Sometimes you meet someone and get to know them, and you just know that they’re the real deal. That’s Bethany Hall-Long.
I’ve met a lot of people throughout my lifetime of public service, but I have never met someone as bright and caring and with more tenacity and energy than Bethany. She is undoubtedly the best choice for Delaware’s next governor.
Because it’s Delaware, I actually first met Bethany 50 years ago – my first job was catching chickens on her father’s farm. As Sussex kids growing up, we knew each other, but it was later in life, when we were both first elected to the House in 2002, that I really got to know Bethany.
The joke about Bethany is that she wears running shoes all the time because she never stops moving – and it’s true. I’ve seen her jump into action in Legislative Hall when someone had a medical emergency, providing lifesaving care until paramedics arrived. She’ll engage just as easily with a farmer, a veteran, a fourth-grader or a CEO from DuPont, and she will relate to all of them – all in the same day.
Bethany is relentlessly positive. Her optimism is contagious, and her empathy for every person, regardless of background, is what makes her so incredibly effective in every role she’s taken on in life: nurse, educator, state representative, state senator and now lieutenant governor.
She has championed forward-thinking healthcare legislation like establishing telehealth in Delaware. And despite representing a largely rural district, she voted for numerous gun-safety laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, including closing the gun show and Charleston loopholes, strengthening background checks and our first attempt at a red-flag law.
As lieutenant governor, Bethany has used her platform to advocate for drastically improving our mental health system by creating the Behavioral Health Consortium. She has fought to get funding on the streets to address the opioid epidemic. And she oversaw the state’s pandemic response, helping to lead Delaware through one of the darkest times in our state’s history.
I can’t speak highly enough of Bethany, and I encourage every registered Democrat to get out there Sept. 10 and make history by electing Delaware’s second woman governor and the nation’s first nurse governor. Please vote for my friend Bethany Hall-Long.
Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf
14th Representative District
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