This morning Democratic House Leaders submitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives fifteen recommendations to ensure transparency, accountability and equity in House Rules.

 “The House Rules in place has allowed procedural maneuvers to preemptively deny a fair hearing of legislation and at the same time has empowered a few legislators to make backroom deals benefitting special interests”, said Democratic Leader Scott M. Inman, D-Del City. “Our recommendations revolve around these concerns, and I hope to see them implemented in the coming session.”

Leader Inman and Democratic Floor Leader Chuck Hoskin received input from Members of the Caucus and drafted a letter calling for adoption of much-needed reform.

One of the top priorities of the Democratic Caucus is ensuring that conference committee reports be heard in their committee of origin, that these committee meetings be public, and that they be scheduled at least twenty-four hours in advance to allow attendance by interested parties.

Currently when the Senate and the House are unable to agree on provisions of a certain bill, these bills are assigned to a conference committee in which the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House assign a handful of legislators to approve and sign off on revisions to the bill. In actuality, no committee meetings are held, as these conference committee reports require only signatures of legislators to be considered “out” of committee, and often these reports are not read due to time constraints and pressure by authors to approve the report as is.

“The conference committee report process is inherently flawed, and last session resulted in the passage of a bill creating a transition coordinator for the medical examiner’s office, in which later no one claimed to have added this language or even been aware of this inclusion”, said Floor Leader Hoskin, D-Vinita. “We are asking for more accountability in the procedure and more transparency to avoid this kind of scenario.”

The Democratic Caucus is also calling for the repeal of a House Rule which gives chairs of committees unprecedented discretionary powers by prohibiting any discussion or introduction of a bill on the House Floor if it was not granted a hearing in a House committee.

“Right now, one person, the chair of a committee, can refuse a hearing on a particular bill, and with our House Rules as is, this decision cripples the right of any legislator to bring this topic up in the form of an amendment on the House floor for two years”, said Leader Inman. “Essentially, one person out of 101 legislators has way too much power and control over what policies can be heard on the House floor, and this hurts not only the democratic process but our citizens who look to us to deliberate on issues affecting our state.”

Another recommendation addresses the practice of legislators to add language to bills that are unrelated or not germane to the original bill. Suggestions include a stipulation that if germaneness is challenged on a bill in committee, it can also be challenged for germaneness on the House Floor.

“Again, it goes back to the large degree of discretionary power given to the chairs of committees, who rule on germaneness”, said Floor Leader Hoskin. “Any attempts to skirt the most basic requirement of germaneness, which means you can’t add language regarding health insurance to a bill dealing with elementary school curriculum, is inappropriate and should be challenged by the full body of the House.”

Another top priority of Democratic Leaders is to require that all bills be added to the House floor calendar at least twenty-fours hours in advance of being allowed a hearing.

“What we have here is too many bills being thrown on the floor calendar with little to no time for legislators to read or review the latest version of the bill”, said Leader Inman. “On deadline weeks, and the last day of session, bills are added to the calendar and immediately brought up on the House floor, and we’re not given the time to make well-informed decisions on measures before being asked to vote on them.

“In the days when the Republicans were in the Minority they vocally opposed this practice, but in the six years that they’ve controlled the House of Representatives they have yet to prohibit it. In fact, it could be argued that they have at times abused it, as evident in the actions that occurred last session regarding the medical examiner’s office.

“It makes no sense to allow this to continue, and I’m certain the people of Oklahoma expect their legislative body to be less careless in actions impacting their lives and livelihoods.”

Among other recommendations is a requirement to post all House of Representatives expenses on the House website and to end the practice of nullifying amendments attached to House bills awaiting a hearing on the floor by submitting a floor substitute.

“We have a way to achieve more transparency and accountability in our legislative work; I truly hope that the political will is there”, said Leader Inman.

The Chief of Staff assists the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in directing the overall activities of the State Department of Education, and acts for and represents the Superintendent in her absence. The Chief of Staff also relieves the Superintendent of the routine administration of the Department of Education.

State Representative Wes Hilliard, D-Sulphur, referenced Oklahoma Code 8129 adopted by the State Board of Education which lists the minimum qualifications to be the Chief of Staff. According to the Board’s administrative rules, the Chief of Staff must have a master’s degree in education, a valid Oklahoma school administrator’s certificate, and eight years of successful full-time paid employment in public schools.

The new Chief of Staff, Jennifer Carter, does not meet any one of these three requirements.

“I mean no disrespect to Ms. Carter, as she in her own right has accomplished much in the academic and professional realm”, stated Rep. Hilliard. “However, she doesn’t have the credentials to be in the position she’s now in, and given her lack of experience I have grave concerns as to the even operation of the State Department of Education.”

Prior to being appointed as Superintendent Barresi’s Chief of Staff she served as Barresi’s political campaign manager. She established her own consulting firm in July of 2009, Jennifer Carter Consulting. From 2005 to 2009, Carter worked as an Assistant Insurance Commissioner for Government Relations at the state Insurance Department. In 2003 for almost two and a half years she was the Director of Legal Services for the Association of Professional Oklahoma Educators (APOE) where she lobbied on education policy at the Oklahoma Capitol. Carter holds a bachelor’s degree in Letters from the University of Oklahoma and a Juris Doctor with a Certificate in Comparative and International Law from the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Rep. Hilliard noted his concern of the many unqualified yet well-connected people who have recently received high paying jobs at state agencies based on political service, not on experience or expertise in the respective field.

“An outsider without the necessary credentials and experience in the field of education cannot be expected to shoulder this important responsibility. There’s a reason why the Board of Education adopted minimum qualifications for the Chief of Staff for the Superintendent of Public Instruction. I hope this serious issue is addressed and rectified so we can move forward on behalf of our students and our state.”

Ambrose Bierce once defined politics as a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. Of note is that the party of “small government” has already in earnest expanded their government offices, with much of the positions being awarded to former Republican legislators who lost elections or left office due to term limits.

Just last week the Oklahoma Insurance Department announced that three former Republican legislators, all of whom lost their respective primary elections in 2010, would now serve as deputy insurance commissioners. Former state senator Randy Brogdon, whose background is in the wholesale air-conditioning distribution business, former state representative Mike Thompson, whose background is in realty, and former state senator Owen Laughlin, whose background is in the banking industry, all received these coveted positions and will now serve as deputy insurance commissioners.

The Oklahoma Insurance Department, led by Republican Insurance Commissioner John Doak, is almost doubling the number of commissioners employed under the last administration, from four commissioners to seven.  Salaries for deputy commissioners range from $67,900 to $92,000, according to records on the state finance office’s website.

In the same statement about reducing administrative costs at the state’s public schools, Governor Mary Fallin announced a newly created position of Secretary of Education. Former Governor Brad Henry did not see a need for this position given there is already a Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Bierce’s comments about politics ring true as we witness self-serving interests supersede conservative principles touted in campaign elections. Our new Secretary of State, Glenn Coffee, transitioned quickly from his role as Senate President Pro Tempore. This past session he was the Senate principal author of SB738, which created the transition coordinator position for the medical examiner’s office, an effort which is currently under investigation. He was also the Senate principal author of SB1589 which would have reduced from 23% to 12% the ad valorem tax rates on all new telecommunications property. As the new Secretary of State he has stated he will represent Governor Fallin in budget negotiations.

All of these appointments skirted the state constitution prohibition that former legislators cannot work for a state agency within two years of leaving office.  A loophole in the law was found and forged with an Attorney General opinion that stated that former legislators could be employed within two years if the salary comes from private or federal funds, not from state-appropriated dollars.

Also of note is that currently these former legislators would stand to receive a relatively small state pension if they retired. However, it is the last three years of work prior to retirement that is calculated for benefits, and a salary increase of $60,000 to $90,000 could potentially double their lifetime retirement salary and benefits.

This coming session we will continue to witness the unraveling of conservative principles in the face of political opportunities.

*Al McAffrey represents District 88 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

“The actions that resulted in Representative Terrill being charged with a crime took place in conjunction with his service in the Oklahoma State House and as such, it is our responsibility as duly elected officials to ensure that we know the full extent of any corruption or misconduct,” stated Brown. “It has affected the integrity of the House and deserves investigation.”

District Attorney David Prater has pressed criminal charges against Representative Randy Terrill and former Senator Debbe Leftwich for their involvement in a bribery scandal. The scandal includes allegations that legislation resulting from Terrill’s involvement in his official capacity in the Oklahoma State House was used as a bribe in an elaborate political scheme.

“While there is an ongoing criminal investigation, some of these actions took place at the Oklahoma State House and without our own investigation, there is truly no way to know the full extent of involvement by the House and our members including Representative Terrill,” Brown explained.

The Oklahoma State House has launched investigations in the past in instances of impropriety in government including the two most recent incidents involving former Insurance Commissioner Carol Fisher and former State Auditor Jeff McMahan.

The criminal trial for Representative Terrill is expected to be drawn out over several months. With the House convening today for Organizational Day and the full session beginning the first Monday in February, Terrill will be voting on legislation without being cleared of the charges of impropriety.

“Before we start session, it is not too much to ask for Speaker Steele to call for formation of an investigative committee to ensure that the Oklahoma State House and the integrity of the Oklahoma State government have not been compromised,” Brown continued. “Regardless of party or political leanings, a part of good governance is about rooting out corruption.” 

Representative Brown concluded that the findings of any investigation by the House should have the goal of helping to restore the trust of the public in the Oklahoma House and the full findings should be released to the public so that they can see firsthand what any investigation has uncovered.

“I want to be clear that I support background checks on all new hires at any school,” Condit, D-McAlester, said. “The problem is that when Senate Bill 2199 became law, it created unnecessary hardships for substitute and part-time teachers. For example, in McAlester, a substitute only makes $60 a day. The substitute has to pay $55 each year for a background check. This means that a substitute makes almost no money on their first day. I would like to see a one-time background check conducted instead.”

Condit noted that after working for 30 years in the McAlester school district, he had to undergo a background check after he came back out of retirement.

“When I retired July 1, I sat out the required 60 days and then went back to work halftime for the district,” Condit said. “I had to have a background check even though I’d been working there for 30 years. It just seemed like the current law could use a little tweaking.”

Senate Bill 2199 required school districts to request national criminal background checks on any person seeking employment with a school in Oklahoma. Any search required a payment of $50 by the employee or prospective employee to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The district could then reimburse the employee pending search results.

It is both interesting and surprising that our Governor-Elect, Attorney General-Elect and Insurance Commissioner-Elect have been silent about the $20 million coming to Oklahoma as part of “Obamacare.”  Equally surprising is the fact that this is now referred to by its official title as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” instead of “Obamacare.” 

I am asking that these three newly-elected state leaders and others who campaigned on the commitment to “push back” against what they determined to be a diabolical form of socialized medicine to step up now and refuse to receive the following revenue designed to impact these identified areas: 
    
• $4.6 million to support capital development in health centers
• $2.2 million for tribal, maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting programs
• $2 million for demonstration projects to address health professions’ workforce needs
• $2 million to strengthen public health infrastructure to improve health outcomes
• $900,000 for the Pregnancy Assistance Fund Program
• $3 million for biomedical research
• Other programs to help early retirees to receive health coverage before they are eligible for Medicare

In the name of integrity, will we soon be hearing from these newly-elected officials that they will follow through and “push back” by rejecting this $20 million?  If not, will those newly-elected legislators who campaigned on this theme offer legislation which will block this revenue from being available to Oklahoma citizens and thereby avoid the credible charge of hypocrisy?

If you wish to contact me please utilize any of the following: PO Box 98, Porum, OK  74455, by email at ed.cannaday@okhouse.gov , home phone: 918 484 5701, cell: 918 448 5702 or my Legislative Assistant, Gene Fowler, at 1 800 522 8502 or 405 557 7375 and fax 405 962 7685 at the Capitol. Web site:  http://www.edcannaday.com,   Ed Cannaday

*Ed Cannaday represents District 15 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, which encompasses parts of Haskell, Le Flore, McIntosh, Muskogee and Sequoyah counties. He lives with his family in Porum, Oklahoma.

“This is a time of real economic struggle, particularly for our seniors and those on a fixed income,” said Rep. Morgan. “The services this program provides will go a long way towards curbing utility bills this winter and in the years to come.”

OG&E’s Free Home Weatherization Program is for seniors age 65 and older who earn less than $35,000 annually. To qualify, the senior must be an OG&E resident, own the home being weatherized and have resided in the home for at least one year. The home must have been built prior to 2000; mobile homes are specifically excluded in this program.

Of note, additional OG&E customers may be eligible for free weatherization through this program. Residents enrolled in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) through the Oklahoma Department of Human Services may also qualify for free weatherization, even if they do not own the home in question. In these cases, all repairs would go through the landlord or respective homeowner.

Some of the typical improvements qualified applicants may receive in this program include the following: insulation – attic, floor, and wall; window sealing; weather-stripping; maintenance of HVAC; hot water tank check-up; thermostat settings; lighting efficiency; and sealing the exterior siding.  

To learn more about this program, please contact OG&E customer service at 1-800-272-9741, or for those in the metro Oklahoma City area, please call 405-272-9741.

Representative Anastasia Pittman of Oklahoma City and Representative Seneca Scott of Tulsa reside in urban areas where the majority of the people who are homeless populate. In addition, both Democrats represent areas in which violence against the homeless has occurred.

“People without permanent housing already suffer from stereotypes and stigmas from being out on the street,” said Rep. Scott. “It is startling to realize this growing hostility and the fact that someone un-housed can create in another such feelings of animosity to the point of violence.”

The NCH report on homeless victims paints a chilling picture of the state of discriminatory violence against one of America’s most vulnerable and often despised populations. According to the report there have been nearly 1,100 documented attacks on the homeless over the past decade, including nearly 300 reported homicides. This past year there were 43 killings, giving 2009 the distinction as being the deadliest at any point in time over the last decade. These numbers reflect only a fraction of the total attacks, due to underreporting by victims and witnesses.

Brian Levin, a criminologist who assisted in the study and runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said the number of homeless people who died last year in attacks far exceeded the total of all other traditional, protected classes of hate crime victims, based on factors like gender, race and ethnicity.

Criminologists and others who worked on the study said they believed the rise in fatal attacks has been fueled by a combination of factors. Among them are tough economic times, the popularity of amateur Web videos on “bum fights” and online games that glorify and trivialize attacks, an increase in gang initiations involving the homeless, and municipal crackdowns on homeless encampments that have bred hostility.

“A society’s well being is measured by its treatment of its most vulnerable residents, and with more people losing permanent housing due to economic woes, we must send a clear message that this will not be tolerated,” said Rep. Pittman. “Currently there is no national law that recognizes that the homeless are often attacked just because they’re homeless, which is the very definition of a hate crime, so we’ll take the lead. It is not enough to just pass this law – we must also try to ‘stop the violence’ through educational and cultural efforts that promote tolerance and understanding.”

Protected under Oklahoma’s hate crimes law is race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin and disability. The two lawmakers hope to join the other four states of Florida, Rhode Island, Maine and Maryland by expanding protections to the homeless.

Dan Straughan, Executive Director of the Homeless Alliance in Oklahoma City, voiced his support of this effort.

“For most of us, ‘home’ equates to safety and security,” said Straughan. “For the homeless, daily life is exposed and vulnerable. This legislation will make the law a bastion to which our homeless can retreat for safety and sanctuary.”

Last year a well known homeless man in Edmond, nicknamed “Bicycle Bob” as he was often seen riding a bicycle, was brutally stabbed to death. The random act of violence included cutting off one of the victim’s fingers as a trophy.

In that same year in Tulsa a seventeen year-old was charged with the killing of a homeless man after repeatedly hitting him with a rock. The fifty-two year-old homeless man suffered a crushed skull from the multiple blows. It was reported that the attack was unprovoked.

In 2007 an Oklahoma City homeless man awoke from his sleep when someone began viciously kicking and beating him. Before leaving, the attackers removed his prosthetic leg and took it with them.

“I don’t understand how one can feel a sense of power over a perceived lower class of citizens and commit this kind of senseless violence, but I plan to send a strong message that we will not tolerate this cruel and inhumane treatment of Oklahoma citizens,” said Rep. Pittman.

The Director of Public Policy for the Mental Health Association in Tulsa also supports this measure, and will be working with the legislators in the coming months as they draft their bill.

“I support this position and the protection this legislation can provide to homeless people as they start down the path to one day lead happy healthy lives,” said Davis.

Democratic Leader Danny Morgan studied hoarding last year when he was approached by a constituent to look into the death of Kitty Lewis, an Oklahoma City woman who lived for years and died alone in a home that had been deemed uninhabitable by county officials. Terry Humphrey, the director of the city of Edmond’s code enforcement division, contributed to the interim study and sought legislative action to add municipal employees to the list of mandated reporters to the Department of Human Services, as code enforcement officers are often the first to see deteriorating living conditions. Representative Morgan was able to include this language in House Bill 2999, which was signed by the Governor and will take effect in November.

Terry Humphrey also participated in the Hoarders documentary which will be featured on Labor Day, and he says he spent quite a bit of time discussing this issue from the code enforcement perspective.

“What we need to realize is that this is not just a problem occurring somewhere else, in another state, but it’s happening right here, in our small towns, in urban areas, in communities all across Oklahoma,” said Humphrey. “Last year this same program featured a home in Muskogee, and soon will focus on a home in Edmond. These are often last ditch efforts to save a person’s home from being condemned, to save them from losing their children, their spouses, their loved ones and animals. We need to become more educated and aware of this largely hidden phenomenon before it becomes deadly or causes a health risk to neighbors.”

This session Rep. Morgan of Prague successfully created a Vulnerable Adult Intervention Task Force via Senate Bill 1601. The task force will study how to best provide interdisciplinary community assistance, intervention, and referral services for persons with mental or physical illnesses or disabilities, dementia or other related disease or condition. Speaker Chris Benge has appointed Terry Humphrey to serve on this task force.

“I am proud of and appreciate Terry and all the other countless individuals who daily work with our most vulnerable citizens in order to help them reclaim their life,” said Rep. Morgan.

The Hoarders television program on the A&E cable network will debut with back-to-back premieres on Monday, September 6th at 8 p.m. central standard time.

It’s back to school time for students across the state. Many students are excited to see old friends and return to familiar school grounds, but once that excitement wanes, I wonder how our students will grapple with the ever-changing environment of our under-funded public schools. Shortly our students will be toting around old textbooks, dealing with larger class sizes, losing their library media and possibly their bus route to school. More students may be learning from teachers who have a background in a subject other than the one they are teaching. We already lag 46th nationally in per-pupil expenditures, and 48th in average teacher salary.

With our budget shortfall, the majority leadership focused on ways to scale back the already scarce resources in our schools, and made it easier to bring in for a three month stint lower-paid substitute teachers without bachelors degrees or teaching certificates. They paved the way to dismiss teachers or not give them benefits for up to four semesters. And all the while majority leadership was bemoaning the drastic cuts on top of cuts to our schools, they were also calculating exorbitant tax breaks to those industries that least need them.

This past session bills were pushed through to provide ongoing favors to the oil and gas industry as well as other large corporations at the expense of vital public services. While I was working to suspend or repeal some of the hundreds of tax breaks given to big business, the majority party was working on giving lobbyists and special interests a sweetheart tax break by reducing their ad valorem rate. If enacted this would have greatly hurt our public schools and counties, who receive and rely on money from ad valorem taxes. If not for Democratic Governor Brad Henry’s veto of this bill, there would have been even dire consequences for our teachers and students.

Nearly $5.4 billion dollars of revenue is lost each year by tax breaks, deductions and exemptions. Billions of dollars, a colossal sum of money, is granted for a myriad of industries and endeavors, and although this session we glanced at a few, we still left billions on the table while our local schools bear the brunt of almost 10% in cuts over the last two years.

Take the oil and gas industry, for example. House Bill 2432 was crafted to provide a moratorium on gross production tax rebates for horizontal & deep well drilling. It was part of the budget agreement between Republican legislative leadership and the Governor, but after pressure from the oil and gas industry this bill went from being a moratorium on tax incentives to a deferral, and came with the added penalty of permanent concessions to the industry.

Following the two-year deferral on these rebates, the state must repay these tax breaks over a 36-month period. If our revenue shortfalls prevent a timely payment, we will allow the oil and gas industry to charge the state daily a 9% penalty interest rate. In these trying economic times, this industry could actually make an additional profit off of a tax break the state grants.

With this bill’s passage the state also promised that in return for this one-time deferral of their tax rebates, there can be no future attempts to defer their tax breaks. Also, drilling incentives for horizontally drilled and deep wells will be paid out as front-end credits, rather than as rebates that are applied for and refunded after the end of the year. Cost for this switch is a mere $65 million. Plus, the bill abolished the current cap that limited at $25 million the total incentives that could be claimed for deep well drilling. Not too shabby of a deal for the oil and gas industry for enduring the hardship of having their tax breaks deferred for two years.

Our actins at the Capitol reflect our values and priorities. I have serious concerns as to what the impact will be to our future generation given our present reluctance to prioritize their education over providing tax breaks to a favored few.

*Mike Brown is the Minority House Floor Leader and represents District 4. He resides with his family in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.