Policy dominates Thursday session
The Oklahoma House of Representatives is expected to vote on the budget Friday, the final day of the 2017 legislative session. It has already passed the Senate.
Several revenue measures still need final approval, but policy issues dominated much of the day on Thursday.
Tempers briefly flared on the House floor while considering House Bill 1465. The bill requires that Oklahoma not share personal or biometric information from REAL ID cards with the federal government, but a recent amendment added a separate section that loosens child safety seat laws for disabled drivers who cannot easily pull children out of rear-facing car seats in an emergency.
Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed the car seat proposal in an earlier bill because it was worded poorly and could be misconstrued.
Democrats argued that adding the two issues together is unconstitutional logrolling, and state Rep. Scott Inman graphically described the reason why some child car seats should be rear-facing.
“This doesn’t help save a child’s life. This hurts them,” said Inman, D-Del City.
The bill’s author, state Rep. Jon Echols, responded in debate by defending another House lawmaker, Enid Republican, John Enns, who uses a wheelchair and requested the bill.
“I don’t believe Rep. Enns
doesn’t love his children because he has a hard time putting them in a rear-facing car seat, and I don’t like the implication that that’s true,” said Echols, R-Oklahoma City.
Senate Bill 1570
The Senate gave final passage to Senate Bill 1570, which repeals two new laws signed by the governor earlier this year.
One of the provisions that is scheduled to go into effect this November would make it harder to sue Oklahoma employers for negligence if an employee sexually abuses a child. The other one forces losers to pay legal fees in nearly every Oklahoma lawsuit, which drastically changes a centuries-old legal practice.
Both were labeled legislative mistakes by the original bill’s author and overlooked by Gov. Mary Fallin when she signed it. Fallin said other parts of the bill were too important to veto.
House Bill 1925
House Bill 1925 would redraw Oklahoma’s appellate court districts to conform to the state’s five congressional districts. The four remaining members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals would be appointed at-large from anywhere in the state.
After receiving a barrage of questions, Purcell Republican state Rep. Tim Downing asked for the bill to be “laid over,” or temporarily withdrawn from consideration. It wasn’t brought back up Thursday.
Some lawmakers are worried that the four atlarge districts would be attorneys from metro areas, thereby diluting rural representation on two of the state’s highest courts.
Senate Bill 712
The House gave final approval to Senate Bill 712, which the author said would “allow them to continue to buy a a hot dog and a Bud Light in the same place.”
State Rep. Glen Mulready, R-Glenpool, said the bill fixes an issue in the alcohol modernization law adopted by voters in November. His legislation clarifies that children are allowed near places that sell beer and wine if those places are also a concession stand.
House Bill 1578
House lawmakers advanced House Bill 1578, which creates a task force to study the Department of Education state aid funding formula. It now heads to the Senate over objections that the task force’s composition could exclude Democrats from participating.
House Bill 2429
The Legislature then asked Fallin to sign House Bill 2429, which raises the gross production tax rate on wells drilled between 2011 and 2015. The rate would go from 1 percent to 4 percent.
HB 2429 passed the Senate on Thursday. It is one of several major funding measures that have not been signed by the governor. On Friday, the House is scheduled to consider the $1.50 smoking cessation fee on cigarettes, while the Senate will vote on a new sales tax on vehicle purchases.
Bond issue authorized
On Thursday, Fallin authorized a bond package to build a new public health lab, worth $58.5 million. She also signed another bill that would let the Office of Juvenile Affairs build a new campus to hold mid-security juvenile offenders.