It was a busy session.  Last Friday marked the deadline for Governor Fallin to take final action on bills that landed on her desk. Now that sine die has passed, we thought it would be useful for OK Policy to do inventory and update you on the status of the bills we wrote about this session on our blog.

There were over two dozen immigration bills introduced this session.  Neither of the ‘English only’ bills, HB 2083 and SB 905, intended as implementing legislation for State Question 751, were approved by the legislature.  On our blog, we advised against passage and pointed out that the bills would have imposed new and draconian restrictions on speech and potentially entangled state officials in a legal double bind.  We also blogged about two bills, SB 683 and HB 1446, that sought to rescind resident tuition eligibility for undocumented high school students enrolling in public colleges and universities.  The stand alone bill, SB 683, died in House committee and the sections pertaining to resident tuition eligibility were removed from HB 1446 in conference committee.  We have blogged extensively about other sections of HB 1446, the omnibus immigration legislation which went through several incarnations and was eventually defeated on the House floor by a vote of 62 (N) to 31 (Y). Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Tulsa World has a strong editorial opposing legislative proposals to enact further restrictions on property taxes.  For those who haven’t been following, this week has seen a public flare-up of a long-simmering internal battle within the House Republican caucus over proposals to tighten the maximum annual tax increase on homestead properties from its current 5 percent cap down to 3 percent or 1 percent.  In Monday’s Tulsa World, Speaker Chris Benge was quoted opposing the proposal:

“I think it is bad timing,” said Benge, R-Tulsa. “We are looking at a very tough budget year. To date, it is about 25 percent or 26 percent below the estimate. We are looking at a very difficult time to fill a budget hole in which we are going to have to cut budgets. We are going to have to use reserves. I just don’t think that the timing is good to reduce revenue.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In the first year that Republicans fully control the Legislature, who would expect we’d have so little to report from the tax cut beat? The economy and a $600-plus million revenue shortfall, of course, were major factors in tax decisions. Legislators did not want to cut taxes and have to make the corresponding budget cuts in the same session.

We’re pleased our elected officials understood that state services are in a precarious position, even with our current revenue structure. We’re  even happier that they largely avoided the “easy” alternatives of making reductions that took place in later years or only affected local governments. Proposals to cut the income tax from 5.5 percent to 5.25 percent next year–regardless of the revenue picture–and to put more limits on the growth of property taxes, were both left on the shelf. So were elimination of the sales tax on groceries, reducing the 50-cent monthly 911 tax, and any number of sales and income tax exemptions.

Read the rest of this entry »