OKLAHOMA CITY — Call it the problem of “what they need to be doing versus what they’ll get to do.”
With just over five weeks left before lawmakers return to the state capitol, the list of issues needing legislative action grows almost daily — education funding, teacher pay, health care, transportation, corrections and, of course, the budget all “desperately need attention.”
But many legislators — including some from Cleveland County — are concerned those issues will take a back seat to one which has dominated the state’s political landscape for more than a year: immigration.
And some worry the issue — like Frankenstein’s monster — just won’t go away.
With Moore Rep. Randy Terrill’s recent announcement that he plans to file the “son of” his previous immigration bill, House Bill 1804, some state lawmakers worry Terrill’s newest bill could divert attention from many other pressing issues.
“Immigration, it’s an issue that shouldn’t be No. 1, but it is,” said state Rep. Bill Nations, a Norman Democrat. “We ought to be talking about education and health care and other things, but Rep. Terrill has us talking about immigration.”
And that debate, Nations says, is a distraction.
“They should be dealing with it in Washington, D.C,” he said. “The bill that Randy wrote is causing economic hardships. It’s going to distract us from dealing with more important things. But you can rest assured there will be a lot of press and immigration will be a front page issue.”
Instead, Nations said, lawmakers should be working on issues such as health care.
“We need to look at some type of universal health care for children,” he said. “I don’t know if we are where it can happen, but there is a moral obligation to see if we can cover all the children in Oklahoma.”
And while Nations says lawmakers and policy experts haven’t solved the health care problem yet, he believes there is hope.
“State Insurance Commissioner (Kim) Holland’s task force isn’t quite finished with its study,” he said. “She and I have talked and I may be pushing their timing, but I believe there is a need to keep the conversation in people’s mind. We have a need and responsibility to do that.”
But health care isn’t Nations’ only concern.
A slow down in growth has the five-term Representative cautious.
“Our budget will be fairly quiet,” he said. “It’s not so bad a revenue picture that we’ll have to make drastic cuts.”
That is, cuts in spending or cuts in the tax rate.
“I certainly hope we don’t try any more tax cuts,” he said. “I agree with (OU President) Boren and the State Chamber of Commerce. We can’t afford any more tax cuts at this point. We already have incredibly low taxes and, by any way you want to slice it, we need to hold off on any future ones.”
An idea that some of Nation’s more conservative colleagues support.
“I think we’ll probably have to assess our situation,” said Moore Republican Paul Wesselhoft. “We don’t know how important additional tax cuts will be until we can see what our needs are and know how much money is available.”
Wesselhoft, who says “he’s not against tax cuts” said lawmakers should “exercise some caution” with future reductions in state revenue. “I read what President Boren had to say,” he said. “You’ve got to see the whole picture and see what the needs are.”
For Wesselhoft, those needs include repairing the state’s ailing roads and bridges and reducing the number of inmates in the state’s corrections system.
“The most important issues are roads and bridges and the corrections system,” he said. “We’re going to have a tighter budget than we did last year and getting our roads and bridges repaired and answering the problems with the corrections department, those issues should be our focus.”
To do that, Wesselhoft said he wants to earmark all the state’s growth revenue — about $32 million — for road and bridge repair.
“That means it won’t go to teaches salaries,” he said. “But infrastructure is not a sexy topic. It doesn’t lend itself to political rhetoric and gamesmanship. It’s not a ribbon cutting kind of policy.”
The state’s bridges, he said, are crumbling.
“Chunks are falling through windows and killing our citizens. That should send a chilling message to lawmakers. It’s a concrete example of why we should invest in infrastructure.”
Wesselhoft also wants to reduce the number of inmates in state prisons by expanding the use of community based sentencing programs, alternative forms of incarceration and drug courts.
“We have an overcrowded prison system,” he said. “We need to give more thought to putting those incarcerated for drugs into different programs. We are going to have to develop an alternative system, such as community sentencing for these people.”
State Sen. John Sparks, a Democrat, agreed.
“We should look at the reasons for incarceration,” he said. “We should decide if we can use alternative sentencing more.”
The issue, Sparks said, comes down to money. “Without over simplifying the deal it comes down to this: How much do we want to pay to keep people in jail?”
Sparks says he would rather earmark state revenue for education.
“We need to get a handle on our higher education system,” he said. “I think everyone would agree that higher education benefits the state. The numbers don’t lie. If you don’t have a healthy, well educated work force, economic development isn’t going to happen.”
Sparks said the state “needs to step up” and make higher education a priority. “It’s important to understand, this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s a commitment, a long term commitment. We’re not going to fix the problem in one year. It’s going to be an ‘every year’ issue that is going to take an ‘every year’ commitment.”
For state Rep. Scott Martin, a Norman Republican, the focus will be on transportation issues.
“We’re going to look at removing the trigger and the cap on transportation spending,” he said. “So I’m sure that will be something that’s heavily debated and discussed.”
Two years ago, Martin said lawmakers passed legislation which had a 3 percent growth trigger. “If growth hit 3 percent, there would be additional funding to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation,” he said. “If it didn’t there would be extra funding, but not as much.”
And while growth didn’t reach the 3 percent threshold during last year’s legislative session, Martin said it hit the mark after the session, but lawmakers “weren’t able to go back and appropriate additional funds for roads and bridges.”
“I’d like to review that,” he said, adding that he also wants to reapportion fuel taxes which should be going for transportation issues but currently are not.
Like Martin, state Rep. Wallace Collins agrees that lawmakers should focus on transportation. But unlike Martin, Collins, a Democrat from Norman, said that discussion will probably be on light rail.
“We should be looking at transportation issues,” he said. “And we’ll probably be dealing with rail, it will get some attention. But I don’t think ethanol as an alternative fuel is going to solve much of anything. I think it’s a distraction.”
Education and mental health, he said, along with the state’s prison system and pay raises for state employees “all need to be dealt with.”
“It’s vital that we deal with them,” Collins said. “I just hope we won’t get bogged down with immigration and more tax cuts.”
Editor’s note: Despite repeated attempts, State Rep. Randy Terrill, Sen. Jonathan Nichols or Sen. Anthony Sykes could not be reached for this story.
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