Fallin

Last week, Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill that should have anyone who cares about equal rights here take a deep breath and consider just how far the GOP will go in its continued war against women’s reproductive freedoms.

The bill, House Bill 2015, adds to the absurd and intimidating morass of reporting and paperwork physicians and patients must now complete whenever there is an abortion procedure. Alone that should be enough to significantly bother anyone who believes in women’s reproductive freedom, which is the major cornerstone of gender equality.

But the bill also added a new provision that would actually allow taxpayers, whether they are involved in a specific abortion or not, to sue doctors if they believe they are not meeting the requirements of the reporting law. Although this new provision seems entirely unconstitutional, it does have the potential to further intimidate physicians who perform abortions here.

The bill passed 79-15, with seven excused in the House, and 39-7, with two excused in the Senate. Its principal sponsors were state Rep. Sean Roberts, a Hominy Republican and state Sen. Kyle Loveless, an Oklahoma City Republican. The overwhelming vote majorities show the state legislature for the foreseeable future will continue to hassle abortion providers and their patients in a quest to end legalize abortion, which would have to happen by an unlikely U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

According to one media report, Fallin and the bill’s principal sponsors said the bill was needed to ensure doctors were complying with the law, but the added reporting requirements and making an lawsuit option available to people—let’s face it—who are simply opposed to abortion and will do about anything to stop it obviously make it a legal measure of intimidation and harassment.

Here is some of the language of the new reporting requirements in the bill:

Were the remains of the fetus after the abortion examined to ensure that all such remains were evacuated from the mother's body?

If the remains of the fetus were examined after the abortion, what was the sex of the child, as determined from such examination?

. . .

Prior to the pregnant woman giving informed consent to
having any part of the abortion performed or induced, if the
pregnancy was at least eight (8) weeks after fertilization, was the pregnant woman told that it may be possible to make the embryonic or fetal heartbeat of the unborn child audible for the pregnant woman to hear?

Note the old anti-abortion tropes that somehow women are getting abortions because of the sex of the fetus, which is a myth in this country, and the standard implication that hearing a fetal heartbeat SHOULD be some moral litmus test when it comes to abortion. Again, women should have the right to a private, non-intimating abortion procedure and physicians should be allowed to perform the procedure under accepted medical guidelines without the intrusion of anti-abortion dogma.

Here’s the language concerning the taxpayer lawsuit option in the bill:

If an abortion provider fails to submit any report required pursuant to Section 1-738k of this title, upon the refusal, failure or neglect of the State Commissioner of Health, within twenty (20) days after written demand signed, verified and served upon the State Department of Health by at least ten registered voters of the state, to institute or diligently prosecute proper proceedings at law or in equity to compel an abortion provider to submit any report required pursuant to Section 1-738k of this title but not yet submitted to the State Department of Health, any resident taxpayer of the state after serving the notice aforesaid may in the name of the State of Oklahoma as plaintiff, institute and maintain any proper action which the State Department of Health might institute and maintain to compel the abortion provider to file such report. If a court of competent jurisdiction determines the claims to be meritorious, the abortionist shall be compelled to file the report and to pay the fee(s) prescribed in subsection B of this section, with costs and reasonable attorney fees. If all claims stated by the resident taxpayers in the written demand are determined in a court of competent jurisdiction to be frivolous and brought in bad faith, the resident taxpayers who signed such demand and who are parties to the lawsuit in which such claims are determined to be frivolous and brought in bad faith shall be jointly and severally liable for all reasonable attorney fees and court costs incurred by the abortionist.

Beyond the excruciatingly awful legalese of this passage, note that the taxpayer who brings the suit may do so “in the name of the state of Oklahoma as plaintiff.” Note also the use of the word “abortionist” to refer to a physicians who perform the abortion procedure. Obviously, the bill is actively trying to encourage such lawsuits against “abortionists,” but without any legal standing or personal damage how could such a plaintiff really make a claim?

Can you imagine a legal system in which virtually anyone could file a lawsuit against you in the name of the state in which you live because they disagree with you on a political issue? If this provision is upheld, then the door is wide open to this sort of legal abuse and political intimidation.

Oklahoma has passed several anti-abortion laws in recent years that have made it more of a hassle to get the procedure performed here. This is because the state government is dominated by right-wing, religious folks who have supposedly made stopping abortion a priority. But the GOP, with the help of some Democrats, has also made it a visceral, wedge issue to manipulate religious Christian fundamentalists into voting against their financial interests. That political strategy has continued to be effective here, but make no mistake that the social costs here and the damage to the state’s national image have been high.

Intrinsic to gender equality is the idea that women control their own bodies and make their own decisions about their bodies. If women lose that right here, and such control is given to the state, then women will lose even more rights in the future, such as access to birth control and even beyond that. That a female governor signed this terrible bill into law should be an affront to all the state’s women, but, tragically, that won’t be the case. The wake-up call has yet to be heard, but it will come someday.

Oklahoma politics has long seemed incredulous under Republican dominance, but it reached a new level of weirdness early this week.

On Monday, Gov. Mary Fallin signed her highly-touted tax cut into law amid the usual GOP rhetoric about people keeping their “hard earned” money and joyful predictions of a stampede of new businesses and skilled workers soon to flood the state. This is just GOP code for what the bill really does, which is this: It rewards the wealthiest Oklahomans with a tax cut through an irresponsible decrease in state revenue.

Also, on Monday, Fallin signed a measure into law that raises fees for driver's licenses by $12 making it all a net financial decrease for many of the approximately 40 percent of Oklahomans who won’t even qualify for the tax cut. Under the law, the top income tax rate would drop from 5.25 percent in 2015 and then to 4.85 percent in 2016 if there are available revenues to cover the cut.

Meanwhile, an Oklahoma City attorney, Jerry Fent, has announced he plans to sue the state over the tax cut measure, House Bill 2032, because he argues it contains more than one subject, which is unconstitutional in Oklahoma. The bill provides for the tax cut and $120 million in repairs to the state Capitol building. This could be considered log rolling, a political technique used to sway legislators to vote on a bill even though they stand against one component of it.

So let’s get this straight: Fallin and GOP leaders are making hoopla over a tax cut that doesn’t even give a break to some 40 percent of Oklahomans and might not even go into effect anyway because of a lawsuit. The hike in the basic driver’s license fee and other licenses’ fees under Senate Bill 652 would mean thousands of Oklahomans are actually paying more, not less, to the state.

But that basic reality didn’t stop the GOP propaganda machine, which was in full throttle Monday. Here’s Fallin in a press release issued by her office about the tax-cut bill signing:

One of the first questions I get when I am talking to business owners throughout the country is, ‘if I come to Oklahoma, are you going to raise my taxes?’ Passing a significant and responsible tax cut will help us to recruit these businesses and retain the ones we already have. Our tax cut will ultimately lead to more job opportunities for all Oklahomans.

Is that really one of the first questions she gets from business owners? Does the state even need businesses that are owned by people fixated on getting out of paying taxes?

Fallin called the tax cut “responsible” in her remarks, but the responsible approach would have been to delay a cut until the economy has fully recovered and then, with interest rates at historic lows, authorize a bond interest to fix the state Capitol building.

House Speaker T.W. Shannon, a Lawton Republican, had his say, too.

The way you grow an economy is by letting hard working people keep more of their hard earned money. Oklahoma has proven this conservative principle to be true over the past 15 years. By lowering the income tax rate, we are attracting skilled and educated workers to our state and making Oklahoma a leader in business and economic growth.

What is Shannon talking about when he refers to the past 15 years? Prior tax cuts that mean the state remains dead last on a regional basis in per pupil funding and has some of the nation’s worst medical outcomes? The state’s new-age dependency on the federal government for its sustenance and viability? The fact state workers haven’t had an across-the-board raise in six years? What we do know for sure is that the Great Recession beginning in 2008 devastated state revenues, the state has not fully recovered and education funding has taken the brunt of the hit. That’s not disputable, and that’s five of Shannon’s 15 glory years right there.

The average tax cut per person is $81 annually, but it would collectively cost the state budget $136 million in 2015 and then more than $230 million in 2016 if that year’s tax cut does take effect, according to estimates. The $81 average is a bit misleading. The bulk of the cut goes to the wealthiest Oklahomans, who will see an average cut of $2,031 annually, according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute. OK Policy estimates 41 percent of Oklahomans won’t get any break, people with incomes from $19,500 to $36,400 would only get a $9 reduction annually, and, overall, the bottom 60 percent of income earners will receive only 9 percent of the cut.

But don’t think the GOP isn’t thinking about the poverty-stricken here. On Monday, Shannon also announced that Fallin had signed into law his House Bill 1908, which uses money from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds to pay for a public service campaign promoting marriage. In other words, the GOP is taking money away from a program that helps impoverished people to tell them they need to get married.

So the class warfare waged by Republicans here continues.

Will disparate interests lead to some type of legislative Grand Bargain in Oklahoma this year that includes an irresponsible tax cut, a reduction in workers’ compensation benefits for injured workers and a plan to codify delays in state infrastructure improvements?

Maybe so or maybe not, but conflating these different GOP initiatives seems not only like a recipe for political infighting but also just plain poor governance and lawmaking. Trading, say, a reduction in benefits for people losing their limbs on the job for a delayed but larger tax cut is a grim business. It’s also illogical and ego-based politicking unrelated to the specific consequences of legislation.

Struggling to find an agreement on a tax cut and what Republicans call workers’ compensation “reform,” the GOP bigwigs have essentially announced they plan to announce a deal next week that includes majority agreement on the two issues, along with the support of an eight-year, “pay-as-you-go” agreement to renovate some state buildings and infrastructure.

House Speaker T.W. Shannon, a Lawton Republican, said, “We just thought it made sense to make it an announcement altogether." Of course, there’s been no actual announcement yet. This is sort of an announcement about a pending announcement, which makes very little sense.

The principal players include Shannon, who wants to take the slow path to infrastructure improvement, Senate President Pro Tempore Brian Bingman, a Sapulpa Republican, who wants big changes in the state workers’ compensation system and Gov. Mary Fallin, who wants a tax cut, any tax cut it seems, to seal her GOP bonafides. The vested interests come complete, no doubt, with big and easily-bruised egos, or is that too much of an assumption?

Currently, on the tax-cut front, the Senate is negotiating House Bill 2032, a Fallin-supported measure that initially cut the top income tax rate from 5.25 percent to 5 percent next year without any offsets. The Senate, which had its own plan rejected by the House, then rewrote the bill. The new plan is to cut the rate to 4.95 percent, but not until 2015, and to sunset some tax credits.

A Senate plan to “reform” the state’s workers’ compensation system, contained in Senate Bill 1062, is now undergoing negotiations in the House, which is rewriting the measure. The bill is ostensibly about changing the system from a judicial process to an administrative process, but it also reduces benefits for those who get injured on the job. I wrote about it here.

So the Senate is rewriting the House’s tax bill and the House is rewriting the Senate’s workers’ compensation bill.

Meanwhile, Shannon’s infrastructure plan, House Bill 1910, which centralizes state property oversight and creates a long-term plan to renovate buildings, flies under the radar given the fact that the state Capitol building is crumbling to pieces before everyone’s eyes as Republicans announce their plan to make an announcement.

All these initiatives should be considered on their own merits without political tradeoffs unrelated to their purposes and consequences.

So here’s my own announcement of some common sense ideas: The tax cut should be put on hold because of the future loss in state revenue until the economy completely recovers from the Great Recession or until lawmakers get serious about overhauling the entire tax code. Any workers’ compensation bill that under the guise of “reform” severely reduces benefits for injured employees deserves to be defeated just for that reason alone, especially in Oklahoma. Why even implement a long-term, infrastructure renovation plan until the state Capitol building is repaired?