Lawmakers passed a bill to make it a crime to use a camera to take a photograph up a woman's skirt, and they overrode the governor on a contentious anti-abortion measure.
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As the session nears a planned adjournment this week, legislators have passed many laws addressing many issues, but they're short on major accomplishments.
Leaders, asked if the 2008 Legislature will be known as a do-nothing session, pointed with pride to the major accomplishment so far: passage of a standstill $7.1 billion budget.
"To be able to get through the session and not have major budget cuts to agencies, especially those vital to the state ... I would stand behind that to anyone," said House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa.
Senate Co-President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, agreed, while acknowledging the session has not lived up to expectations.
Election-year politics is given most often as the reason for much of both legislative infighting and lack of accomplishments.
"I think we've moved away from policy and decisions for the good of Oklahoma to caring more about what we will tell people at the next election," said term-limited Rep. James Covey, D-Custer City, Democratic floor leader.
Legislators and Gov. Brad Henry began the session with lofty goals, such as speeding up tax increases passed in previous years, reaching the regional average on teacher salaries and bolstering long-neglected funding for road and bridges.
Those programs took a nosedive shortly after legislators convened on Feb. 4, when it became clear state revenue collections were tailing off, reflecting to some extent the national economic downturn.
Angry education leaders blamed the lack of available cash mainly on tax cuts passed the previous three years that will total more than $2 billion.
Among the unmet promises is one by a Republican House leader to strengthen last year's trendsetting anti-illegal immigration law. That idea died as lawmakers opted to await the outcome of lawsuits challenging the 2007 measure.
Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, settled on a bill to make English the official state language, but even that measure could not make it out of the Senate after it drew opposition from businesses, American Indian leaders and others.
The issue was so hot that Terrill and a fellow GOP senator almost came to fisticuffs outside the Senate chamber, according to Terrill.
Republicans hold a 57-44 majority in the House and have 24 of the 48 members of the Senate, where they share power with Democrats.
However, the GOP advantage in numbers has not translated into enactment of a lot of bills dear to the hearts of Republicans, such as legislation to require voters to show identification at the polling booths and limiting the terms of statewide elected officials.
Both House-passed measures were sidetracked in the Senate, where Democrats labeled them as election-year gimmickry.
Sen. Owen Laughlin, R-Woodward, said having a split Senate makes it easier to kill bills than pass them into law.
Democrats also have seen their cornerstone legislation killed, usually in the GOP-led House.
A major goal of Senate Democrats was bills to force insurance companies to cover autism and other ailments or conditions, but those measures never got a hearing in a House committee headed by Rep. Ron Peterson, R-Tulsa.
Parents of autistic children said Peterson was looking out for insurance companies and not everyday Oklahomans.
Peterson said his opposition was based on not wanting to raise insurance rates and increase the number of uninsured Oklahomans and had nothing to do with sizable campaign donations he got from the insurance industry.
House Democrats made ethics reform their top issue, but lawmakers have yet to act on a sweeping ethics plan advanced by Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City.
Among the bills vetoed by Henry was a bill making changes in the civil justice system that Henry said was similar to one that had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. His veto was upheld in the House.
The Democratic governor, however, was overridden on a bill he vetoed that would require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a woman having an abortion.
Henry called the Republican-sponsored bill "unconscionable" because it would require victims of rape and incest to undergo the ultrasound procedure. Doctors are required by the bill to verbally explain what an ultrasound is depicting and "display the ultrasound images so that the pregnant woman may view them."
Many Democrats voted for the bill, while some of them complained it was an election-year wedge issue.
Among the Democratic measures with election-year overtones is one eliminating the sales tax on groceries. The bill has no chance of becoming law because of the state's financial condition, but the House passed it anyway. It would cost $133 million the first year and eventually $300 million.
Hundreds of bills are still in joint conference committees as lawmakers prepare for their final five days of work.
In recent weeks, a bond issue has been touted as a way to rescue the long-range highway and bridge replacement program, but leaders say the measure has only a 50-50 chance of passing.
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Kevin: Your school district amount of $6,000 could certainly be lower as the Census report was a State average of $7,000 (some are going to be higher and some lower) actually not surprised that a larger district might receive a smaller per pupil amount as they can spread expenditures over a larger amount of students. Also, don't know if your district is considered one of the "richer" districts or not, and revenue such as lottery proceeds may not be distributed equitably.
Kevin, there were two articles that were on this website dated April 1st and 2nd, I don't have the link to those articles handy but the title of the story was something to the effect "State ranks 47th and student spending" Sandy Garrett was quoted about the state ranking which was the emphasis of the article. In the same article, the per student revenue versus expenditure was mentioned and a link to the actual report (130 some pages). In that report expenditures (that composed the per student figure, included teacher pay, administrators, buses, school lunches, support staff, buildings, land etc.) don't recall if it was you or someone else, that said the $1,000 is going into the teacher retirement fund. With all of the other items that were included, don't know why teacher retirement would have been left out. IF IT IS going to teacher retirement, why is the teacher retirement fund so woefully underfunded? Garrett didn't dispute the report. The later version of the article acknowledged that there wasn't any reason given for the $1,000 difference. What you seem to be talking about is the money appropriated by the Legislature. What the report was talking about included that but also included the money before the Legislature gets their hands on it. Ms. Garrett either needs to disputes the report or demand an answer about the missing amount that amounts to $641 MILLION a YEAR. That would go a long way towards the state ranking (think it would move Oklahoma from #47 to #36 if memory serves). Perhaps towards higher teacher pay even?
Larry, you keep harping on the differences in the U.S. Census report about education funding. I didn't see this report so I can't comment on it. However, you need to get your information from the State Department of Education. It is available, just ask them. Every school district is required to provide year-end revenue and expenditure reports. There can be other factors in per-pupil revenue and expeditures that may or may not have been included in the Census report you keep referring to. I don't think you will find one school district in Oklahoma that took in $1,000 more per student in revenue in their General Fund than it expended other than maybe a handful of very small school districts. In fact, our school district took in less money in revenue than it spent and had to spend some of its reserve to make ends meet last year. This year, we will be lucky to break even. Also, our school district received well less than $6,000 per student in revenue last year and we are a fairly big district. This can be said for other districts such as Edmond, Owasso, Mustang, etc.
Paul, all we have to do is think about foo'ball or bassa ba' and our minds start to go numb, so we don't have to think about the real problems. Also, the 'state' newspaper carefully avoids reporting on real issues, and instead over-reports on fluffy issues that help us to feel good about ourselves. If that doesn't work, we can either go to our family physicians and get loaded down with psychotropic meds, or get snockered at Bricktown! Problem(s) solved!
Their "pride" is passing a standstill budget? Don't you people who are born and raised here ever get sick of a group of elected officials who work for what, 3 months when you have to work 365 days a year in a struggle to make ends meet? Worrying about making the watermelon the state vegetable, worrying about the official state rock and roll song, spending money they don't have, watching the infrastructure of the state fall apart and generally displaying an ineptitude normally found in a group of pre school kids doesn't infuriate you? Look around you Oklahoma, why is it that an article printed about sports will have an active conversation going on for days, and yet a post about the condition of the state will receive hardly a glance? You native Okies wonder why guys like me, who have come from out of state actually belittle you? You belittle yourselves each and every day with your complacency, and you tout how "wonderful" this state is. Look around you..nursing homes suck, the economy sucks, the state is bankrupt, anybody from legislators, to judges, to county sheriffs are all corrupt and you choose to ignore it...absolutely pathetic....
What I don't understand is why you Okies that plan on staying here and know about this lazy legislature aren't screaming about it and making a change......
Jeff, you misunderstood, I AGREE that the teacher retirement system is underfunded...someone else keeps saying the $1,000 ($641 million a year) is going into the teacher retirement...they haven't given any documentation for it. I said "...IF the money is going into the retirement fund why is it so under-funded?"
4-7 million a year for the Sonics out of the budget could have helped the budget. With most legislators all you have to do is follow the money to guess how they will vote on most issues.
Its a shame that Joklahoman reporters can't come up with figures like this to poke holes in legislative 'action.' Perhaps some of the Gaylord mafia are also in on the take...
Kevin, there is no "cash shortage" for education...as it is now education definitely gets the largest share of the budget pie and if not mistaken, they get over 50% of the state budget...add to that a U.S. Census study reported on in this paper April 2, showed we spent just under $7,000 per student but take in $8,000 per student..thats $1,000 per student unaccounted for or $641 MILLION per YEAR thats missing. Someone said it is going into the teacher retirement fund but didn't give anything to back the claim up (the study included in the expense category, teacher pay, administrators, support staff, buses, buildings, land etc, so don't know why they would exclude the retirement fund). Also, IF the money is going into the retirement fund why is it so under-funded? The $641 million is even more than Gov. Henry's Education Lottery (a dismal failure), was supposed to bring in $500 million a year and hasn't even come close to bringing in even half that amount.
This Legislative session is not much different than any other. They congratulate themselves on how hard they work (basically a 3 day work week...they typically don't meet before noon on Mondays and adjourn before noon on Thursdays...avg day spent in session: just over 3 hrs...many days 20 min or LESS...only meet 3 months out of the year...the highest paid part-time Legislature in the country (and until this year in the top 10 including year-around ones)...every year there are literally 100s of bills (that all made it out of committee) that are still on the Calendar and never heard or voted on...Yet they want to adjourn a week early??? They all need to be replaced as they come up for re-election
"Leaders, asked if the 2008 Legislature will be known as a do-nothing session, pointed with pride to the major accomplishment so far: passage of a standstill $7.1 billion budget." WOW, something to be proud of all right a "break even" budget...sort of like how proud our Mayor is with the "break even" lease with the Sonics.
Talk about a pretty worthless legislative session. With no additional money available, they can't do much. Hey, it appears the "angry education leaders" are correct about the cash shortage. Oklahoma's economy is fairly strong (undoubtedly due to the economic stimulus provided by the tax cuts passed by the legislature over the past few years) with most all revenue sources above estimates except income tax collections (oops, tax cuts). The net effect is no new money in which they couldn't really do much without any new money.
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