Podcast Ep. 70 | Auditing Oddity and Agency Appointments (with Julia Kirt)
Summary
Are multiple, concurrent audits of Oklahoma's Medicaid program really necessary? Plus we're joined by Senator Julia Kirt to discuss if allowing the Governor to appoint agency directors more or less transparent than the current system of boards.
Podcast Ep. 69 | Why "Women's Issues" Matter (with Liz Charles and Bo Broadwater)
Episode Summary
The first month of the 57th legislature has been dominated by guns and abortion, and this week has been no exception. We're joined by the Liz Charles of the Oklahoma Women's Coalition and Bo Broadwater of The Journal Record to discuss permitless carry, "trigger laws," and what issues OWC is following most closely. Along the way we also discuss zoos, horoscopes, and a *very* awkward phrase that was used by a lawmaker this week.
Articles Discussed
Epic Charter Schools under investigation by state, federal law enforcement (Tulsa World)
Speaker McCall, others favor county option for taxing aggregates (NonDoc)
House, Senate committees advance several oil and gas related measures Tuesday (NewsOK)
Bill proposed to keep politics out of Oklahoma classrooms (KJRH-Tulsa)
Take-Aways From This Episode
This Thursday (2/28) is the deadline for when bills must be heard in committee in their chamber of origin. Basically, any bills that don’t pass out of committee this week are essentially dead this session.
I use the word “essentially” there because, of course, there are always “zombie bills” that pop back up later in session. We didn’t really talk about them during this episode, but it bears mentioning that as as the session progresses, leadership can insert language into some of those shell bills, and that language can pretty much be anything. We don’t anticipate much of those shenanigans this session, but you never know.
The next step in the lifecycle of a bill is to pass the floor in the committee of origin. The deadline for that is in two weeks - March 14th.
Governor Stitt officially signed his first bill into law this week. It was HB2597, aka ““Permitless Carry” or Constitutional Carry,” which will allow pretty much anyone age 21 and older to carry a firearm openly or concealed and to do so without a permit or any type of firearm training. (Some people are still excluded, namely people who have been convicted of a felony and people with documented, serious mental health issues.) The bill has been very controversial, and was opposed by many groups, including law enforcement, Moms Demand Action, and others.
It used to be that if you saw someone carrying a gun who wasn’t in a law enforcement uniform, you could probably safely assume they were up to something no good. This bill changes that in a big way. Now if pretty much anyone can carry a gun around in public.
Another big, controversial bill was passed out of a Senate committee this week. SB 195 is a “trigger bill,” meaning that if the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, then SB 195 would be “triggered” into action and immediately roll back Oklahoma abortion laws to where they were before 1973 (which is when the Roe vs. Wade decision was made).
Podcast Ep. 68 | Show Me the Money
Summary
The State of Oklahoma has some extra money this year...or does it? We discuss how much, where it's going, and status updates on bills about guns, HIV education, and Medicaid expansion.
Articles Discussed
Bucking Ethics Proposals Legislators Become Lobbyists (Oklahoma Watch)
OK County Commissioner Terminates Lobbyist Registration (NewsOK)
Panel Revises Revenue Projection by $37.8m (Journal Record)
Take Action
Do you like The West Wing Weekly? Would you like Josh & Hrishi to come to OKC? We’ve been in contact with their agent - they said they need to know how badly OKC wants them to come. So here’s what we need you to do: tweet at them (@westwingweekly), FB them, email them, whatever. Blow ‘em up. They are welcome to come to any of the watch party dates we already have scheduled or we would be happy to add a new date that works for them. We can make this happen, but not without your help!
Podcast Ep. 67 | Guns, Weed, and #oklegvalentines
Summary
We discuss the loosening of gun laws, find out who actually writes bills, and chat with Senator Greg McCortney about the details of "Unity Bill" that will tweak Oklahoma's new medical marijuana law. Plus a few tidbits about influenza among animals.
Articles Discussed
House passes constitutional carry (NewsOK)
Key Take-aways
This week the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed HB2597, which would allow anyone over the age of 21 to carry a gun, openly or concealed, without a license or any training. (There are some exclusions, such as felons, persons with documented severe mental illness, etc.) The bill has broad support in the legislature and is thus expected to pass.
The state legislature’s medical marijuana working group (aka the “Joint Committee”) passed some rules this week that help regulate the medical marijuana industry in Oklahoma. As working group co-chair Senator Greg McCortney explains in this episode, the rules do things such as set requirements for product labels, potency & THC content level requirements, fertilizer and soil requirements for grow operations, etc. The rules do not add any restrictions on who can purchase medical marijuana, they just clear up some of the gray areas of the law and create some consumer safety regulations for the industry.
Grant Hermes discussed a story he did this week about how we, the public, don’t really know who actually writes many of the bills that get passed through the legislature. Many are written by individuals and organizations who are outside of Oklahoma entirely, and the bills may or may not actually be in the best interest of the public. However, current law does not require legislators to disclose who wrote or requested the bills they run. Hmph.
And finally, we ended this episode with the annual reading some #oklegvalentines tweets. The link has lots of good ones, but we’ve embedded a few of our favorites below.
Podcast Ep. 66 | Kevin Calvey & The Blue Eyed Butcher
News Round-Up
County Commissioner Kevin Calvey also Capitol lobbyist (NonDoc)
Speaking of Calvey, he paid a surprise visit to the OK County jail and Carrie Blumert was not happy (News OK)
Constitutional Carry passes House committee (Tulsa World)
Pruitt legal fundraising started months before his exit (Politico)
How does your state make electricity (NY Times). Here’s Oklahoma:
Announcements
Election Tues Feb 12, including OKC city council in several wards
Main Discussion
State of the State [full text]
Podcast Ep. 65 | All About Agendas
Summary
This week it seemed like every party and organization released their legislative agenda - including Let's Fix this. So we decided to compare & contrast the big ones to parse out what policies we think will actually get passed this session.
Legislative Agendas
More will be added as we find them!
In lieu of news articles…
We thought we’d share those quotes we referenced during this episode.
Podcast Ep. 64 | 2019 Predict-O-Rama
Summary
We're joined by Krystal Yoseph to discuss Governor Stitt's first Executive Orders and cast our predictions for the 2019 Oklahoma legislative session.
Announcements
Feb 4: State of the State address + start of legislative session
Feb 21: Let’s Fix This Capitol Day!
News Articles
Executive orders target lobbyists, planes, hiring freeze and Cabinet (Journal Record)
Bill would make it harder to sue officers for excessive force (The Frontier)
Take-aways
OK Policy Annual Budget Summit:
State will have more money to spend, but most of it is already allocated.
Lots of discussion about expanding Medicaid, even from Republicans
2019 Legislative Predictions & what bills we’re watching
HB2328 - deals with use of excessive force by law enforcement
SB592 - requires protests/rallies at the Capitol to get a $50,000 bond
HB2094 - makes it a misdemeanor to disrupt the Legislature
HB2214 - Bans teacher walkouts
HB1413 - Holds lawmakers responsible if they author laws that are ruled unconstitutional
HB2456 - Bans conversion therapy with children
HB1269 - Makes SQ780 retroactive
SB102 - Raises minimum wage to $10.50/hour
HB2597 - allows anyone over the age of 18 to openly carry a firearm without a license
There will be more listed in our official Predict-O-Rama contest, will be released this week. Sign up for our Newsletter to get the announcement first!
UPDATE: Predict-O-Rama is now live!
Podcast Episodes 60-62: All Things Election
We recorded two episodes the week prior to the election that didn’t get posted here, so I’m combining them with our post-election recap for a comprehensive election post!
In episode 60 we revealed that Scott and I have been working on an Oklahoma-only election forecast model, similar (though not nearly as advanced) as the good folks at FiveThirtyEight. We also talked about “voting plans,” what they are and why you need one.
In episode 61 we briefly discussed the races we’d be keeping a close eye on (and why) during election night.
And last but not least, in episode 62 we discussed what happened during the election, why Stitt beat Edmondson, and what this means for the upcoming 2019 legislative session.
Podcasts Eps. 58 & 59 | Recap of a debate and follow-up with several candidates
This week is a banner week for #LetsPodThis - we posted not one but two episodes! (Okay, yes, we did that once last month as well. What can we say - it’s a busy time of year!)
This week starts with Episode 58, “On the Road Again,” in which we catch up with two candidates who have been travelling the state together during their campaigns - Democratic candidate for Labor Commissioner Fred Dorrell and Democratic candidate for Insurance Commissioner Kimberly Fobbs.
Next is Episode 59, “CD5 Debate and another Labor Commissioner candidate,” which contains a brief recap of the debate between candidates for US Congress, incumbent Steve Russell (R) and challenger Kendra Horn (D), followed by an interview with the Republican candidate for Labor Commissioner, Leslie Osborn.
The debate between Russell and Horn was hosted by NonDoc, and we highly recommend you read their full recap of the event. This is a race that is garnering national attention - which is unusual for Oklahoma congressional races for the last decade or so.
Podcast Ep. 57 | 2018 State Questions Guide
Summary
We discuss the pros and cons of each of the five state questions that are on the ballot this year.
Announcements
Reminder that Nov 6th is Election Day - which means you need to vote. And then, in the evening following, you’re all invited to join us for The Election Night Show!
Links & Articles Discussed
The video clip of The West Wing used as the opening to this episode.
Health Department faces employee lawsuit (Journal Record)
Pulling back from partisanship (our blog post from late 2017)
Take-Aways
We discussed the five state questions that appear on the ballot this November. We’ll publish our own voter guide later this week, but until then, here are two excellent guides that we highly recommend: