OKPOLICY.ORG
In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. E-mail your suggestions for In The Know items to gperry@okpolicy.org. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that an Oklahoma County District Court has tossed out at a 2011 law that put restrictions on drugs used to induce abortions. Lawmakers announced plans to reform the Department of Human Services, including asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment abolishing the DHS Commission.
The OK Policy Blog shows that even after accounting for the effects of poverty, middle class children are not getting all that they should from Oklahoma schools. Tulsa Public Schools are replacing the principals at two low-performing elementary schools and giving them the power to start from scratch in selecting faculty for next year.
Gov. Mary Fallin’s pick of Jim Roth to serve on the state Election Board will not get a hearing before the Senate Rules Committee, its chairman said Monday. A rift between Gov. Mary Fallin and the Grand River Dam Authority may lead to renewed efforts to give the governor more authority to replace members of state boards and commissions.
Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello is campaigning in Wisconsin this week for that state’s beleaguered governor, Scott Walker. Costello sponsored a resolution which was passed at Saturday’s state GOP convention to withhold money from candidates who take contributions from the Oklahoma Public Employees Association and the Oklahoma Education Association.
In The Edmond Sun, Dr. Mickey Hepner separates myths from facts in the tax debate. The Oklahoman writes that the legislature’s reluctance to approve bond issues is a failure to think ahead.
The Number of the Day is the percentage of Oklahoma’s construction firms that employ fewer than twenty employees. In today’s Policy Note, The American Prospect examines why same sex marriage keeps failing at the ballot box despite its rising popularity.
In The News
Oklahoma court overturns restrictions on abortion-inducing drug
An Oklahoma County District Court has tossed out at a 2011 law that put restrictions on drugs used to induce abortions. The court found that House Bill 1970 is “an unconstitutional law in violation of the fundamental rights of women to privacy and bodily integrity,” guaranteed by the Oklahoma Constitution, according to an order issued Friday. The Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice and Reproductive Services in Tulsa challenged the law. Gov. Mary Fallin signed the measure into law on May 11, 2011. It was put on hold pending the outcome of the lawsuit. The court found that the measure’s requirements were “so completely at odds with the standard that governs the practice of medicine that it can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to punish and discriminate against those women who do.”
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Lawmakers announce reform plans for Department of Human Services
Responding to concerns about the alleged maltreatment of children in state care, lawmakers Monday announced plans to streamline the Department of Human Services, replace its nine-member commission with four citizen advisory panels and allow the governor to appoint the agency’s director. Some of the key changes to how the state’s largest agency is administered will be left up to voters. Among the measures lawmakers will consider is House Joint Resolution 1092, which asks voters in November to approve a constitutional amendment repealing the Commission for Public Welfare, which was approved by voters in 1936 to oversee DHS. The commission has nine members, each of whom is appointed to a nine-year term. The commission was set up that way to insulate it from political and outside influence, Nelson said. “What we’ve ended up with so many years later is an agency that is really not responsive when it needs to be,” he said. Longtime DHS Commissioner Richard DeVaughn criticized the proposal. “It was written into the constitution to have the commission so it wasn’t a direct political patronage job,” DeVaughn said. “Now here we want to go back to the old political patronage system so that every time you get a new governor, you’re going to get a new director.”
Oklahoma’s middle-class children are falling behind
It’s no secret that Oklahoma lags behind other states in student achievement. In 2011, Oklahoma fourth graders’ reading scores ranked 40th among all states (plus Washington DC and Department of Defense schools). Among eighth graders, Oklahomans’ reading scores put us at 41st. Math scores were only slightly better, at 38th in the nation for both fourth and eighth graders. It’s not entirely fair to compare states in this way, since they can be dealing with very different student populations. Oklahoma is a high-poverty state, and a large number of our children face difficult challenges that come with poverty. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) does give us a way to remove this effect and see how similar groups of children are faring across states. When we separate these two groups of children, the results are surprising. Oklahoma is actually performing at or better than the national average for free/reduced lunch eligible children. Those students not eligible for free- or reduced-lunches do perform significantly better on these tests than low-income children. However, their ranking plummets compared to similar kids in other states. On fourth grade math and reading scores, they ranked 45th in the nation. By the eighth grade, math performance rose to 41st, while reading dropped to 46th.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
TPS proposes drastic changes for low-performing elementary schools
Tulsa Public Schools administrators are proposing swift and dramatic changes for the district’s two lowest-performing elementary schools as part of a renewed effort to reform McLain High School and its feeder pattern. Anderson and Burroughs elementary schools are getting new principals and if the school board approves, those new leaders would have the power to start from scratch in selecting a faculty for the 2012-13 academic year, said Deputy Superintendent Millard House. Those changes would be part of a plan to group all 16 of the Tulsa school sites recently identified by the Oklahoma State Department of Education as needing greater intervention in an “achievement zone.” The zone represents a non-geographical cluster of schools that are in need of corrective action under state and federal guidelines, but local officials have control over transitioning schools in and out of the zone based on their performance. Schools in the zone receive additional resources.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Fallin’s pick for election board might not get hearing
Gov. Mary Fallin’s pick to serve on the state Election Board will not get a hearing before the Senate Rules Committee, its chairman said Monday. Fallin appointed Democrat Jim Roth to serve. But the appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. “Right now, I don’t feel he has the votes to get out of the Rules Committee,” said Sen. Rob Johnson, R-Kingfisher, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. “There is a lot of concern in our caucus over putting a former statewide elected officer on the election board where he will be in control in helping determine what candidates are and are not on the ballot, including his former opponents.” Roth was appointed to the Corporation Commission by former Gov. Brad Henry in 2007 to fulfill the unexpired term of Denise Bode, who resigned. Republican Dana Murphy defeated Roth, a Democrat, in his bid to be elected to the post in 2008. Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz said that of the 11 candidates submitted by the Oklahoma Democratic Party, the governor felt that Roth was the most qualified to serve, given his record of public service. Roth said some people have suggested that he will not get a hearing because he is gay. “It sounds to me like Chairman Johnson has made up an excuse and is unwilling to admit that,” Roth said. Johnson denied the claim.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
GRDA vote to buy office irks Fallin
A rift between Gov. Mary Fallin and the Grand River Dam Authority may lead to renewed efforts to give governors more authority to replace members of state boards and commissions. Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz said the governor is “working with legislators to provide more oversight” of boards, including the GRDA. Weintz said Fallin was “surprised and disappointed” by the state-owned utility’s decision last week to go through with plans to buy an office building in east Tulsa. He said Fallin, through a board member, had asked the GRDA to postpone a final vote “until (Fallin) and other interested stakeholders could be briefed on the purpose and details” of the purchase. GRDA officials say the 42,000-square-foot 16 Plaza Centre will house the GRDA’s emergency control room, its engineering department, and some maintenance and information technology personnel. CEO Dan Sullivan has said the building’s location will make recruiting and retaining engineers and technical personnel easier. He also has said buying the building is more cost-effective than building a new facility, as was initially planned, at the engineering and transmission center north of Pryor.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Oklahoma Labor Commissioner campaigns for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello is campaigning in Wisconsin this week for that state’s beleaguered governor, Scott Walker. Walker, a Republican like Costello, is facing a June 5 recall election. Costello said he plans to stay in Wisconsin through Wednesday. “I am here as a private citizen, all on my own expense,” he said. “But I do think it’s a matter of public policy, if you believe as I do that the progressives have pushed it about as far as they can.” Walker’s recall was prompted by his efforts to curb public employees’ bargaining rights and agreements – something Costello applauds. As Oklahoma’s labor commissioner, Costello has fought public employee associations – state employees do not have collective-bargaining rights in Oklahoma – and sponsored a resolution at Saturday’s state GOP convention that would withhold money from candidates who take contributions from the Oklahoma Public Employees Association and the Oklahoma Education Association.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Facts remain important in tax debate
In politics today, myths are often more powerful than facts. But in the real world, facts still hold sway. Myth: Economies in states without an income tax perform better than in other states Fact: There is no linkage between the performance of a state’s economy and its use of an income tax. Since 2000, the per-capita personal income growth rankings of states that lack a personal income tax are third, fourth, 11th, 25th, 31st, 32nd, 35th, 41st and 50th. In short, while some of these states have performed very well others have performed very poorly. And two-thirds of these states rank between 25th-50th among the 50 states.
Read more from The Edmond Sun.
Lawmakers unlikely to address plight of medical examiners’ office
Planning ahead has never been the Legislature’s strong suit. The medical examiner’s office was a problem in 2006 and for many years before that, but lawmakers had other priorities at the time, as they always seem to. It took the death of a motorist traveling on Interstate 35 to get lawmakers to finally realize that, yes, our roads and bridges were awful, just as national studies had been saying for years. Until that woman was killed in 2004 by a chunk of concrete that fell from a bridge and smashed through her windshield, the Legislature was content to fund the Department of Transportation at the same level it had for the previous 20 years. A longtime topic of conversation at the Capitol has been fixing all that ails the building — from the heating/air conditioning to the plumbing to the balky elevators. Only when some exterior pieces started chipping away did any sense of urgency accompany those conversations. Now lawmakers are actually considering using a bond issue to overhaul the place.
Quote of the Day
When we brag about Oklahoma to our out-of-state friends and family, what do we say? I don’t know about you, but it’s not the tax system I rave about — it’s the people, the cities and the atmosphere. Let’s not forget that enhancing our quality of life is what our focus should be.
-UCO Business Dean Mickey Hepner, writing in The Edmond Sun
Number of the Day
91 percent
Percentage of Oklahoma’s construction firms that employ fewer than twenty employees, 2009
Source: Associated General Contractors
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
If same-sex marriage is so popular, why does it always lose at the ballot box?
Since all 31 states that have voted on constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage (SSM) have passed them, typically by overwhelming popular votes, should we be skeptical that half of Americans really support same-sex marriage? Probably not. Most bans passed when opposition to SSM was much stronger, and SSM opponents have targeted constitutional amendments for votes in states where support for SSM is weakest. Opposition to SSM was quite strong and reasonably stable until 2004. Since 2004, the rise in support has been remarkable. My estimate is 16 percentage points. Nate Silver estimates perhaps two or three percentage points a year and, according to a leaked memo, Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen finds support rising one point a year until 2009 and 5 points a year since. Seventeen states passed constitutional amendments by the end of 2004, and 27 did so by 2006. Even in 2008, when next three states passed amendments, support for SSM nationally was probably 8+ percentage points lower than it is today.
Read more from The American Prospect.
You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
