Ethics Reform

Murphey Legislative Update
28 May 2007

The House of Representatives recently passed major legislation amending the ethics rules that govern the fundraising conduct of the campaigns of Oklahoma politicians. These reforms include a new limitation on lobbyists' influence over elected officials. These ethics reforms were contained in House Bill 2210, sponsored by Lance Cargill, Speaker of the House.

Ethics reform is an issue about which I feel strongly. As an observer and participant in the political process, I have seen first hand how some ethics abuses are perpetrated. As a State Representative, I have also noticed how much influence lobbyists have over the legislative process. When I sought election to this office, I campaigned on a platform of ethics reform.

I am a strong defender of the rights of citizens to contribute to the candidate who reflects their point of view. I feel this is the way the average person can counter the tremendous influence lobbyists and special interests exert over elected officials. I am opposed to any attempt to lower the limit on the amount of money that a person can give a candidate for office. However, with the right to contribute to candidates must come the requirement of full disclosure. It is only fair that those who try and influence elections be held accountable if their message is dishonest. In order for people to be held accountable, it is necessary that their identity is disclosed.

An important reform in House Bill 2210 took a step towards requiring more disclosure by requiring certain third party groups to be subject to reporting standards similar to the groups that are in direct support of candidates.

Another reform in House Bill 2210 is the placement of a ban on political contributions inside the capitol building. It is at the capitol where the special interests work to swing the support of officials to their point of view. The average person does not have anywhere near this kind of access to their legislators. At the very least, this prohibition helps place citizens on a more even footing with professional special interests groups. I think this is just a common sense step to ethics reform.

The ethics reform bill also includes a ban on honorarium for lawmakers. I remember how shocked I was to learn that money is sent to lawmakers in the form of honorarium from those benefiting from state appropriations. I believe this is a practice that few in the general public are aware of. I am pleased to say that in addition to returning all political contributions from lobbyists and the pacs that employ lobbyists, I have also maintained a policy of returning all honorarium to the senders.

Not included in House Bill 2210 were earlier proposals by Speaker Cargill that would require monthly reports from candidates for office and greater application of the ethics rules to those who hold office at county level. It is my belief that these reforms did not occur due to the significant costs that would be imposed on the ethics commission, which is the board responsible for enforcement of ethics rules.

I do think there are additional reforms that should occur with our ethics rules. One of the foremost concerns I have is the lack of ability of the ethics commission to provide proper enforcement of the rules. If we are to be serious about enforcing ethics rules, we must take an important step by codifying these rules into law. Until we are willing to do this, the ethics enforcement process is rather ineffective.

It is my personal belief that the in the past the legislature has traditionally underfunded the ethics commission and kept the rules out of law as a way of insuring there would be few teeth in the enforcement process.

I also have some concerns with the way the bill was presented to the legislature. We were unable to get a copy of this bill until approximately 30 minutes before the vote was to occur. In those 30 minutes, I was able to verify that the ethics reforms listed above were in fact in the bill. However, this is far from the preferable process by which important legislation should be considered. Reforming the legislative process to control the last minute consideration of major legislation initiatives should be a priority of the legislature.

Murphey Legislative Update 5/24/2007

This week I was provided with a copy of the latest version of the
proposed state budget also known as Senate Bill 334. This bill will
contain the majority of the budget agreement recently reached between
legislative leaders and the Governor.

The 45 page bill proposes to spend over 6.9 billion of our tax dollars
as part of the fiscal year 2008 state budget. This budget will expand
the size of state government base appropriations by $377 million
dollars, or about 5.7% more than last year's bas appropriation of 6.5
billion dollars. If you have read budget related news stories or
caught the sound bytes on television, you may find this statement
confusing.

State leaders have said that one of the key successes of the 2008
budget proposal is that it actually shrinks the size of government a
small amount. While government base appropriations are higher in the
2008 budget, the amount of excess money from the previous year
(referred to as spill over money) is less, and the government does not
have as much extra money to spend in addition to base appropriations.
When base appropriations and spill over money are accounted for, the
government will spend 7.188 billion dollars this year compared to
7.196 billion last year. Thus the government will in fact spend 8
million dollars less this year than last year.

While I am certainly happy about the reduction in spending, I still
believe there is a tremendous amount of inappropriate spending in the
proposed budget. One of my greatest concerns is a section requested by
Governor Henry which would allow for additional bonded indebtedness of
the Oklahoma Higher Education system by about 50 million dollars. The
good news about this proposal is that it is only a fraction of the 663
million dollars of debt requested in Henry's initial budget. However,
I have stated my opposition to incurring any new indebtedness. If we
are serious about rolling back big government and enacting important
pro-growth reforms such as eliminating state income tax, the issue of
big government debt is not one we can ignore. Reducing the size of
government is difficult enough because of past inappropriate spending
by state politicians and new debt simply adds to this problem.

Henry's demand appears to have been at the core of his negotiations.
It appears that legislative leadership gave in to the demand in return
for the Governor's support of legislative tax cuts and such issues as
the audit of the Department of Corrections.

In upcoming days, the House will not only consider Senate Bill 334 but
will also vote on a number of individual agency appropriations bills.
These votes will give us an opportunity to reflect the desires of our
constituents who are for smaller government. I intend to vote no on a
number of agency bills that are either too large or altogether
inappropriate functions of government, and will certainly vote against
attempts to incur new debt.

I have been encouraged by the stance on streamlining government taken
by house leadership. House Speaker Lance Cargill recently released the
following statement. "The bottom line is that many state agencies are
duplicating what other parts of state government do. I'm sure the
defenders of the status quo will fight our efforts, but Oklahoma's
state government has simply grown too large. There are nearly 100
state agencies, and the average citizen must confront an alphabet's
soup of acronyms and confusing red tape. That's not serving the
taxpayers well. Oklahoma can do better."

The Speaker authored House Bill 2110 to create a BRAC-style commission
that will provide recommendations on consolidating state agencies and
ending outdated functions. This bill passed the House by a large
margin but was killed in Senate committee.

It is my hope that in future budget years, the legislature will not
maintain the present size of government, but shrink it significantly.

Murphey Anti-Terrorism Legislation Passes House

Murphey Anti-Terrorism Legislation Passes House

Contact: State Rep. Jason Murphey
Capitol: (405) 557-7350

OKLAHOMA CITY (May 16, 2007) – Saying millions in Oklahoma taxpayers' funds have been invested in European companies supporting Iran and other terrorist-sponsoring nations, state Rep. Jason Murphey has filed House Resolution 1026 to encourage the administrators of Oklahoma pension funds to divest from those companies. The resolution passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives this week.

Murphey, R-Guthrie, noted a report by The Center for Security Policy indicated 18 percent of the Oklahoma Teachers' Retirement System and 14 percent of the Oklahoma Public Employees' Retirement System has been invested in foreign companies having an estimated $71 billion worth of projects invested in terrorist-sponsoring nations, with a large number investing in Iran.

Murphey said it is basically illegal for companies based in the United State to do business with the government of a terrorist-sponsoring nation like Iran. However, because European companies are outside the jurisdiction of the United States, they can ignore the U.S. policy prohibiting individuals from helping the government of Iran rebuild its aging infrastructure. Murphey said the revenue generated by this infrastructure can be used by Iran and other terrorist-supporting nations to arm and train Hezbollah terrorists, shelter members of Al Qaeda, build Shehab 3 ballistic missiles and even piece together nuclear bombs.

"I don't believe the average state employee, teacher and taxpayer is fully aware that their retirement funds have been used in such a manner," Murphey said. "If they were aware of this, I feel lawmakers would have little option but to enact a change of policy."

Murphey said that the aging oil supply infrastructure in Iran will make it more difficult for the Iranian government to continue their policy of financing terrorist organizations. Oil revenue is estimated to account for as much as 50 percent of Iran's revenue. However, several European companies, including those in which Oklahoma funds are invested, have snubbed their noses at U.S. policy and are working to help Iran rehabilitate infrastructure.

"Without the threat of divestment, these companies will continue to support our enemies," Murphey said.

Individuals wishing to obtain a copy of the Center for Security Policy Report may do so by visiting www.housedistrict31.com .

Working To End Taxpayer Funded Abortions

This week the Oklahoma House of Representatives took action to again send to the Senate and the Governor an important pro-life measure. Senate Bill 139 (SB 139), authored by Oklahoma City Democrat Rebecca Hamilton, would stop the use of taxpayer money from funding almost all abortions. SB 139 is very similar to Senate Bill 714, which passed both the House and the Senate earlier in the session but was later vetoed by the Governor.

The Senate has twice attempted to override the Governor's veto of Senate Bill 714, but both attempts fell just one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed. Because the Senate could not override the veto, the bill was bottled up in the Senate and the House did not get to vote on the override attempt.

SB 139 offered an opportunity for those of us in the House to again press the issue that taxpayer resources should not be used for abortions. It is important for us to take action, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because of the groundswell of public support for this policy. I have received more calls in support of Senate Bill 714 than any other bill this year. It is clear that people do not want their tax dollars used to destroy life and they are demanding the government take action.

In order to entice the Governor to sign this measure, authors of the bill have used almost identical language as that in Senate Bill 714, with slight changes in wording. This new language may be instrumental in chipping away support from Senators who until now have been willing to back the Governor's veto.

In order for SB 139 to pass the House, it faced the difficult hurdle of two procedural votes requiring approval from two-thirds of the members of the House. Tony Lauinger, State Chairman of Oklahomans For Life, stated that these were the most important pro-life votes of the year. Each vote passed by a margin of one vote and I was pleased to cast my vote to help insure passage.

During the upcoming two weeks, your continued support of ending the policy of taxpayer funded abortions will be vital to the success of SB 139. Thank you for calling my office with your concerns. Please continue to contact the Governor and your Senator as well.

As always I may be contacted on the web at www.housedistrict31.com or on the phone at 557-7350.

Politicians Benefiting Off Of The Taxpayers

Murphey Legislative Update
5/8/2007

In the upcoming three weeks, the House will begin hearing conference committee reports. In this process, legislation goes up for a final vote. Historically, the process has been subject to much abuse as last minute legislation and appropriations quickly pass with little opportunity for scrutiny.

I have spent time analyzing this process and specifically how legislators have personally benefited from directing money through last minute appropriation bills.

An example of this abuse recently hit close to home. A company in which long time State Senator Gene Stipe held a partnership appears to have benefited from funds passed through two state agencies and then used to purchase a train from Stipe's company on behalf of a Guthrie organization.

In order to recognize future attempts at similar abuses, I have studied how one can follow the money trail from the state's general fund to the legislator's pockets.

The process works much like this. Late in the legislative year, powerful legislators make use of a shell appropriations bill (a piece of legislation appropriating money that had no numbers in it) by inserting an amount of money to be used for "special projects." One of the vehicles used by the legislators for this purpose in the past has been an appropriations bill for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Certain Department of Commerce appropriations would be earmarked to pass through the Department of Commerce to a second government entity, such as one of the regional government councils. The director of the regional government council would than receive a call from the House of Representatives or the Senate. The caller would instruct the director on how he should spend that money. Sometimes the instructions might be for the money to pass to another government entity or even to a non-government entity. This money would be passed on without a vote of the board of the regional government council.

In this way, the money took a variety of twists and turns that made it almost impossible for the public to track. Even many legislators had little opportunity to know the purpose for which money was spent. This allowed powerful committee chairs and high ranking legislators to have a tremendous amount of control over dispensing government largess. In some years, the amount of special projects money in the Department of Commerce alone amounted to million of dollars.

Fortunately, it appears as if term limits has significantly reduced the ability of some legislators from being able to direct special projects money. However, I am convinced that the prospect for this type of corruption remains high as long as government remains large. When government is small and limited, the public has a greater ability to monitor it and keep it honest. When government grows tremendously, it makes it easy for corrupt politicians to take money off the top for their own benefit.

During the upcoming weeks, I am committed to close scrutiny of the appropriations process as final action is taken on how millions of our tax dollars are spent.

Paying Our Debt

As your Representative, I am committed to reversing the disturbing trend of state government going deeper into debt. By one estimate, the state owes approximately $25,000,000,000 in long term debt and unfunded liabilities.

I feel strongly that state government should avoid long-term debt. It is irresponsible for politicians to saddle citizens with millions of dollars of indebtedness and then allow the bill to come due when they are no longer in office. This places debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren and makes reducing the size of government difficult because government will be forced to keep taxes high in order to pay debt and interest.

As a representative, I have a policy of voting against the issuance of new debt and have called for the passage of legislation which makes incurring it more difficult.

One of the most egregious examples related to this issue has been inappropriate spending by past politicians who have raided the teachers' retirement system, leaving us with $7,000,000 of unfunded retirement system liabilities. This problem is similar to the difficulties now faced by the federal government due to previous raids on the social security fund.

One of the first steps we must take to end this abuse is to make it more difficult to occur. The house recently took a positive step by enacting the Oklahoma Pension Legislation Actuarial Analysis Act. This legislation would inhibit attempts by politicians who wish to raid the fund.

Now that an effort has been made in this direction, the house took action to rectify past abuse by again funding the retirement system. In a recent vote, the House approved Senate Bill 357 to place 200 million dollars into the teachers' retirement system over the next five years. This will be done through increased contribution rates from education employers to be reimbursed by the state. Currently the rate is 8 percent for such employers, but within two years it would increase to over 9 percent. This plan would put the state on track to fund the teachers' retirement system at 80 percent in less than 25 years. Currently the system is a little under 50 percent funded.

If we can begin to repay this debt, it could improve Oklahoma's bond ratings, provide better rates on existing debt and save on interest payments. Hopefully, lower interest rates will not encourage Oklahoma's politicians to borrow even more.

If we are serious about rolling back big government and enacting important pro-growth reforms such as eliminating state income tax, the issue of big government debt is not one we can ignore. As it stands now, reducing the size of government is difficult enough because of past inappropriate spending by state politicians. The legislature must understand that while we must fund the debt we owe, it is our responsibility in representing the people to draw a clear line in the sand and defeat new attempts to mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren.