Time running out for legislators to come up with a budget plan (Capitol Updates)

Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol. You can sign up on his website to receive the Capitol Updates newsletter by email.

Because the legislative session began on February 1st this year, the calendar has given legislators an extra week to solve the state’s challenges. They may need it. The first seven weeks of the session are now in the past with ten weeks to go before the last Friday in May, the constitutional deadline for adjournment. The overriding issue that must be faced is funding for state government. There are few bills still alive that point to how legislators plan to do that. One is pretty much driven to conclude that that’s because as yet there is no plan.

A relatively small withdrawal from the Rainy Day Fund to help public schools and corrections try to stay afloat for the remainder of the current fiscal year has now been approved by the Legislature and signed by Governor Fallin. But the future beyond July 1st is still a blank canvas. The plain fact is that, to set the state on sound footing, there is going to have to be an increase in revenue. We’ve let our tax structure reach a point that it cannot, even with reasonably good oil and gas prices, support the quality of services almost everyone says we want.

To get anything meaningful accomplished this year, everyone has to do his part of the job. And that includes “we, the people.” Elected officials usually respond to their constituents. On July 11, 1989, Republican Governor Henry Bellmon caught the entire state by surprise when, citing an emergency in education funding, he unexpectedly called a special legislative session. In his autobiography Bellmon explained that he had attended a Republican teacher group expecting to be warmly received, but he “never encountered a more hostile group.” The teachers “were furious at their low level of compensation, shortage of funds for textbooks and supplies, and at the lack of significant progress in education funding throughout their careers.” After that, the governor brought up the idea of a special session with his cabinet and to his surprise found almost immediate and unanimous support. You never know what might make a message break through. But it’s the people’s job to send that message to those we’ve elected.

The governor’s job is to set the agenda. At the beginning of this session, Governor Fallin offered various proposals to raise $900 million in new revenue. Some of her proposals were specific; some were not. But she did what a governor is supposed to do. She recognized the problem and proposed a solution. Of course, her job does not end there. She has to fight for it and be flexible with legislators to find a solution they can actually pass. Arguably that’s going on now.

When the governor has set an agenda for increasing revenue, the next party to step up has to be the House of Representatives. Uncomfortable as it may be, the constitution says all revenue raising measures must start in the House. The Senate can start the discussion, which some Senators have done, but the action has to start in the House. I don’t know if that is more or less difficult under the legislature’s recently adopted top-down procedures. But the Senate, to do its job, will need time to deliberate and offer changes. So if the House is going to act, it needs to show its hand pretty soon. To try to have all this decided and agreed to by a few leaders without much public discussion and then pop it out in the last few days of session makes the possibility of meaningful action even more difficult. Some might say that with ten weeks left in the session, it’s already too late. Let’s hope not.