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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. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that overcrowding at the Tulsa Jail has prompted the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office to ask local judges to expedite the release of inmates who are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. The early release of Patricia Spottedcrow, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for selling $31 worth of marijuana, appeared to be in limbo after a “clerical error” by the state parole board. Rep. Mike Ritze has asked Attorney General Scott Pruitt if Tulsa County Commissioners can legally propose the Vision2 tax extension that starts after they leave office.
Oklahoma Policy Institute and Booksmart Tulsa will host an evening with author and blogger Matthew Yglesias and Oklahoma poet Lauren Zuniga. Two companies received $6 million from a state loan program to finance the relocation of 100 jobs to Oklahoma. Chesapeake Energy is fighting more than a dozen lawsuits after it began reinterpreting in its favor thousands of contracts with landowners.
Profits at Oklahoma banks in the most recent quarter were more than 20 percent higher than those of the same period last year. A climate science center based at the University of Oklahoma is beginning to get off the ground. A statewide initiative by the State Department of Health and partner groups is seeking to reduce Oklahoma’s high levels of infant mortality.
The Number of the Day is the unemployment rate through June 2012 in Oklahoma if you include all workers who report that they need a full-time job, but don’t have one. In today’s Policy Note, SCOTUSblog analyzes a U.S. District Court decision to block Texas’s stringent voter ID law.
In The News
Overcrowding at Tulsa Jail prompts Sheriff to ask for release of inmates
Overcrowding at the Tulsa Jail has prompted the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office to ask local judges to expedite the release of inmates who are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. Sgt. Shannon Clark said the request is not uncommon. “This has been ongoing for some time,” Clark said. “Any time that we are even getting close to 1,700, we are reaching out to the judges.” The Tulsa Jail’s inmate population was 1,733 Thursday – 19 more than its maximum capacity of 1,714. A month ago, the population was 1,697. The poor economy likely is a factor, he said, leading to more crime and making it more difficult for people to pay their fines. “They can’t make restitution for their debts to society, whatever that might be,” Clark said. “And they don’t know how to take care of them, so what you find is they have a warrant issued and warrant crimes go up.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Patricia Spottedcrow’s parole temporarily revoked due to ‘clerical error’
The early release of an Oklahoma woman whose 12-year prison sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana drew national attention appeared to be in limbo Thursday after a “clerical error” by the state parole board. Patricia Spottedcrow, 27 and a mother of four from Kingfisher, was given the sentence last year on her first criminal conviction, sparking backlash from supporters who used social media to push for her release. The Parson and Parole Board recommended in April that she be released, and Gov. Mary Fallin approved it, so Spottedcrow was transferred to a community correctional center in Oklahoma City to begin a work-release program. But she was returned to a minimum-security prison in Taft on Tuesday after the board withdrew its parole recommendation. Then a few hours later, she was returned to the Oklahoma City center when the board’s parole recommendation was changed to “suspended.” On Thursday, board officials blamed the change on a “clerical error.” But the mix-up may have affected her work-release job, and it still was unclear when Spottedcrow would be released.
Read more from the Enid News and Eagle.
Lawmaker seeks AG opinion on Tulsa County Vision2 issues
A Broken Arrow lawmaker has asked Attorney General Scott Pruitt if county commissioners can legally propose a tax extension that starts after they leave office. In a reference to the Vision2 proposal that Tulsa County commissioners have sent to voters to consider on Nov. 6, Rep. Mike Ritze asked Pruitt if commissioners are limited to proposing taxes that start within their own terms in office. The $748.8 million proposal to fund improvements to city-owned industrial facilities at Tulsa International Airport and quality-of-life improvements in Tulsa County and its cities would extend a 0.6 percent county sales tax from 2017 through 2029.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Upcoming event: An evening with Matthew Yglesias and Lauren Zuniga, Sept. 27
On Thursday, September 27, Oklahoma Policy Institute and Booksmart Tulsa will host an evening with author and blogger Matthew Yglesias. The event will be at the Dilly Deli, 402 East 2nd Street, Tulsa, OK 74120, beginning with refreshments at 7 pm and the program at 7:30 pm. It is free and open to the public. Matthew Yglesias is one of America’s most widely-read and respected bloggers and columnists. He is a business and economics correspondent for Slate in Washington, DC, where he writes the Moneybox blog. Previously he was a fellow at the Center for American Progress, an associate editor at The Atlantic, and a staff writer for the American Prospect.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Companies using state loan program to transfer operations to Oklahoma
Oklahoma’s low cost of doing business is getting the attention of companies from other states, the state’s bond adviser said Thursday. Jobs are being added in Oklahoma as companies transfer operations from Iowa and California to facilities in Enid and Tulsa. The companies involved are using a state loan program to help finance the deals. “We’re starting to see more businesses come in recognizing the benefits of a good labor pool, inexpensive land, low cost of operations,” said Jim Joseph, the state’s bond adviser. “You put those things together and it’s a pretty good business environment.” The state Council of Bond Oversight approved two financial deals Thursday of $3 million each that would help expand Oklahoma facilities. Each expansion project should mean an additional 50 jobs.
Chesapeake squeezes landowners on costs amid cash crunch
Donna Thornton made sure to include a no-cost provision in her contract with Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) that let the driller harvest natural gas beneath 2.5 acres of her property in Louisiana. Thinking she had excluded production and marketing expenses and would therefore secure higher royalty payments, the Texas accountant said she was shocked when she confirmed in July that the second-biggest U.S. gas producer was passing costs on to her. For Thornton and thousands more owners of mineral rights in the U.S., “no-costs” in drilling leases has taken on new meaning. As gas prices were heading toward a 10-year low in April, Chesapeake began reinterpreting in its favor thousands of contracts with landowners from Pennsylvania to Texas that own the 1 trillion cubic feet of gas the company produced last year, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Chesapeake, arguing that other contract language allows for cost deductions, is fighting more than a dozen lawsuits.
Oklahoma banks’ profits grow despite tighter interest margins
Oklahoma banks remain predominantly profitable, although tighter interest margins are squeezing some smaller banks, the head of the Oklahoma Bankers Association said Wednesday. Roger Beverage said quarterly figures issued this week by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reveal several encouraging trends among Oklahoma banks. “Net income is going up, capital is trending up, loans are trending up, albeit slightly,” Beverage said. “That’s good news for Oklahoma, generally, in terms of the strength of banks.” Profits at Oklahoma’s 238 FDIC-insured institutions totaled $340 million in the quarter, more than 20 percent higher than those of the same period last year.
Climate science center at University of Oklahoma names director
Ten months after it was announced, a climate science center based in Oklahoma is beginning to get off the ground. The South Central Climate Science Center is a consortium of four universities, two American Indian tribes and a federal agency. It is one of eight regional climate science centers managed by the U.S. Geological Survey. In October, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the University of Oklahoma had been selected to host the center. Since then, an office has been established on the OU Research Campus and this week a director was named for the center. Kim Winton, the center’s first permanent director, began work Monday. She has served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Oklahoma Water Science Center for the past 10 years and has also worked for the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Groundwater Risk Management Lab in Ada.
Reducing infant mortality focus of statewide initiative
Each year in Oklahoma about 400 babies die before their first birthday. Tragically, babies born in Oklahoma are less likely to survive to 1 year of age than those born in almost any other state in the country. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, Oklahoma ranks 44th in the United States in infant mortality, the death of a baby that is less than 1 year old. Oklahoma’s infant mortality rate is 7.85, which means that almost eight babies die per 1,000 live births in Oklahoma. Further, African American and American Indian babies die at higher rates than white babies, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH). Many factors contribute to the loss of an infant, such as maternal health, quality and access to medical care, socioeconomic conditions, and health practices of individuals and families. A statewide initiative, Preparing for a Lifetime, It’s Everyone’s Responsibility, works to positively impact many of those factors that contribute to infant mortality in Oklahoma.
Read more from the Native American Times.
Quote of the Day
Knowing that you may have more drought or knowing that you may have floods is one thing. But what do you do about it?
-Kim Winton, director of the South Central Climate Science Center at the University of Oklahoma. The new center will provide information to resource managers and the public about what changes they can expect to see from climate change and how to plan for them.
Number of the Day
10.3 percent
The unemployment rate through June 2012 in Oklahoma if you include all workers who report that they need a full-time job, but don’t have one; up from 8.4 percent three years ago.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Texas voter ID law can’t take effect
Treating Texas’s photo ID requirement for voters as “the most stringent in the country,” a three-judge U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday barred the state from enforcing it. If put into effect, the court found, the law would infringe on the voting rights of poor people in the state, who are predominantly racial or ethnic minorities, and that would violate the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. The decision set the stage for the same three judges to consider Texas’s claim that, if its law cannot stand under the Voting Rights Act, that Act is unconstitutional because it infringes too deeply on the power of states to control their own elections. Perhaps without waiting for that review to unfold, the state’s attorney general, Greg Abbott, announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court to challenge Thursday’s decision blocking the law. Texas’s voter ID law — known as “SB 14″ — was signed by Gov. Rick Perry in May of last year, but has never gone into effect because Texas is one of the states that, under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, must get official clearance in Washington before they can implement any change in state or local election laws. That requirement was imposed upon states that had a history of racial discrimination in voting.
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