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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.
Chesapeake Energy will face trial in Michigan on charges of felony racketeering and using false pretenses related to its land-leasing practices, a state judge has ruled. State Rep. Steve Vaughn (R-Ponca City) said he was considering new rules governing oil and gas wastewater disposal wells due to concerns about water pollution caused by the wells. A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that a Texas insurance executive promised to pay former Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Carroll Fisher’s legal bills in exchange for Fisher’s “non-cooperation” with a state investigation into his business activities. The lawsuit also alleges that the executive spent ten of thousands to support current Insurance Commissioner John Doak’s election bid.
David Blatt’s Journal Record column shared the latest evidence that Obamacare is working to expand health coverage and slow the growth of health care costs. Two Norman high schools ranked in the top 1 percent in a list by Newsweek of the best high schools in America. The Oklahoma School Security Institute and Homeland Security have launched an emergency tip line, hoping it will prevent school shootings before they happen. A Tulsa non-profit is launching an effort to connect foster families with children attending particular Tulsa schools. MSNBC reported on the growing trend of hiking court fees in Oklahoma and other states to make up for state budget cuts, resulting in those who can’t afford to pay being sent to jail. On the OK Policy Blog, Camille Landry shared stories from the numerous Oklahomans struggling with hunger.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke about race and inequality at a University of Tulsa event for students and faculty. Sotomayor also visited Booker T. Washington High School and will talk to law students at Oklahoma City University and the University of Oklahoma Thursday and Friday. Several more religious and social justice groups denounced anti-Muslim comments made by a state legislator, but Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, said he is standing by his statement that people should be wary of those who say they are “Muslim American.”
The Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce’s OneVoice consortium, which includes about 60 chambers of commerce, local governments and public and private institutions, released its legislative priorities for 2014. Top priorities include preserving and expanding education funding and preserving and expanding Insure Oklahoma to cover the uninsured. You can see the full OneVoice agenda here. Oklahomans concerned about the placement of wind farms and how a new state law on rooftop solar panels will work can attend two meetings Thursday at the Corporation Commission in Oklahoma City.
The Number of the Day is Oklahoma’s ranking for the well-being of girls in the state by a Girl Scouts of America report. In today’s Policy Note, CNN reports on how the campaign for paid sick leave for all workers is picking up steam in cities and states throughout the country. Oklahoma is one of a few states that have banned local governments from requiring paid sick leave.
In The News
Chesapeake Energy to face racketeering charges in Michigan trial
Natural gas and oil producer Chesapeake Energy Corp must face trial on charges of felony racketeering and using false pretenses related to its land-leasing practices, a state judge has ruled. Cheboygan District Court Judge Maria Barton ruled on Monday that Oklahoma-based Chesapeake go to trial on one charge of racketeering and 20 counts of using false pretenses to allegedly defraud private landowners in the state during an oil and gas leasing boom in 2010. Barton ruled after a hearing last month. No trial date has been set.
Disposal well regs should be examined, lawmaker says
A state representative, concerned about possible water pollution caused by oil and gas drilling, said Tuesday he was considering new rules governing disposal wells, following an interim hearing on the use of sub-groundwater in hydraulic fracturing. State Rep. Steve Vaughn, R-Ponca City, said he was “still exploring his options” regarding new legislation to tighten the regulation of oil field disposal wells. Vaughn said there were 22,000 disposal wells in his district, but only one state inspector assigned to the area. In a media statement distributed after the meeting, Vaughn said many of the older wells in his district were prone to leaks.
Read more from Oklahoma Watch.
Lawsuit alleges Texas insurance executives bribed former Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner, underwrote current Insurance Commissioner’s election
Texas insurance executive Gene Phillips agreed to pay former Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Carroll Fisher’s legal bills in exchange for Fisher’s “non-cooperation” with a state investigation into Phillips’ business activities, a lawsuit filed in Tulsa federal court alleges. Dan Hagood, a Dallas attorney who represented Fisher, claims in the suit filed Monday that he is still owed $467,000 out of nearly $1 million in fees and expenses billed. In his lawsuit, Hagood also alleges that Jones and Phillips — referred to as “the Organization” throughout the suit — spent “tens of thousands of dollars to organize and implement the election of the Organization’s handpicked candidate to be Insurance Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma in 2010.” Hagood confirmed that the lawsuit is talking about current Insurance Commissioner John Doak.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Guess what? Obamacare is working.
The Obama administration’s health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act, has been in full effect since January. Despite all the obstacles, from the intractable resistance of many governors and state legislatures to the flawed rollout of the Healthcare.gov website, one thing is now clear: Obamacare is working. The biggest success has been the strides made towards advancing the law’s primary goal of reducing the number of uninsured Americans. Since individuals have been able to purchase coverage on the new health insurance marketplaces with the help of tax credits and some states have expanded Medicaid, the uninsured rate for working-age adults has dropped to 13.9 percent from 18.5 percent.
Read more from the Journal Record.
Newsweek ranks Norman schools in top 1 percent
Newsweek has released its Top High Schools in America 2014 and both Norman North and Norman High have made the list. Norman North was ranked by the magazine as the 330th best school in America (and the highest in Oklahoma), and Norman High came in at 443. With approximately 30,000 high schools in America, Newsweek’s rankings for Norman’s high schools place them in the top 1 percent in the country. On a second list that took into account a school’s success at closing achievement gaps between students from low- and higher-income families, Newsweek ranked Norman High as the country’s 162nd best high school.
Read more from the Norman Transcript.
New Oklahoma tip line hopes to prevent school schootings
The Oklahoma School Security Institute and Homeland Security installed a new emergency tip line, hoping it will prevent school shootings before they happen.The line will be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Fusion Center. “All of this came about because, after Newtown, Connecticut, Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb put together a school security commission to figure out what we can be doing to prevent things like what happened at Newtown,” Oklahoma School Security Institute project manager Jennifer Newell said. “One of the items that continually came up is we don’t really have a way to report tips.”
Nonprofit seeks to find foster parents connected to schools
The Child Protection Coalition could be on to something with its new approach to seeking foster families in Tulsa: Go to the schools. In a meeting Wednesday morning among parent facilitators, volunteers and parents of Tulsa Public Schools, a partnership between the nonprofit, district and Oklahoma Department of Human Services was explained. Families recruited through the schools and approved by DHS as foster homes would be reserved for children of that school. This would allow children in crisis keep consistency of their education, and families would already be familiar with the school.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Will the government stop using the poor as a piggy bank?
Kyle DeWitt was sentenced to three days in jail after he couldn’t afford to pay a fine for catching a fish out of season in Michigan. Nicole Bolden spent a day in a Missouri jail after failing to appear in court for traffic violations she couldn’t pay, either. Now public officials are finally beginning to reconsider the policies that have essentially punished ordinary Americans like DeWitt and Bolden for being poor. … Even as the economy has improved, court budget cuts have continued in states like Oklahoma, which cut 7% of the district court budget in Fiscal Year 2014. The courts’ growing ability to rake in money through fees and fines may encourage future cutbacks as well.
Hunger all around
Hunger is all around me: At a pool in a suburban park on a steamy Oklahoma summer afternoon: “I used to love summer,” one mom said, “but I’ll be glad when school starts.” “Tired of having them underfoot already?” I asked. “Not really. It’s just a struggle to feed them when school is out. They get breakfast and lunch at school. In the summer I have to pay for child care while I work, plus the two extra meals each day. I can’t scrimp on daycare so I have to cut back on food.” In the doctor’s waiting room: The grandmother of my daughter’s best friend, a retired state worker, tells me, “I’ve got diabetes and my pressure is high and I know the doctor’s going to give me heck about what I’ve been eating. My money just doesn’t go far enough.”
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Sotomayor says race still matters in America
Sonia Sotomayor’s life could have turned out much differently. Chances are good she would have still become a lawyer. She says she decided on that by age 10. But it’s unlikely she would have gone to Princeton and Yale Law, become a prosecutor, a judge and finally an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, had a high school friend not explained a few things to her. He had gone to Princeton, largely through the work of a teacher at their Bronx high school. “He called me and said, ‘Sonia, come to Princeton. You have to go to an Ivy League school.’ And I said, ‘What’s an Ivy League school? “I was a good student,” Sotomayor said Wednesday at the University of Tulsa. “But I wouldn’t even have known to apply, because I came from a world where that wasn’t part of the expectations. And that’s true of a lot of kids in a lot of neighborhoods.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Social justice groups join together to condemn Oklahoma lawmaker’s anti-Muslim comments
Several social justice groups joined together Wednesday to denounce anti-Muslim comments made by a state legislator — and the leader of one advocacy organization called for the lawmaker’s immediate resignation. However, state Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, said he has no intention of resigning. “I stand behind what I said, and I’m sure not going to resign,” Bennett said Wednesday in a phone interview with The Oklahoman. Last week, the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized Bennett and asked him to apologize for his Facebook post saying people should be wary of those who say they are “Muslim American.”
OneVoice consortium sets legislative priorities
The Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce’s OneVoice consortium, which includes about 60 chambers of commerce, local governments and public and private institutions, held its annual summit to determine the 10 state and 10 federal priorities they intend to put their combined lobbying efforts behind in the coming year. This year’s lists were not particularly surprising. On the state side, education, health care and the Gilcrease west loop were favorites. New revenue sources for municipal governments was also near the top. The federal list was heavy on infrastructure.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission to study wind, solar issues
Oklahomans concerned about the placement of wind farms and how a new state law on rooftop solar panels will work can attend two meetings Thursday at the Corporation Commission in Oklahoma City. In the morning, the first technical conference for a notice of inquiry on wind farms will be held by the commission’s public utility division. The inquiry was requested by Senate President Pro Tempore Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, after several pieces of proposed wind legislation brought up issues involving siting, setbacks and decommissioning. In the afternoon, Commissioner Dana Murphy will host an informational meeting on how to implement Senate Bill 1456, which allows regulated electric utilities to establish a new, higher rate structure for users of rooftop solar panels and small wind turbines.
Quote of the Day
“It does stem from the legislature wanting the court to become self-sufficient so they don’t have to fund the courts. It’s a regressive tax—a tax against poor people.”
-Joe Robertson, executive director of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, speaking about Oklahoma’s moves to hike court fees while slashing the top income tax rate (Source: http://on.msnbc.com/1CTEosB)
Number of the Day
46th
Oklahoma’s ranking for the well-being of girls in the state. Factors considered included physical health and safety, economic well-being, education, emotional health and extracurricular activities.
Source: Girl Scouts of America
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
City by city, the campaign for sick days picks up steam
Got the flu? Or a new baby? Perhaps a little one with chicken pox? In most countries, your employer must pay your wages if you stay home sick or to care for others. Not in America. But a growing grassroots movement aims to change that — starting with paid sick leave. Already it’s met some success. Recently, California became the second state in the country to mandate sick leave for employees. Others may join soon. Sick-day measures are on at least a half-dozen ballots in November, including in Massachusetts, Oakland, California, and several cites in New Jersey. At least six more states will take up the issue in 2015.
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