'The start of something new': Delaware House elects 1st female speaker, leadership team

For the first time in state history, three women will occupy leadership in the Delaware House of Representatives following Pete Schwartzkopf’s announcement Friday that he will step down as House speaker.

The Democratic caucus voted Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst to become the next House speaker, the first woman to serve in this role.

House Majority Whip Melissa Minor-Brown will become the first Black Delawarean to be House majority leader. Rep. Kerri Evelyn Harris, a freshman lawmaker, will become House majority whip. She is the first openly LGBTQ member to serve in leadership in either chamber.

Schwartzkopf said he made this decision to step down from leadership about a year ago. Since the beginning of the session, many have openly speculated about his future. He plans to serve out the rest of his term.

He cited wanting to spend more time with his family, revealing that his wife has had health issues and last year was briefly hospitalized.

“It makes you stop and think,” Schwartzkopf said of that time. “It makes you really try to figure out what’s important.”

“There's a lot of things I want to do, and I can't do it when I'm sitting on top here,” he added.

Pete Schwartzkopf's legacy in House leadership

Schwartzkopf, a towering figure in Legislative Hall, has served as House speaker for more than a decade. He was first elected to the House in 2002, representing Rehoboth Beach. He oversaw the legalization of gay marriage, among other LGBTQ protections, as well as an increase in the minimum wage and the passage of significant gun reform.

Gov. John Carney, in a statement, said Schwartzkopf “guided the Delaware House during some of the most challenging times in recent history.” The governor credited him for helping “transform” Delaware’s tourism industry and elevating the beaches.

Schwartzkopf has also faced criticism from progressives in his party, particularly in recent years as more far-left lawmakers have been elected to the House. Schwartzkopf was one of the few Democrats to have voted against the legalization of recreational marijuana. He also refused last summer to bring the House back into session to vote on a resolution to take the first step in removing then-embattled Kathy McGuiness from office.

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On Friday, nearly every lawmaker commended Schwartzkopf for his leadership. Rep. Bill Carson, a Democrat from Smyrna, called Schwartzkopf one of his best friends.

“There were a lot of things that went on behind the scenes that nobody will ever know about because you don't even tell people about it,” Carson said. “I know. You did it for the benefit of everyone in here.”

“Sometimes somebody would get in trouble with a bill,” he added, “or something wouldn't quite work right. But you were always right there trying to smooth it out.”

The next chapter of female leadership

In honor of the all-female leadership team, many lawmakers on Friday wore white, a nod to women’s suffrage. Every House lawmaker gave Longhurst, who has been majority leader for a decade, a white rose in honor of her breaking the glass ceiling.

When the resolution to make Longhurst the new speaker passed, she became emotional.

“I never imagined,” Longhurst said later in her speech to the House, “that the little girl who had so many challenges in her early years would grow up to be a part of history as the first female speaker of Delaware.”

All three women spoke of how their difficult childhoods later influenced their political careers, and now bonding them as a leadership team.

Minor-Brown noted to the chamber how the day Delaware elected its first Black House majority leader, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action.

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“Right here, in this chamber gives us hope,” she said. “We look around at the diversity chamber. This is new. The diversity of this chamber is new. The diversity of our leadership, this is today.

“This is the start of something new.”

In 2018, Evelyn Harris was an unknown political newcomer challenging U.S. Sen. Tom Carper in a primary. She was elected to the House in 2022.

She was the last to give remarks. She walked around her desk and turned her microphone in order to face all of the House members and those in the gallery.

“I just wanted to see this,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware House elects Valerie Longhurst, state's first female speaker