Tuesday, May 29, 2012

GRADING THIS YEARS SESSION ++ DID LOBBYISTS LINE UP AT 5:01 LAST FRIDAY FOR SENATOR JOLLEY?

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++  GRADING THIS YEARS SESSION
++  DID LOBBYISTS LINE UP AT 5:01 LAST FRIDAY FOR SENATOR JOLLEY?


++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon meeting for Wednesday, May 30th will be held at Italiano’s
restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This will be the last week for
interviewing Republican PRIMARY legislative candidates before the May
26th primary elections. Once we get past the primary races we will
begin interviewing Republican candidates who will be going up against
Democrat candidates in the general election in November. Invited to
attend for this Wednesday are David Davis, Shane Saunders and Ken
Walker, all of which are running for the HD 70 seat in Tulsa. Also
invited are 2 other candidates that are running against Republican
incumbents, they will remain unnamed at this time.

Congratulations to Brian Graham of Moore for winning our endorsement
last week in the HD 53 seat. It was another run-off vote, this time
between Mr. Graham and no-endorsement. Mark McBride came in a close
3rd place to no-endorsement. Usually when a candidate comes in behind
no-endorsement in a 3 way race it is because there is little
difference between the two actual candidates and our members therefore
don’t believe there is enough difference between the top two to make
an endorsement. I believe that was the case in this primary race as
both Mr. Graham and Mr. McBride did well on their surveys and did well
during our inquisition time. None the less, Mr. Graham did win on the
run-off vote and he deserves our endorsement.

Our members voted not to endorse the candidate opposing Gary Banz for
the HD 101 seat. This now makes 2 races where we didn’t endorse a
candidate that has decided to challenge one of the more liberal
Republican incumbents. As always we are trying to find and support
solid conservatives who have amassed enough resources and are working
hard enough to be able viable to be able to unseat these more liberal
Republican lawmakers. If a candidate does not measure up to those
standards, our members appear unwilling to give our endorsement and
financial support.

++  GRADING THIS YEAR’S SESSION

Like any legislative session, there were good things that happened and
bad things as well. At the start of last week, it was looking like we
would increase government spending of appropriated funds by $200,
million and then float enough bonded indebtedness to put our state
into an additional $300 million dollars of debt. It also was looking
like a poorly conceived tax cut (not family friendly) might pass, but
far short of anything hoped for at the start of the legislative
session.

In addition, government programs which should have been easy decisions
to eliminate, such as transferable tax credits and OETA escaped
unscathed during this year’s session. It was not a good year for pro-
life issues, especially since the supposedly pro-life Republican
majority would not send to the people a measure to amend our State
Constitution to establish that life begins at conception. For those
Republicans who didn’t support that measure, I wonder when they
believe that life begins? It is true, that if life is established as
beginning at conception, other legal problems may arise, but those are
other issues and deserve a different debate.

Nothing additional was done to deal with the continuing problems
associated with the invasion of illegal aliens. Also, the Senate
really dropped the ball on protecting the citizens of Oklahoma from
having foreign laws considered for the outcomes of cases in Oklahoma
courts. One of the more despicable performances staged by the senate
was a last minute measure by Senator Dan Newberry to pass an
unacceptable version of legislation passed in the House last year to
deal with that problem.

I believe Newberry’s phony effort was done in deceit to cover the
hinnies of the 4 Republican Senators (Cliff Brannan, Patrick Anderson,
Dan Newberry & Eddie Fields) who voted against the quality bill in the
rules committee a few weeks ago. In addition, 2 Republican Senators
(Clark Jolley and Mike Mazzei) didn’t bother to vote on the measure.
Newberry, Jolley and Mazzei needed to be able to vote on some kind of
a bill on this issue as they all 3 are facing Republican primary
challenges and they need to be able to tell voters they voted to
protect them from foreign laws being used in our courts. However, the
“phony” bill they passed was never intended to be heard in the House.
Now they can tell the voters: I voted against those evil foreign laws,
including Sharia Law, from taking over our court systems”. I’m a good
little Senator, vote to re-elect me.

On the positive side, it was the best year in a long time for 2nd
Amendment issues and we continued to improve government efficiency
through government modernization. The conservatives were able to kill
all the new bonded indebtedness, except Senator Clark Jolley’s pet
project of $42 million for a new Medical Examiners office. Senator
Patrick Anderson has been excellent on this issue and went the extra
mile by asking for an Attorneys General opinion on using the
University Masters Lease program for such a project. Please remember,
I am not opposed to building a new ME’s office, I am against borrowing
the money rather than just paying for the project with funds on hand.
As it turned out, with the elimination of the EDGE program, the state
is actually flush with money that could be used for important
infrastructure projects.

There are 3 primary people who deserve credit for killing the measure
to BORROW another $40 million dollars to finish the boondoggle known
as the Indian Cultural Center. First U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, I was
told by 3 different lawmakers that Senator Coburn called his former
aids who are now State Senators, Greg Treat and Josh Brecheen, where
he told them to spread the word among their colleagues that not only
would he not support anyone voting for this measure, he would support
a Republican running against them in a primary race.

Also, in a phone conversation the evening before, he had agreed with
Paul Blair on the issue and basically said that to spend all the
appropriated funds and then to borrow money for additional projects
and call it a balanced budget was a sham. He told Paul that under
those circumstances,  we might as well not even have a provision in
our constitution to have a balanced budget.

I haven’t seen the complete list of who voted against this project,
but I would guess that Senator Jolley voted against the measure as he
certainly wouldn‘t want Senator Coburn endorsing Paul Blair in their
heated Senate race (my mention of Senator Coburn agreeing with Paul
Blair, should NOT be misconstrued as an endorsement of Blair, I do not
want to imply that. Senator Coburn simply has a long history of
opposing deficit financing.).

The next person deserving credit is Senator Treat, who has led the way
to bring some accountability to this project and its run-away costs.
In an article in the Edmond Sun, he pointed out that to finish the
project would bring it to over $1,300 per square foot, several times
the cost which Devon spent to build their new corporate headquarters,
though high rise buildings usually cost more per square foot than
regular construction.

The third person deserving credit is Senator David Holt. Though
Senator Holt served Mayor Cornet as his chief of staff and is as big
an advocate of anyone in the legislature for OKC. Senator Holt stood
on principle and took Constitutional Privilege as he had a conflict of
interest through the law firm in which he is employed. His refusal to
vote on the project took tremendous character as he had to be under
extreme pressure from powerful forces in OKC. The measure only needed
one more vote to pass. Senator Holt would not cave and the measure
died.

At the beginning of last week I was ready to give the session a grade
of somewhere between a D- to a D+, the lowest grade I have passed out
since the Republicans gained control of at least one chamber of the
legislature (2004). However, conservatives had a surprising amount of
success the final week of the session and as such I give the session a
grade of somewhere between a D+ to a C. With the Republicans in full
control, we could do so much more. However, it is quite apparent we
don’t have a majority of strong, principled conservative Republicans
in control.

I hand delivered to every Republican lawmaker this past Wednesday
their annual invitation to participate in creating this year’s
Conservative Index which will be published in the Summer issue of the
Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper. Every Republican lawmaker has been
invited to our meeting on Wednesday, June 13th to debate on the bills
they submitted as to whether or not they really are a good choice for
the Index. One such measure sure to draw debate was the elimination of
the EDGE fund and transferring the principle to the University endowed
chair program and then the interest went to Governor Fallin’s Quick
Closing Fund. I say voting for this measure was the conservative vote,
but many conservative lawmakers will say that it was a liberal vote. I
also say that voting for the budget was a liberal vote, but many
conservatives will say it wasn’t, so as you can see, the meeting on
the 13th shall make for a lively debate.

++  DID LOBBYISTS LINE UP AT 5:01 LAST FRIDAY FOR SENATOR JOLLEY?

Without question the most heated and important Republican primary race
in the state between an incumbent and a Republican challenger is the
race between Senator Clark Jolley (R-Edmond) and Pastor Paul Blair,
his Republican challenger. While the legislature is in session, it is
against the law for a lobbyist or someone who employees a lobbyist to
contribute to a legislative candidate. Therefore, why might I think
that the lobbyists representing powerful special interests in Oklahoma
would be waiting in line to contribute to Senator Jolley just as soon
as the session is over?

Based on the campaign finance reports which had to be filed in April,
the Blair campaign had an expert examine Senator Jolley’s finance
report. Jolley reported raising $336,000 for his Republican primary
race. However, the expert reported that 90% of the money raised by
Jolley came from contributors outside of the district and 75% of it
came from lobbyists. I now believe that Senator Jolley will raise and
spend over a half million dollars to win his re-election bid. Half a
million dollars to win an Oklahoma primary race? Seriously? Can anyone
believe that? Really?

Here are a couple of questions the voters of SD 41 must ask
themselves. If a candidate spends 5 to 7 times the normal cost of a
heated primary race to try and convince the voters that he is a
conservative, does that person have any resemblance of conservatism in
spending practices? When this election is over, win or lose, Senator
Jolley will likely have spent $40 to $50 dollars per vote to try to
buy this election.

The second question is who will Senator Jolley represent, conservatism
and the people of District 41 or, those powerful people and special
interest groups that have funded his campaign? If you are having a
hard time answering that question let me help you out.

I believe it was January of 2010 when I attended a town hall meeting
where Senator Jolley was a speaker. During the Q&A time, I expressed
my disappointment with my Senator’s low Conservative Index score of a
40 for the 2009 session but asked him this question. Why did he vote
to force the people of Edmond to “borrow” $25 million dollars to build
low water dams on the Arkansas River in Tulsa to create an
entertainment district similar to the Oklahoma river in OKC? This was
especially important since the citizens of Tulsa had recently voted
down a measure to tax themselves for the project so why would he force
the citizens of his district to borrow the money and pay a the project
in Tulsa? At the same time Clark also voted to BORROW another $25
million for the Indian Cultural Center.

Senator Jolley tried to dodge the answer by attacking the Index,
something all lawmakers do when they score low on the Index, but I
kept re-asking the question and finally on the third try he answered
and to his credit, he answered honestly. He said he voted for the
measure because it was a priority of leadership and since he was a
part of leadership he voted for it. Based on past history, Clark
Jolley will vote for whatever the powerful special interests want, not
what is good for the citizens of District 41.

There were several very interesting people listed as contributors to
Senator Jolley’s campaign, two of which are  radical liberals. Former
Democrat Attorney General, candidate for Governor, and the liberal
star of the local political TV program flashpoint, Mike Turpin.
However, the more questionable contributor to Senator Jolley is the
close friend of President Obama, a campaign contribution bundler for
Obama and the beneficiary of an opportunity to invest in the green
energy firm (Solyndra) which had the backing of a half billion
taxpayer dollars. That person is the primary owner of Bank of Oklahoma
and Kaiser Francis Oil Company, Oklahoma’s wealthiest person, George
Kaiser.

Why would Kaiser, a big time Democrat, contribute to Jolley? Huuum,
could it be that Kaiser benefits off of corporate welfare, something
Senator Jolley loves to support? Did Kaiser support the Tulsa River
project? Did Bank of Oklahoma support the Tulsa vote on the project?
Are there other ways that Kaiser benefits from taxpayer largesse?
Don’t throw away your Sunday Oklahoman. Read the very important
article on page 5 section A titled: “Bank of Oklahoma subsidiary focus
of Tax Commission audit”.

The gist of the article is about a Bank of Oklahoma subsidiary
claiming it is owed $160 million dollars in tax credits, money that
has to be paid by the taxpayers. Featured in the article is State
Representative Mike Reynolds who really irritates many of his
colleagues, but without question has the best nose of any lawmaker in
the state when it comes to sniffing out possible corruption. One quote
by Reynolds in the article is as follows: “The abuse of taxpayers by
legislators who pass those kinds of programs is just beyond
comprehension.” Even more powerful is as follows: “Reynolds said he
believes the lawmakers who pushed the tax credit programs were fully
aware of their ramifications and ’refused to clean it up.’”

Do you thinks it could be that Kaiser and the State Chamber of
Commerce (the Chamber has mailed at least 2 independent post cards on
behalf of Senator Jolley so far) support Senator Jolley because he
believes in a command and control economy? Could it be that they love
for government to pad their pockets and those of their buddies with
corporate welfare? Is that why they support Senator Jolley?

I believe you have to go no farther for that answer than the yard
signs plastered all over Senate District 41 which lies in Edmond and
points East. Paul Blair’s signs have an American flag and a cross on
his signs which represent his Constitutional conservatism, belief in
limited government, and free enterprise based on Judeo Christian
values. When you look at Clark Jolley’s signs, they have a large
Capitol dome next to his name, representing Clark’s belief in big
government. The kind of government which picks the winners and losers
through the redistribution of taxpayer dollars.

Bottom line, if you want a free market capitalist with high moral
principles, someone who can’t be controlled by the powerful special
interest groups in Oklahoma then support PAUL BLAIR! On the other
hand, if you want someone who believes in the re-distribution of
taxpayer dollars in the form of corporate welfare, then by all means
vote for Clark Jolley. As it turns out, I believe he is the best
little puppet Senator, Oklahoma’s powerful special interest groups can
buy.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

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