The 2009 Legislative Session is over and its time to issue the report card.
In a year when coventional wisdom would say that the budget should dominate the headlines, the Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate did a masterful job at diverting attention away from the budget (and the cuts) and keeping the focus on Republican agenda items like voter ID and tort reform.
Legislative budget leaders Rep. Ken Miller and Sen. Mike Johnson get high marks for putting together a budget that avoided dipping into the Rainy Day Fund and didn’t rely on fee increaes or raising taxes.
This was the year of the “R” – R for Republican leadership in the Seante for the first time in state history. And R for Referendum, as Republicans repeatedly made an end run around Governor Henry’s veto pen by sending at least 5 high profile measures to a state-wide voter referendum. Those include: limiting the terms of statewide elected officials, making English the state’s official language, voter ID requirements, requiring Senate confirmation of workers’ compensation judges, and declaring the state’s sovereign immunity under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The question left to be resolved is what impact will these referendums have on the other 2010 ballot items. Most believe that they could really help the GOP, however, there is a legitimate concern that at least one or more of the referendums could lead to out of state, liberal special intetrest groups pouring money and resources in Oklahoma in 2010 to defeat them and in the process hurt Republicans that are on the ballot.
Reform was also on the agenda this session. Major reforms were advanced in the areas of civil justice (lawsuits) and primary/secondary education. These reforms were not easily passed, witha compromise reached on lawsuit or tort reform in the final days of session. House Bill 1603, a comprehensive lawsuit reform passed with bi-partisan support and brings to an end years of battling bewtween the trial bar and the chambers of commerce and medical profession. The other major legal reform was the resolution previously mentioned sending to a vote of the people a requirement of Senate confirmation of workers’ compensation judges.
Republicans also passed reforms in the state’s education system. Representative Jeff Hickman authored a new law allowing schools to calculate a school year in hours instead of days. Hickman’s bill make its easier for schools to make up days students miss for bad weather – and avoid situations like the one we face this week where students return for two more days of school after Memorial Day. Another education reform bill, Senate Bill 222 written by Senator Clark Jolley and Rep. Tad jones, provides transparency and accountability in the testing and ranking of student achievement. It is a compromise bill to SB 1111, which was vetoed by Governor Henry. SB 222 establishes a task force which will compare Oklahoma’s standards with those of higher performing states and improve the rigor of higher performing students.
Speaker Chris Benge and House leaders ran a tight ship – normally the House has been the more volatile of the 2 chambers, but other than constant whining from House liberals on alledged House Rules infractions, the House was pretty tame compared to the Senate, where the Democrats got to experience for the first time in state history what life is like to be the minority party.
The Senate Democrats did not take being out of power too kindly and their frustration culminated on what was supposed to be the last day of Session when they tied up Senate Bill 980 (creating a Chief Information Officer to increase efficiency and better secure citizens’ private data from theft)for 4 hours and forced the Senate to come back the next week for a $12,000 extra day of session.
Pro-TemporeGlenn Coffee is to be commended for taking the heat from the opposition and charging ahead with his party’s agenda. He spent a considerable amount of political capital, and in at least one case his captial came up short -his Resolution sending to a vote of the people a cap on attorney fees failed when 3 Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition to the bill, effectively killing it at least until after 2010.
“Needs Improvement”- House Republicans took the bait and let the Governor and the Flaming Lips get the better of them after the House failed to approve a resolution recognizing “Do You Realize” by the Lips as the state’s official rock song. Some Republicans were upset that one of the band members wore a Communist hammer and sickle t-shirt to the Capitol and by the band’s lead singer dropping the “F-bomb” at a public ceremony naming an alley in Bricktown after them. So they didn’t pass the bill. Anyone who knows the Lips could have seen what was coming. Governor Henry promptly signed an executive order recognizing the Flaming Lips’s song as the official rock song and signed it at a big ceremony at the Oklahoma History Center where all the state’s drive by media joined a hundred or so rock fans for a festivity/finger pointing at those “closed minded” Republicans. For a group that thrives on controversy and quirkiness, the Flaming Lips could not have asked for a better set up.
Final Comments - Normally the “off-year” sees less controversy than the election year session. But this “off-year” was different. There were plenty of fireworks and fodder for politicos and casual observers alike. And hardly any of it involved the budget (perhaps that will change next year as the budget picture may worsen). It leaves okiepundit.com to wonder, what will the Legislature do to top it next year?
