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A bill at the Legislature would make it more difficult for citizens to challenge incumbent lawmakers, as if those holding office didn't have it made already.

House Bill 2196 would prohibit anyone running for the Legislature from accepting campaign donations during the time 15 days prior to the session to 15 days after. That means from roughly mid-January through mid-June, incumbents and challengers couldn't raise funds.

House members gave overwhelming approval to the bill. They may figure that if they're not going to be allowed to raise money during that stretch of time, then their challengers shouldn't get to, either.

But the benefits of the incumbency are substantial. Consider that during the first two rounds of the 2006 election cycle (the primary and runoff), only one sitting legislator got beat. And those who were challenging for seats didn't have to sit on their hands for five months leading up to filing, as they would have to if this bill became law.

Perhaps a prohibition for all parties at crunch time — say, during the final month or six weeks of the session — is worth exploring. Curbing donations to lawmakers while business is being conducted is a worthy goal, but we don't need to stack the deck even higher against challengers, which is what this part of HB 2196 would do.

Failure to distinguish between hemp the fiber and hemp the source of an illegal drug is bad for the economy and the environment, says the libertarian (and anti-drug war) Reason Foundation. The federal government makes no such distinction, thus denying the market a supply of fiber that could serve as an alternative to cotton and synthetics. Hemp production has been banned in the United States since the late 1930s (a ban lifted during Word War II, due to the need for rope) because of the connection between hemp and marijuana. Reason says industrial hemp has a low content of THC, the compound that makes marijuana potent. Corn, wheat and cotton are subsidized commodities; hemp is banned. Weed- and pest-resistant industrial hemp could be used to make biofuels or fibers at less cost to the environment, Reason says. Hemp has been cultivated in Oklahoma and remnants still grow wild in some parts of the state.

It may well prove true that increasing the percentage of lottery revenue that goes to education will lead to problems for Oklahoma's lottery. Currently, education gets 30 percent of sales revenue. That's scheduled to go to 35 percent next year, as per the legislation that put the lottery in place. Commissioners asked legislators again this week to remove that stipulation. The lottery's director says the guaranteed higher payout will force him to cut expenses, which will result in lower prize payouts, and in turn will lead to lower sales. Oklahoma has the lowest payout percentage in the country (52 percent), so talk of change may be reasonable. But voters approved the lottery as it's now on the books, and they should have a say in whether changes are made.

Let's hear it for Ray Modisette, who at just 20 years old showed an old-fashioned love of our country and its symbol, the flag. Modisette, a Marine Corps reservist, was arrested last week after leaving Tinker Air Force Base. Outside the gate was a group of anti-military protesters from Topeka, Kan. When he saw a woman stuff a flag down her pants, he turned his car around and tried to get it. Police say Modisette ignored their requests to stop, and so he was arrested for interfering with official police process. The man paid his $850 bail with some of the money he earned during a deployment to Iraq. He got his money back when no charges were pressed. "My country, my mother and my Marine Corps — that's what the flag means to me,” Modisette said. "I just couldn't stand to see those ungrateful idiots treat it like that.” Kudos to you, sir.

Quite a week in New York: Gov. Eliot Spitzer's career crashed and burned, a construction crane crashed into an apartment building and a giant investment bank had to be rescued from collapse. Phillip L. Zweig, the journalist who in 1982 was the first to report on the pending demise of an Oklahoma City bank, took a walk on his Manhattan turf the other day. The author of "Belly Up: The Collapse of Penn Square Bank” says in his 10-minute walk he passed where a governor went down, the crane went down and Bear Stearns went down. Nary a subway token was needed to take all this in. Ah, the efficiencies of living in a densely populated area!