If you’re reading this, chances are you depend on blogs for at least part of the information you consume on a daily or weekly basis. Yet if you’re an Oklahoman interested in state politics and policy, it’s not easy to know which blogs provide good information and interesting perspectives on the issues you care about – besides, of course, this one.

Here’s a list of and brief description of 15 blogs that : 1) are written by Oklahomans; 2) have a political or policy focus; 3) are likely to keep you informed, amused, enlightened or outraged. They’re grouped based on my sense of their ideological leanings – left, right, and center/apolitical. If you disagree with my take, or think I’ve missed a notable site, please jump in with a comment. Read the rest of this entry »

My decision to take vacation over the final week of July and first week of August allowed me to avoid not only some of the worst of the summer heat wave here in Oklahoma but also much of the heated controversy that followed the release of OK Policy’s issue brief on State Question 744, the ballot measure that would peg education funding in Oklahoma to per pupil expenditures in neighboring states. We set out four main arguments that have led us to take a position opposing the measure, the most compelling of which is the strong likelihood that mandating an estimated $1.7 billion increase in funding for common education over three years without a new revenue source would set the state even  further behind in our other areas of public investment that all Oklahomans, including our schoolchildren and teachers, depend on.

Our position was strongly praised by the Oklahoman in a written editorial and this video editorial by editor Ed Kelly (you’ll first get a short commercial for an investment company):

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Doc Hoc over at OkieFunk likes our recent recomendations about what to do to help through the fiscal crisis. Oklahomans for Responsible Government, not so much.