House GOP may add to session's themes

By Michael McNutt

Published: January 16, 2008

House Republican leaders have a theme but no specifics yet for the upcoming legislative session.

House Speaker Lance Cargill, flanked by 17 House members, announced Tuesday that GOP House members will support legislation to bring a renewed focus on government accountability and education reforms along with policies to help working families.

No mention was made of one of the key issues championed last year by House Republicans — immigration.

Asked whether House Republicans will be filing legislation dealing with any of the 141 recommendations in a recent independent study on prisons that was pushed by House Republicans, Cargill said he would wait until legislators had a chance to file bills. The deadline is Thursday.

The same was true about additional tax cuts.

"The purpose of this conference is to lay out our wider themes and objectives, and in the coming days we'll absolutely be talking about certain tax policies,” said Cargill, R-Harrah. "Clearly we have a commitment to lower taxes in the state.”

Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, chairman of the House Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said he is optimistic a bipartisan agreement will be reached to "implement some of these recommendations that are reduced from opinion and assertion to black-and-white, objective findings.”

Cargill said he doesn't think efforts to repeal or weaken House Bill 1804, the state's immigration law that took effect in November, will succeed in the upcoming legislative session that begins Feb. 4.

Cargill said he didn't expect many significant additions to the immigration law. There is considerable support among GOP House members to make English the state's official language, but Cargill said he doesn't think that is an immigration issue.

Rep. Randy Terrill, the House author of HB 1804, was not at Tuesday's state Capitol news conference. Terrill, R-Moore, said he couldn't attend because he had a broken tooth and was at a dental office.

Terrill said he still planned to file additional immigration measures, but proposals haven't been submitted to GOP caucus members for their review.

"It would be pretty important for us to get a consensus caucus position before we move forward on some additional items,” he said. "That doesn't mean that I won't file them, I likely will file them.”

He said he expects efforts on the Senate side to weaken or repeal 1804.

The House agenda calls for:

•Investment and reform in education, with a first step being a performance pay plan for public school teachers.

•Government modernization, which would use new technologies to make the state more efficient.

•Stronger and healthier families, by increasing public safety and advancing reforms to encourage faith-based organizations.

•Growing Oklahoma, which includes tax reforms, removing regulatory barriers, legal reforms and by investing more in transportation.

House Democratic leader Danny Morgan said the themes presented by Cargill were good ideas and will be similar to what House Democrats will propose.

"I hope that the speaker will live up to his promise of bipartisanship and allow for all Republican and Democrat ideas to be heard in the House throughout the legislative session,” said Morgan, D-Prague.

Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater, said the general goals released by House Republicans are "an indication that we're all trying very hard to work together and not to put one another in a position that's untenable or is unworkable. We're all looking to work together so I think trying to keep things pretty general is a sign that we've got a pretty good working relationship going.”

Comments