Bill worth supporting
A prison reform bill headed to the Oklahoma Senate isn’t quite what House Speaker Kris Steele envisioned, but passage would represent progress nonetheless. A Senate committee this week approved Steele’s House Bill 3052 after removing a section that would have let inmates who must serve 85 percent of their sentence begin earning good-time credits when they arrive in prison. Presently, those credits can’t be earned until the inmate has served 85 percent of the sentence. The provision would have saved money and freed up prison beds, and its removal was unfortunate. However the rest of the bill is intact, and if approved it will result in an improved public safety network for Oklahoma. The full Senate shouldn’t delay in giving its OK.
Left: A guard tower at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
Off to Illinois
Jim Scroggins’ departure as executive director of the Oklahoma Lottery is likely to be well received by legislative leaders. Scroggins had pushed for a change in state law that requires 35 percent of lottery earnings to go to education. His argument was that if that percentage were lowered, more money would be available for prizes, and that higher prizes would in turn draw more players. He was consistently rebuffed by Republicans who control the Legislature and who, on the whole, strongly oppose the lottery. Even so Scroggins, who left recently to take a position with the Illinois Lottery, is due a salute for his seven years of service, including getting our lottery up and running after voters approved the idea in November 2004.
Photo by Paul Hellstern, The Oklahoman Archives
Sounds familiar
Gov. Bob McDonnell (AP File Photo)
Gov. Mary Fallin can probably empathize to some degree with her colleague from Virginia, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell. McDonnell, whose party controlled both houses of the legislature for the first time in 12 years, began the legislative session by urging lawmakers to focus on issues such as job creation and state finances, and not get sidetracked by partisan fights. Fallin and GOP leaders pushed a similar agenda last year. In Virginia, members didn’t listen very well. Republicans passed a number of prickly social bills favored by social conservatives, and McDonnell signed them all. Minority Democrats got a measure of payback by gumming up the budgeting process — a special session was needed to complete their work. Social conservatives caused their share of headaches in Oklahoma a year ago but Fallin met several goals, including reform to the state pension system, changes to the workers’ comp and civil justice systems, and government consolidation.
Slow growing
A visitor to the undeveloped site of the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden in Tulsa looks over the area in 2007. PHOTO PROVIDED
Years behind schedule, a visionary project being built on donated land, with federal, state and private funds, needs a lot more money to reach completion. We’re not describing the American Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Oklahoma City but the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden in Tulsa. Garden management now says it could take 10 to 20 years more to finish the project than the 10 originally promised. As is the case with the Indian museum, funding is the main reason for the delays. The museum here will get an infusion of private money but only if the state agrees to pony up more funds. One thing that differentiates the two projects is that they aren’t caught up in the capital envy Tulsans sometimes exhibit over public projects in Oklahoma City. Tulsans want a state-funded cultural museum as a condition of more state funding for the Indian museum. Oklahoma City isn’t insisting that a garden project here get the same attention from the state that the Tulsa project has received.
Spring forward, fall behind
March and April take a big bite for some Oklahoma taxpayers. The second half of property taxes are due by March 31. State and federal income tax returns must be filed — along with any money owed — by mid-April. Taxes have a long history. A proverb from ancient Lagash in Mesopotamia goes, “You can have a Lord, you can have a king, but the one to fear is the tax assessor.” We quote this from Paul Kriwaczek’s new book “Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization.” Taxes and civilization go together like spring and tulips. Whether in the ancient Fertile Crescent or in modern America, functionaries at all levels get a cut on the activities of daily living such as owning property, buying books like “Babylon” or, if the Obamacare legal challenge fails, simply breathing. Shekels were currency in the ancient world. Shackles is what comes to mind at tax time every spring.
Left: Tulip at Will Rogers Park (The Oklahoman Archives)
The fallen wall
AP File Photo
His supporters might see President Obama’s newfound love of hydrocarbons as a Nixon-in-China event. Hardly. Obama has no serious interest in upping domestic oil and gas production — other than getting him to what he hopes is a post-re-election frenzy for alternative fuels. If you want a real Nixon-in-China event, look to Washington State, where enough Republicans and conservative Democrats joined liberals to get a gay marriage bill passed. What really turned the page in Washington was key support from the business community. Large corporations have taken the lead on benefits for same-sex couples and are helping getting gay marriage laws enacted. Corporations may want lower taxes and reduced federal debt, but they can be quite progressive on social issues. They’re not the Great Wall of Reactionaries that the “Occupy” crowd claims.
Goon tactics
Wisconsin unions rally at the State Capitol in Madison to mark the one-year anniversary of the collective bargaining reform law. (AP Photo)
Wisconsin freshman state Sen. Pam Galloway cited family concerns as the reason for giving up her seat. Republicans in Wisconsin feel the nastiness regularly directed Galloway’s way by a local union boss played a big part. After GOP-backed collective bargaining reform became law in 2011, Galloway was targeted by an agitator named John Spiegelhoff, who peppered the senator with emails blasting her position on various issues. He said he would help bring an end to her “reign of terror” and called her work “immoral.” Some subject lines in the emails included “we are coming for you” and “here we come.” Galloway said in one interview that Spiegelhoff’s tactics, while part of the nasty tenor so prevalent in politics today, were “anything beyond (what) I had seen.” Then again, this clown last year sued an 86-year-old volunteer crossing guard for taking a job Spiegelhoff thought should have been a union gig.
So much for openness
A bill that would have made legislators subject to state open record and open meetings laws bit the dust this week. House Bill 1085 by Rep. Jason Murphey was to be considered by the House on Thursday, the last day for the House to act on bills that originated there. But the bill got saddled with nearly two dozen amendments, and many members let it be known that they were uncomfortable with the idea. The bill’s language could be attached to another bill this session, but that’s a long shot. “There are a large number of members who are not prepared for transparency,” said Murphey, R-Guthrie. Instead they prefer the way business gets done now — which is too often in the shadows. We say again of lawmakers: Requiring nearly every other public official to abide by openness laws while not subjecting themselves to the same is the height of hypocrisy.
The Oklahoman Archives
OKLAHOMA PRESS ASSOCIATION PUBLISHES THE OPEN MEETING / OPEN RECORDS BOOK
Prescription for improvement
Oklahoma has a major problem with prescription drug abuse. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that our state has the highest rate of nonmedical use for painkillers. Such findings give credence to efforts like those by state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, who wants to require physicians to check the prescription history of new patients. Ownbey’s House Bill 2574, approved this week by the House, would make doctors check the state narcotics bureau’s online prescription monitoring program before prescribing a controlled dangerous substance to a new patient. Doctors also would have to do a similar check each year on all their patients. Two legislators who are physicians took opposite stances on the bill. One said it would be a burden, the other supported the plan. If it puts a dent in the doctor shopping that is so common in Oklahoma now, it will be worthwhile.
Photo by Sarah Phipps, The Oklahoman
Getting things done
Every once in a while, the people’s business really does get accomplished at the state Capitol. Witness the deal reached on $92.5 million worth of supplemental spending this fiscal year. The funding will help pay for the first Oklahoma Highway Patrol academy in three years, pay the $5,000 bonuses due to National Board Certified teachers, reimburse counties and towns what they have spent for disaster assistance, pay insurance benefits for teachers and support staff, and give a boost to the state medical examiner’s office. Legislative leaders recognized the worthiness of those causes, and so agreed to spend money from increased state revenue collections. The rest of the Legislature should follow suit and waste no time giving these expenditures the green light.
Photo by Paul B. Southerland, The Oklahoman
