Podcast Ep. 75 | Privileged Pollution and Secret Sh*t
Episode Description
This week we discuss a bill to keep pollution audits private, cleaning up the voter rolls, and the high cost of transporting people with mental illness. Just a typical week in Oklahoma, right?
News/Articles
Bill would make pollution information secret for companies that self-audit (Tulsa World)
SB1003, titled the “Oklahoma Environmental, Health and Safety Audit Privilege Act”
Would create a “privileged” status for reports created by entities that self-audit or hire contractors to conduct environmental compliance audits of their facilities. Those audit records would be sealed and not available publicly via an Oklahoma Open Records Act request or for court proceedings. Anyone releasing the information, including public officials, could be subject to penalties.
Oklahoma Prepares to Purge Thousands of Inactive Voters (Oklahoma Watch)
Rising costs: Mental health transports strain law enforcement resources (NonDoc)
You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead (USA Today)
Podcast Ep. 74 | Dead Candidates Society (with Megan Funderburk & Bo Broadwater)
Episode Description
Should deceased candidates be allowed to remain on the ballot? We discuss the implications of that situation along with independent redistricting and the structure & finances of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES).
Articles & Links
Legislators to study cost of living adjustments for Oklahoma state retirees (Tulsa World)
Edmond mayoral election and Edmond Sun poll
Our blog post on Independent Redistricting
Will you go to prom with us?
Attend our spring fundraiser and have the prom experience you wish you had back in high school.
Live Podcast | 3-2-1- Council Contact
This week we held a special, experimental event called “3-2-1 Council Contact,” which was a mashup of two podcasts - Let’s Pod This and the WAFTI Show - interviewing three members of the Oklahoma City city council, James Cooper, JoBeth Hamon, and Nikki Nice. The idea for this event came about because the Tower Theatre sits at the intersection of their respective city council wards.
The conversation included our usual News Roundup and WAFTI’s usual trivia, but we also heard the council members’ perspectives on transportation, infrastructure, MAPS, and more. Full video of the event is below, followed by links to pertinent articles and topics mentioned in the episode.
Before we get to all the links, here is the video of the March 26th OKC City Council meeting that Councilwoman Nikki Nice references during the show:
News & Articles
NewsOK, SB227: Splits OMES into 2 with IT having its own agency
Passed out of Committee
4-3 vote
Agency says this is more expensive way to do business
IT unification takes a hit
Tulsa World; Failure to renew 2014 Excellence in Mental Health Act
Demonstration project
Red Rock, NorthCare, Grand Lake Mental Health Center
Potentially devastating blow to OP mental health services
Major news:
Yesterday (3/25/19) OK Supreme Court declined to request to postpone the beginning of the opioid lawsuit
13 companies
Alleges fraudulent marketing to docs and patients
Seeking $20b in damages
Today (3/26/19): AG Hunter announces settlement with Purdue Pharma
$270m
Sackler family is responsible for $75m
We have so many questions….
Why settle?
Purdue filing for bankruptcy? <— settlement is “bankruptcy proof”
Does this make other companies likely to settler?
Does this save the state money in litigation costs?
Is $270 appropriate?
$200m to one research center seems like…a lot - was this a condition of the settlement?t
$12m for the entire rest of the state seems like...not much
Will funds awarded by the court be distributed similarly?
Some members of the community are quite upset about not getting to confront Purdue in court
Podcast Ep. 73 | Mid-Session Update (with Bo Broadwater)
Episode Summary
As bills move from one chamber to the other, we take a look at what legislation has been signed, what's [mostly] dead, and what are still alive. Special guest: Bo Broadwater from The Journal Record Legislative Report.
Show Notes
This year there are a maximum of 116 calendar days in the regular legislative session, from February 4th to May 31st, and today is day 44. That means that, according to the calendar, we’re roughly a third of the way through the session. Last week we passed a major deadline in the life of legislation - in order to stay alive, all bills needed have been passed out of committee and passed the floor of the chamber of origin. That is, all bills that started in the House must have fully passed out of the House and sent over to the Senate and all Senate bills must have fully passed out of the Senate and been sent over to the House. We started the year with 2,815 bills and joint resolutions, and now we’re down to just under 1,000.
Since this week was a bit of a snooze, we decided to use this episode as a chance to get caught up on which bills have died and which ones are still alive.
Before we do that, let’s start with the bills that Governor Stitt has already signed. There are 11 of them, including:
Abortion
Permitless carry (and a rumored veto referendum in the works for 2020…)
Medical marijuana “Unity bill”
Bills granting the Governor to hire & fire agency heads
Now let’s highlight some of the notable bills that have died (or at least appear to be dead):
HB1182, which would have revoked medical license of any physician that performed an abortion (in which the mother’s life was not endangered)
Medicaid Expansion...at least McCourtney’s proposal. (Or...maybe not
Increasing minimum wage to $10.50/hr (which, if you worked full time, would only be $21,840/ yr)
Charging legislators if they authored bills that are found to be unconstitutional (fun fact: they would have only been fined a maximum of $46)
Exempting Oklahoma from Daily Savings Time
Also bills that we at Let’s Fix This care about (they’re all dead)
Elimination of straight party voting
Automatic voter registration
Nonpartisan county elections
Nonparty sheriff elections
Independent Redistricting
Okay, so what’s left? What bills are still out there, trying to find their way
State steak! SB21 by Sen. Casey Murdock passed the Senate, now goes to the House.
Strong beer & wine at sporting events and art & music festivals
HIV education mandate. HB1018 by Rep. McEntire has been assigned to the Senate Education Committee.
Making SQ780 retroactive. (HB1269 by Dunnington)
SB 509: Significantly restricting Step Therapy
And perhaps the most important part of the legislative session that is yet to come:
The Budget, The BUDGET - THE BUDGET!
OMES $16m supplemental request
Where to stash that extra $200m?
News Round-Up
Nowata Co Jail Debacle (Washington Post)
Update on the “Joint” Medical Marijuana Working Group (Tulsa World)
The Stitt Show:
Relevant article: Are CEOs Born Leaders?
Podcast Ep. 72 | Gravel Tax and Sunshine Week (with Tres Savage & Joe Hight)
Episode Summary
Tres Savage from NonDoc explains the finer points of why Oklahoma counties should be allowed to tax the production of aggregates (i.e. rocks and gravel) and we visit with Joe Hight, chairman of Freedom of Information Oklahoma, to discuss Sunshine Week, government transparency, and whether the legislature should be subject to the Open Records Act.
Legislation mentioned
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.
![The Election Night Show [complete video]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/575053f820c6473bd3e6aba3/1548522553957-A716HFJ4BSJLA0F3D9XW/title+screen.png)
The Election Night Show [complete video]
Our inaugural election night watch party & entertainment event was a tremendous success! More than 700 people attended and raised nearly $5,000 for our organization. Huge thanks to all of our guests, sponsors, and volunteers who made the night so great.
If you weren’t able to attend (or if you did but just want to re-watch it, the video of the event is embedded below:
Podcast Ep. 55 | Commissioner Candidates Chat
In this episode, we sit down with two candidates running for statewide office - Kimberly Fobbs, who is running for Insurance Commissioner, and Fred Dorrell, who is running for Labor Commissioner. #Votelahoma