2018 Session: Week 3 Recap

Hey guys! Welcome back - this will be a short post as the weather made for a short legislative week. The House met only on Monday and Tuesday while the Senate met briefly on Wednesday.  All legislative offices were closed on Thursday with no floor or committee activity. That also meant our first Capitol Day of the year was canceled.  Don’t worry though, we have several more coming up and we’d love to see you there.  Also, be sure to catch up with us on Let’s Pod This - next week should be a busy one!

Don’t Miss This

There is so much news and noise being created these days it can be hard to know where to look for good information.  Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here is a list of the the articles, podcasts, blog posts and more from this week that you don’t want to miss.

1. We’re going to start this week with a commentary from Otis White of Civic Strategies in Governing. The piece wasn't written for Oklahoma specifically but it sure feels like it could have been. White contends state governments that find themselves facing crises of funding or gridlock could learn a lot from the way municipal governments have been handling these problems for the last twenty or thirty years. We agree.  

2. While most of the focus on new revenue has been on raising taxes, another avenue is the creation of new jobs and industries that pay into the existing tax structure. NonDoc takes a look at HB2913, which creates a pilot program for industrial hemp. The authors think could lead to a whole new division of Oklahoma’s agriculture sector (and thereby add some much-needed diversification to our state's economy).

3. What would happen if all our teachers just decided not to show up for work one day? Well, that appears to be an increasingly likely possibility. Oklahoma Watch discusses the petition started by a teacher from Tulsa advocating for a work stoppage. They also recap the last time there was a teacher strike in Oklahoma and its ultimate result (hint: it was a state question and it rhymes with “fix-shorty”).

4. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that was created during the Obama Administration has been in the news a lot lately due to the recent Justice Department decision to rescind the program. Sometimes debates about these issues can seem very detached from how we and those people in our circles of influence live our everyday lives.  This article from NewsOK highlights how personal this issue is for many Oklahomans.

5. The folks FiveThirtyEight have officially listed Oklahoma as one of the state who could see their Governor’s Mansion change hands in November.  We included this because the idea that the Governor’s race would be competitive feels like news.

Capitol Watch and Legislative Recap

This was a short week at the Capitol but there still were some important developments. One of the most consequential events of the week was the meeting of The State Board of Equalization met this week and the news is, well, mixed. The Board of Equalization is responsible for certifying the states revenue estimate for the upcoming fiscal year; in other words, they tell the Legislature how much money they have to spend.  

At their meeting on Tuesday, the board certified the revenue projection for FY18-19, which comes with a $167.8 million budget hole.  This is actually a smaller budget hole than anticipated as economic growth has been more robust, but the increase in revenue is not enough meet spending obligations.

The other major piece of news was the passage of HB1020XX and HB1022XX.  These will likely be two of the last bills passed in the 2nd Extraordinary Special Session of 2017. HB1020XX is the big budget bill that cuts all agencies by 0.66% for the last quarter of FY17-18. It passed both the House and Senate this week largely along party lines and will go to the Governor’s desk for signature early next week. HB1022XX is an emergency spending bill that fills a $140 million dollar funding gap in medical education created by the loss of a waiver from the federal government that matches state Medicaid dollars with federal funds for medical education. 1022XX passed the House and is expected to pass the Senate.

A couple other noteworthy developments this week were the passage of SB1104 out of the Senate Education Committee and HB1530 passing out of House Appropriations.  SB1104 prohibits lunch shaming by requiring schools to provide meal applications for students as well as assistance with completing the application.  It also prevents schools from taking punitive measures against students who develop negative account balances due to their inability to pay for lunches. The bills passed out of committee unanimously. HB1530 is a bipartisan bill that prohibits discrimination in wages and other compensation on the basis of sex; HB1530 passed out of committee 24-2.

Next Week

It’s going to be a busy four days at the Capitol next week. March 1 is the deadline for bills to be heard out of committee and the Legislature lost two working days this week. So, next week will likely be a whirlwind. We’ll make sure you get all the details right here.  See you next week, and remember: Decisions are made by those who show up.

2018 Session: Week 2 Recap

Hey guys! Welcome back to blog...this week we’ve got some great articles you can check out, a recap of the major legislative activity this week and some more details about what happened with HB1033XX. We’ll also preview the upcoming week in the legislature and look ahead to our first Capitol Day of 2018 on February 22nd.

Don’t Miss This

Here is a list of the the articles, podcasts, blog posts and more from this week that you don’t want to miss:

1. Oklahoma Watch has a great article this week recapping the Q&A, floor debate and vote on the Step Up Plan. This is an in-depth, play-by-play of Monday afternoon and really is a good read.

2. Lots of Oklahomans are ticked off that the Step Up Plan failed, but I think teachers probably are probably the most upset and with good reason. NonDoc has a great piece focused on the response from teachers to the legislature.

3. If you needed any further evidence that our state is in dire straights, look no further than this story from the Enid News and Eagle.  The focus here is on bridges rather than infrastructure generally (hint: it’s not good).  Definitely worth a few minutes.

4. Here on the blog and definitely on the pod, we try to focus on things we find interesting, surprising or hopeful.  Lately, it feels like there has been a lot of doom and gloom. We’re not excited about this report from The Frontier that broke on Monday afternoon and led to the resignation of Preston Doerflinger from all his government positions shortly thereafter. Despite the depressing nature of the content, it does represent some fantastic investigative reporting by the folks at The Frontier.

5. We’ll try to end on positive note this week with this inspirational piece from The Washington Post focused on a group of high-school students from Lawton traveling to Washington, DC to meet the legislators and learn about government. No matter how bad things seem right now, if all our high school students are like these kids, I think the future for Oklahoma is bright.

6. And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the hilarity that ensued on Valentine's Day when folks on Twitter created Oklahoma legislature-themed Valentine's puns and tagged them with #oklegvalentines. Check it out for some good laughs (and a bunch of groans).

Legislative Watch

There was a lot going on at the Capitol this week. The main event of course was the failure of HB1033XX to meet the 75% supermajority threshold required of all revenue raising bills.  Technically, the bill did pass the House; however, since it did not get a 75% supermajority, it now goes to a vote of the people.  So, it passed - just not by enough?

So, what happened? Many people have expressed surprise that this package was unable to get through, given its similarity to HB1054 which came within 5 votes of passage in November.  Honestly though, we’ve heard from many folks inside the Capitol that prospects for the bill never looked good for several reasons:

1. While an increase in gross production tax on oil and gas from 2-4% on all wells is a concession from Republicans (and industry), many Democrats feel very strongly that the tax needs to be at least 5%.

2. Taxes on tobacco are regressive by their nature. Most habitual tobacco users and cigarette smokers in particular are lower income individuals without a college degree. Philosophically, Democrats tend to be opposed to regressive taxes and while many Dems acknowledge the public health and policy benefits of using a tobacco tax to encourage smoking cessation, but they feel strongly that the state budget should not be balance on the backs of lower income individuals with an addiction, particularly without asking industry to bear a higher percentage of the load (see number 1).

3. I think the wind levy proved a poison pill for many Democrats.  Generally, the caucus is very supportive of renewable energy and felt very strongly that this new tax would serve to discourage investment in an industry that is (comparably) younger and still developing. There was intense opposition to this component of the bill by Democrats and may have been a deciding factor, at least for some of them.

4. I think that many Democrats had concerns about other portions of the Step Up Plan. In particular, several of them expressed frustration over 2 other revenue bills that were scheduled to be heard if HB1033XX achieved the 75% supermajority. In particular, HB1035XX (capping the deduction taken by zero-emission facilities) and HB1037XX (lowering the standard deduction for state income taxes) were opposed by many Democrats.

Essentially, even though Republicans have a supermajority in the House, enough members of their caucus are opposed to tax increases under ANY circumstances that Democratic votes have to be brought on board to pass a revenue package. This package was able to attract 10 Democrats; that wasn’t enough.

A couple other things of note happened in the Legislature this week. HB2632, which would expand the “Stand Your Ground” statute to include “places of worship”.  Some members of the Judiciary Committee who are themselves lawyers had some strong feelings about 1) whether this is a good idea and 2) how the bills is written. 

Lastly, House Democrats held a press conference with State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones endorsing his budget plan.  The plan includes an increase in gross production tax to 5%; a $0.75 tax on cigarettes and little cigars; and a $0.03/gallon tax on gasoline and $0.06/gallon tax on diesel.  The Democrats would like to add a cap on itemized deductions, allow casinos to use ball and dice games (which would create more taxable revenue for the gaming industry) and change hotel tax rates. The estimated total revenue for all of these measures is $622 million.  House leadership has signaled they may be open to at least some of these ideas but only for FY18-19.  Stay tuned.

Next Week

On Monday, the house will take up budget bills enacting cuts of 0.66% across all state agencies.  0.66% may not sound like a lot but it’s an effective cut of 2% as agencies have to implement these cuts in their entirety in the last quarter of the fiscal year.  No agencies are being held harmless and the cuts equal about $40 million.  The bills are expected to pass.  

As I mentioned earlier, our first Capitol Day is Thursday, February 22nd and we hope to see you there!  Be sure to look for next week’s episode of the podcast and accompanying blog post to make sure you’re up to date on everything that has gone down. Have a great week everyone and remember: Decisions are made by those who show up!

2018 Session: Week 1 Recap

Hey guys! Since we recorded our weekly episode of #LetsPodThis early this week for Governor Fallin’s State of the State Address, we put together a quick blog post to make sure you’re up-to-date with what has been a pretty busy first week of session.

Currently the Legislature in concurrent session, trying to wrap up the 2nd Extraordinary Session of 2017 and beginning the First Regular Session of 2018. Most of the action this week has been taken on bills filed as part of special session and most of that has been in the House.We’ve got all the details for you down below.

Don’t Miss This

There is so much news and noise being created these days it can be hard to know where to look for good information. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here is a list of the the articles, podcasts, blog posts and more from this week that you don’t want to miss.

1.     This editorial from the Tulsa World is a must-read. It is the best call to action we’ve seen in the run-up to this legislative session, both for lawmakers and citizens.

2.     Governor Fallin gave her State of the State Address on Monday, February 5. In case you missed it, the great folks at Oklahoma Watch have the full text for you here. Even better, they’ve annotated the speech to give some context and analysis. This is definitely worth a read.

3.     Oklahoma is making national and international news this week. This short piece from The Economist highlights our state budget crisis with a focus on education, highlighting where we’re at and how we got here. Hat tip to Grant Hermes from News9 for putting this article on our radar.

4.     The Washington Post got in on the action with this admittedly partisan op-ed that takes a critical look at the idea of supply-side (aka “trickle down”) economics as it has been employed in Oklahoma and positing what it might look like on a national scale. Lots of Twitter buzz for this one throughout the week. See what you think and let us know on Facebook or Twitter.

5.     The New York Times has a fantastic podcast called The Daily hosted by Michael Barbaro that you should absolutely make part of your podcast routine. Last Friday’s (02/02/2018) episode is a really interesting interview with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, formerly the Attorney General of Oklahoma. While the focus of the interview is not on Oklahoma politics per se, rumor has it that Mr. Pruitt has his eye on another statewide office in OK, possibly running for the US Senate. So, we thought this was worthy of 20 minutes of your time.

6.     After you listen to Scott Pruitt’s interview on the The Daily, you may want to take a look at this article from Politico Magazine. This is an in-depth look at the Tar Creek SuperFund site in northeastern Oklahoma. Tar Creek has been in the news lately as Mr. Pruitt is accused of revealing the findings of an audit of the clean-up to the subjects of the audit.

Legislative Watch

Early in session it can seem like nothing is happening. The late nights, major bills, Twitter drama and impassioned floor speeches typically happen in the last weeks of April or May. Not this year. With the budget crisis, concurrent sessions and the Step-Up Plan, there is A LOT going on this week.

The Step-Up Plan is getting all of the attention early in session. Several bills have been filed dealing with the both the revenue and government reform portions of the plan:

●      HB1033XX: House Bill 1033, this is the big one. This is a general revenue bill that combines a number of new taxes. The bill raises taxes on tobacco products, motor fuels, increases the gross production tax on oil and gas, and taxes energy production from wind. The bill passed the House Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget and passed Senate Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget shortly thereafter. We will spend some time talking through the details of this bill on next week’s podcast. We will delve into why this bill doesn’t (or at least, may not) violate the single subject rule as well as the impact this new revenue will have on our current budget crisis.

●      HB1037XX: House Bill 1037 started its life as the bill representing the income tax changes proposed by the Step-Up plan. However, immediately before the bill was brought to committee it underwent a dramatic rewrite. The final bill is a restoration of the Earned Income Tax Credit and makes changes to the standard deduction. The folks at OKPolicy seem to think this is a good change, but we still have a ways to go regarding income tax reform in Oklahoma.

●      HB1027XX: House Bill 1027 is the first of the Step-Up Plan’s government reform bills. The bill authorizes the Governor to make some appointments to state boards. 

●      HB1029XX: House bill 1029 creates the Office of Government Accountability. This another of the Step-Up Plans government reform bills. How much it would actually reform government is another question. We’ll delve into this next week.

There were other bills considered and passed out of the Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget. In particular, the committee passed new caps on deductions used by the coal, railroad and wind industries.

Next Week…

First up on the House floor on Monday is HB1033XX.We can’t really say what else will happen next week because so much depends on this first vote. We anticipate the vote will actually open later in the day after lots of off-the-floor deal-making, arm twisting and vote counting. This will likely be a long vote, and no one knows for sure whether it will pass. The bill requires a 75% supermajority in both chambers. The committee votes both met this threshold but the full House vote on the floor is another matter entirely.

If the bill passes, it will be followed by a series of votes throughout the week on the other, arguably less contentious, votes on the other measures of the Step-Up plan. If the bill fails, the rest of the Step-Up plan bills will not be heard on the floor. At that point, what happens next is anyone’s guess. Stay tuned...Monday is a big day.

We’ll see you next week for the latest edition of #LetsPodThis. And remember: Decisions are made by those who show up!