The Oklahoma Republican Party is hosting a series of “Fireside Chats” beginning Friday night.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott will speak at the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, 4040 N. Lincoln Blvd. Attorney General Scott Pruitt will moderate the chat with the former Texas Attorney General.
The dinner is at 6:30pm with a private reception at 5:30. Dinner tickets are $75/person with sponsorships beginning at $500/table of 8.
Tickets are available online at: okgop.com/fireside.
Nov 30 2015 | Posted in
General,
Politics |
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House Media Division
A lawmaker wants the state Constitution amended so the state can increase the amount that can be placed in the “Rainy Day” Fund.
Rep. Jon Echols said he intends to file legislation that would allow voters to amend the Constitution to both increase the cap – but not lower it – and allow the Legislature to appropriate directly to the fund.
The “Rainy Day” Fund, also known as the Constitutional Reserve Fund, serves as the state’s savings account. The state Constitution allows the Legislature to appropriate only 95 percent of the certified revenue estimate. Any revenue collected above 95 percent of the estimate is transferred to the Reserve Fund. In addition, the fund is capped at 15 percent of the previous year’s certification level.
The fund currently has a balance of approximately $382 million. Last year, the Legislature used $150 million out of the fund to help offset a $600 million budget hole.
“The idea that we should cap how much money the state can save is, frankly, ridiculous,” said Echols, R-Oklahoma City. “Not only is there a cap on how much we can save, there is also legitimate doubt among House staff as to whether the Legislature has the authority to make direct appropriations into the Rainy Day Fund. Neither of those restrictions make any sense. We had a $600 million budget gap last year, and we are now looking at up to $1 billion less this year to appropriate. Our current approach is shortsighted and bizarre. Taxpayers expect us to be prudent and develop a long-term approach to state spending. This is not the way a citizen would run his or her family and it certainly isn’t the way we should run our state.”
Echols said that Oklahoma Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger agrees that a new approach is needed. In a November 23 article in The Oklahoman, Doerflinger said the state should consider creating an entirely new budget stabilization fund.
“I think there are tools we should put in place, maybe a separate fund, not much different than the Rainy Day Fund, that would help equalize these types of downturns in the energy sector. It might cause some smoothing or leveling of the pain that occurs if you were to see something this dramatic in the future,” Doerflinger was quoted as saying.
Echols doesn’t want to create a new fund; rather, he wants voters to reform the current fund to make it easier for the state to save money.
Echols noted that North Dakota has nearly $3.3 billion in savings.
“We are an oil and gas state, also, but we don’t save money like a state dependent upon the roller-coaster energy industry should,” said Echols. “Some say it is pointless to discuss saving money when we are facing another budget hole, but I believe that is exactly why we should be discussing it. Our revenues are going to return to normal levels at some point. If we don’t make a change now, we won’t be able to save money when we do have excess revenues.”
Echols said his proposal would require the Legislature to pass a resolution that would place a state question on the ballot for voters to decide.
Governor Fallin today declared a state of emergency for all 77 Oklahoma counties due to the winter storm and flooding that continues to impact the state.
Nearly 100,000 homes were still without power Sunday afternoon as a result of freezing rain, ice and sleet that began Thursday. The state of emergency will help facilitate additional mutual aid, which includes oversized vehicles such as those transporting utility poles to the affected areas.
Fallin’s executive order allows state agencies to make emergency purchases related to disaster relief and preparedness. It is also the first step toward seeking federal aid should it be necessary.
Under the executive order, the state of emergency lasts for 30 days.
Nov 29 2015 | Posted in
General |
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By Richard Mize
The Oklahoman
Using history to bring attention to land for sale has its upsides and downsides, as the auctioneer of some Georgia property with a deep Oklahoma connection might learn.
Micoley.com of Green Bay, Wis., is auctioning the Calhoun Gold Mine outside Dahlonega, Ga., on Dec. 2. The 483-acre property has 135 acres under permanent conservation but with hunting, fishing and recreation allowed, three rent houses and other structures.
Micoley trumpets the origin of the property name: John C. Calhoun, U.S. senator from South Carolina and seventh vice president of the United States. Calhoun acquired land that included this acreage at the height of the Georgia gold rush in 1829.
The mine property, worked successfully as late as 1939-1940, is on the National Register of Historic Places, which Micoley boasts, and it is a National Historic Landmark, which the auction company also was happy to point out.
“The Calhoun Mine is a National Historic Landmark for a reason, and we want to honor the 7th Vice President’s legacy the best way we can,” founder and CEO Wade T. Micoley said in a news release. “It’s simply a beautiful piece of land and we cannot wait to match a buyer with the property who will continue to uphold its tradition with the same zeal the Calhoun family did in the 1800s.”
Alarm bells rang for me the second the news release hit my inbox with “1829,” “Georgia” and “gold rush” all in the same paragraph. That spells “Cherokee removal” and “Trail of Tears.”
So allow me to bring the fuller history to bear and point out the tragic connection to Oklahoma.
“The Calhoun Mine epitomizes the discovery of gold in Georgia, an event which was the proximate cause for the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia and ultimately from the entire eastern homeland,” as the National Register nomination explains. “Historians have said that (quoting a local historian) ‘gold was by far the most important factor in the early pressure for hasty removal of the Cherokees.’ ”
Chances are you don’t know this pre-Oklahoma part of Cherokee history (or remember it from ninth grade, if you grew up in Oklahoma), so let’s give full historical context to this land auction next Saturday in Georgia:
“The discovery of gold … opened a flood of wild argonauts onto Cherokee land who, heedless of property rights and treaties drove the Indian from his land,” continues the National Register nomination, which was approved in 1973. “This boom resulted in the State of Georgia wresting both land and mineral rights from the Cherokee. As a result, the Cherokee moved their Capital from New Echota, Ga., to Red Clay, Tenn., and thus initiated the first phase of their final expulsion to land beyond the Mississippi.”
Not long after Calhoun acquired his gold-mining interests, missionaries in Georgia were arrested and jailed for supporting the Cherokee cause. Samuel A. Worcester and others tested an 1830 Georgia law forbidding whites from entering Cherokee territory without state permission. It led to one of a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases that ripple through U.S.-Indian relations to this day: Worcester v. The State of Georgia, in 1832.
As I wrote in my biography of Worcester for the “Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture,” “Cherokee leaders saw that case, in which the Supreme Court declared that Georgia laws could have no effect in Cherokee Territory, as a hopeful answer to the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, in which Chief Justice John Marshall infamously found the Cherokees to be a ‘domestic dependent nation’ with no rights a state was bound to follow.
“The Worcester case, flouted by Georgia authorities and by President Andrew Jackson, did nothing to stop the president and Congress from legislating forced removal of Cherokees and other Southeastern tribes. Despite being ignored in the 1830s, both cases influenced law and federal-Indian relations through the early twenty-first century.”
Indeed, the Calhoun Mine is a National Historic Landmark for a reason. It is listed for $5.1 million with a minimum opening bid of $2.95 million. Go to www.micoley.com for more information or to bid.
Dear Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma: I would love for y’all to buy it.
Nov 29 2015 | Posted in
General |
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By Inez Feltscher
Director, ALEC Task Force on Education and Workforce Development
It is time for Oklahomans to face the facts: two-thirds of Oklahoma fourth-graders are not proficient in reading and three-quarters are not proficient in math, according to the 2014 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Money alone won’t fix the problem. Pouring more taxpayer dollars into the failed education system doesn’t mean that money goes into the classroom. Public schools have increased staff four times faster than the student population increase from 1950 to 2009, and the number of non-teaching staff has grown at the astronomical rate of 702 percent. Meanwhile, proficiency scores stagnate or even decline.
Instead of repeating the tired canard of underfunding, Oklahoma should embrace innovative solutions to improve its struggling educational system, which is why it is a shame the state legislature has, for the second time in two years, rejected an education savings account program.
Education savings accounts (ESAs) empower parents to make educational decisions for their children by allowing them to control the funds the state already spends on their child. Parents use the funds to create a customized educational experience that suits their child’s unique needs. While Oklahoma has both direct and tax credit scholarship programs, which provide school choice to more than 1,100 students in the state, ESAs are different because they have made the leap from school choice to educational choice.
Under an ESA program, parents can synthesize a quality individualized education from any number of sources: public schools, private schools, virtual schools, community college classes, in-home tutors, and special-needs therapies, to list just a few of the options. Additionally, most ESA programs allow parents to roll over any unused funds into a college savings account, lessening the debt burden that weighs so heavily on college graduates.
Floridian parent Julie Kleffel’s daughter, Faith, has Down syndrome, and has already had to face many challenges in her life. While Julie has created a customized educational program with one-on-one tutoring and therapy for her daughter that has helped Faith become a “bubbly seven year old,” the costs have been steep. As a widow, Julie has had difficulty paying for Faith’s individualized education and has even had to forgo additional services and therapies she believes would have helped. Thanks to Florida’s ESA program that passed in 2014, Julie will be able to avoid the “tough choices” in the past that have limited Faith’s therapies. Julie has called the program “life-changing” for her family.
Although ESAs are cutting-edge, Oklahoma would not be striking into unknown territory. Arizona has had an ESA program in place since 2011, and four other states – Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Nevada – have followed in the Grand Canyon State’s footsteps. And the program is popular among Oklahomans; a recent poll found that a strong majority of likely voters in the state support ESAs.
Education savings accounts put parents, who know their children best, in charge of their educations. Oklahomans have taken the lead on other school choice options, and education savings accounts are another step in the right direction.
The American Legislative Exchange Council is the largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators in the United States. The Council is governed by state legislators who comprise the Board of Directors and is advised by the Private Enterprise Advisory Council, a group of private, foundation and think tank members. For more information about the American Legislative Exchange Council, please visit: www.alec.org.
Nov 27 2015 | Posted in
Education,
General |
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The Federalist Society’s Oklahoma City and Tulsa Lawyers Chapters will host a panel discussion about Oklahoma appellate court judicial selection, the importance of transparency and accountability in judicial selection, and the potential state reforms to Oklahoma’s selection process on December 2nd.
Guests
A.J. FerateGeneral Counsel, Oklahoma Republican Party
Whit AyresPresident/Founder, North Star Opinion Research
Where:
OCPA – Advance Center for Free Enterprise
1401 N. Lincoln Blvd. Oklahoma City, OK 73104
When:
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM
CLE: This event is approved for 1 hour of CLE credit.
Nov 25 2015 | Posted in
General |
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SoonerSurvey is out with its latest measure of public sentiment.
It found that 70% of Oklahoma voters support school choice. This increases to 79% among registered Republicans and 78% among women with a child in the home.
- Driving the support of school choice is the fundamental belief that competition improves schools. More than two-thirds of voters say that competition improves schools (67%) while just one in five (21%) do not think competition helps.
- 75% want to expand the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship program for children with disabilities.
- By a 17-point margin (54% Favor / 37% oppose) voters support Education Saving Accounts that would allow parents to use a portion the yearly state funding used for their child and use those tax dollars for “private or parochial school tuition” and other education expenses.
