and of what you want,” McClenton said. “They have no choice but to go with the Delaware Way, but the Delaware Way is not serving you.”