Good and Bad Bills Clear Oklahoma Senate

March 12th, 2010

DURANT, Okla. – Hello again, everybody! Last Thursday was one of the most important deadlines the Oklahoma Legislature faces each year.

For the last three weeks, the Senate considered bills written by senators, and the House of Representatives worked on bills written by representatives. Now, the bills passed by the two houses cross the rotunda; we in the Senate will work on House bills, and representatives will consider Senate bills.

In the Senate, we took up more than 300 non-budget bills. Most of the bills we in the Senate considered contain good ideas, proposals that would move Oklahoma forward. Some are bad ideas, and a few are very bad ideas.

The bills I introduced are faring well in the Senate. This week, my colleagues passed and sent to the House my bills to:

·         End the sales tax on groceries when the economy recovers;

·         Support entrepreneurs working to create small businesses;

·         Enlarge the zone of safety into which sex offenders cannot go around schools, child care centers, parks and playgrounds; and

·         Give retired educators a dedicated seat on the Teachers’ Retirement System board of trustees.

My focus will always be to find ways to strengthen families, grow our state’s economy, protect our children from those who would cause them harm, and stand up for our seniors. The bills I am carrying this year meet those tests, and I am grateful to my colleagues for their support of them.

The worst bill of the year – a proposal to sell CompSource Oklahoma, the workers’ compensation insurance provider for thousands of Oklahoma businesses – seemingly will not die. Oklahoma businesses got some good news this week when the bill’s sponsors announced they did not have the votes to pass it, either in the Senate or House of Representatives.

Such a bill would spur huge increases in workers’ compensation premiums paid by Oklahoma businesses. Those increases would kill jobs and weaken the state’s economy at a time we can scarcely afford it.

Many of us breathed a sigh of relief at the apparent quiet death of the bill. But, just like the villain in a bad horror film who will not die, the idea reappeared to take another stab at Oklahoma businesses.

This “warmer and fuzzier” version of that bad idea would set up a process to “transition” CompSource into a private company. It passed the Senate on a very close vote. The end result would be the same: higher job-killing workers’ compensation premiums for thousands of businesses.

While still a long way from becoming law, the fact this idea has more lives than a cat should concern everyone interested in our economic well being. There is more here than meets the eye and – you can rest assured – I will continue to oppose any bill like this that would have a chilling effect on our efforts to grow the economy and create jobs in Oklahoma.

Thanks again for reading this week’s “Senate Minute.” Have a great week, and may God bless you all.

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