Focus on policy a good idea in theory

REP. Jon Echols strikes us as someone who’s serious about his work as a member of the Oklahoma House. He’s been a champion of programs such as Oklahoma’s Promise, for example, and this year was quick to publicly reject a colleague’s suggestion that students for whom English is a second language be turned over to federal immigration officials for deportation.

So we’re interested to see what comes of a plan announced recently by Echols, R-Oklahoma City, to shape policy for the 2018 session.

A number of policy working groups are being formed this week with the intention of generating plans that “reduce government waste and increase efficiencies in spending, enhance personal freedom and grow economic opportunities for Oklahomans,” according to a news release from the House media office.

The second piece — enhancing personal freedom — is great if Republicans are looking to perhaps reduce the number of occupational licenses required in Oklahoma. Many of the requirements tied to these licenses serve only to protect established professions and hinder Oklahomans’ efforts to build careers.

But if “enhancing personal freedom” leads to discussion of ways to expand gun laws, or more ways to crack down on abortion services, then it needs to be stopped in a hurry. These causes provide fodder for election flyers, but they ultimately do nothing to move Oklahoma forward.

Echols, who serves as House floor leader, said some preliminary discussions have begun, regarding such topics as budget reform, health care and mental health, transportation, public safety and corrections, education support and reform, and consolidation of agencies, boards and commissions.

Echols says there is a large group of lawmakers who “are tired of doing government the way it has always been done just because no one can come up with better ways of doing it.” It’s an understandable sentiment.

But there have been some efforts to try a new approach, and they’ve gone almost nowhere. We have long supported policies that reduce the growth of Oklahoma’s prison population while still keeping the public safe. Several bills were filed this session, but many were stalled by opponents of this approach to criminal justice. Support of education is important, of course, but so too is the need for legislators to look for and embrace actual education reform. How long will members, on both sides of the aisle, be OK with Oklahoma having so many school districts and so much administrative duplication? Bills filed in 2016 seeking minor administrative consolidation were stopped cold because lawmakers weren’t willing to take the heat. The working groups will meet monthly; they’re voluntary, and those who serve will do so on their own dime, without per diem or reimbursement for their trips to the Capitol. That alone is worth a salute.

“Oklahoma desperately needs innovation in the way we develop and deliver government services to our citizens,” Echols says. He adds that, particularly given Oklahoma’s fiscal challenges, “we need to be much more creative and efficient in the way we budget and govern.”

He’s on target there. We’ll learn in the next several months whether the working groups come out on target, too.

Those who serve will do so without per diem or reimbursement for their trips to the Capitol. That alone is worth a salute.