By Representative Brian Renegar, DVM
As we start our floor work on bills that have passed out of committee, it is often a very ridiculous bill and I tend to wonder how it survived committee work.
Such is the case of HB2882 by J. West (R) Grove. This bill would allow colleges, universities and career techs to develop Cleet courses to be taught at their facilities. You have to realize that it is not just having a vacant classroom to develop this class, it requires a driving course and a gun course. You want to hear the real problem with this bill? The tuition will not go to the education facility, it will be deposited in the Peace Officer Revolving fund. I am pretty sure there are NO institutions that would be willing to put out that type of expenditure and not receive any money in return to pay instructors, or expenses. I reminded the author on the House floor that Eastern Oklahoma State College (EOSC), because of budget cuts, has cut both their business administration curriculum and their music curriculum. I then asked how would they begin to develop a Cleet curriculum? He responded “they don’t ‘have’ to, they just ‘may’ do it.”
Another utterly ridiculous bill is by HB2876 By Montgomery,(R) Lawton. This bill would establish a new agency, the “Government Rule Accountability Agency.” At the present time we have a Legislative committee “Administrative Rules” that looks over and approves administrative rules that agencies develop. This new “Office of Accountability” agency would have 15 new employees with salaries totaling $2 million. That comes out to $133,000 per employee. The real kicker is these employees would “serve at the pleasure” of the Speaker of the House and Pro Tempore of the Senate. “Serve at the pleasure” means hired and fired by the Speaker and Pro Temp. Meetings would not be subject to “open meeting and records.” Yet it is called the Office of Accountability. What a misnomer!
Well our Governor finally signed last year’s budget. It took one regular session and three special sessions to get it accomplished. It cut $44.7 million or 2% from all state agencies. She was quick to blame democrats for not voting for the three richest billionaire’s “Step Up Oklahoma” plan. What she didn’t say was that more republicans voted against the plan than democrats. She could not garner enough votes through her spineless leadership to get it to pass. I guess that’s why she only has a 28% approval rating. What she also didn’t say was that even if “Step Up Oklahoma” had passed, there would still have been a cut to all state agencies. What she also didn’t say is back in November we had the A+ plan up for a vote that the democrats provided 82% of democrats for the plan. The A+ plan was similar to the “Step Up Oklahoma” plan without the big corporations’ money breaks.
Several folks came by the office this week, among them Emily Cole, representing FCCLA; Cindy Baugh, representing Oklahoma Nurses Advance Practice Nurses; Katelyn Kelley from Connors State College; Lisa Baker, Wilburton High School, who was one of the National Board Certified Teachers at the capitol on Tuesday; Raymond Wilson from Kiamichi Technology Center with students on the National Technical Honor Society. They were: McKenna January, Danielle Enriquez, Ian Plunkett, Jackie Picotte and Hunter Harris. Thanks for coming by.
Ecclesiastes 2:14 – The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.