This year, Representative Charles Key presented the Oklahoma House of Representatives with a proposed rule change to require that all bills must receive a hearing from the House committee to which they were assigned.
The proposal posits that by virtue of his election, a State Representative should have the right to ask for an on-the-record vote by Oklahoma’s policy makers for or against an idea.
I have observed at all levels of government that those who do not want to be on the record with a controversial vote will try to control the agenda and deprive one of their own members from the right to place an item before the group for consideration. Filtering agenda items through a chairman or mayor is probably the most common method used by those who wish to have exclusive control over the agenda.
I have always felt that it should be a fundamental right of an elected official to place an item before a board and at the very least receive an on-the-record vote.
At some point in the past, the Legislature put in place the system by which the chairman of a committee was granted the discretion over which bills would be heard and which bills would not receive consideration.
There are rarely used provisions of the rules that allow the members of a committee to bypass the chairman, but excising these provisions are so controversial that they are almost never attempted.
This vests a tremendous amount of authority in the handful of a few chairmen and essentially creates two classes of legislators. As you might imagine, the special interests and lobbyists heavily invest in a chairman’s re-election committees, almost guaranteeing the chairman’s re-election. Of course, this also makes the chairman very responsive to the special interests. This warps the policy-making process and in my view, provides an unhealthy advantage to the special interest.
I am certainly the first to admit that many bad pieces of legislation quickly disappear without consideration because of this system. This is probably the most convincing argument used by the proponents of the status quo. But I am a big believer in the fact that even if it costs him his next election, it is the job of the legislator to man up and vote “No” on bad legislation.
I supported the Key proposal. While his effort was not successful this year, I believe that the groundwork has been laid for continual reforms in this area. Over the past seven years, the House has experienced a series of process and transparency reforms and I am optimistic that they will continue in a responsible yet consistent manner. In my view, the time is not far off when each bill will receive a hearing.
Next week, I will write about how I reconcile my belief that each bill should be heard with my responsibilities as a committee chairman in a system where committee chairmen are expected to kill bad legislation.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
All Bills Should Receive a Vote
This year, Representative Charles Key presented the Oklahoma House of Representatives with a proposed rule change to require that all bills must receive a hearing from the House committee to which they were assigned.
The proposal posits that by virtue of his election, a State Representative should have the right to ask for an on-the-record vote by Oklahoma’s policy makers for or against an idea.
I have observed at all levels of government that those who do not want to be on the record with a controversial vote will try to control the agenda and deprive one of their own members from the right to place an item before the group for consideration. Filtering agenda items through a chairman or mayor is probably the most common method used by those who wish to have exclusive control over the agenda.
I have always felt that it should be a fundamental right of an elected official to place an item before a board and at the very least receive an on-the-record vote.
At some point in the past, the Legislature put in place the system by which the chairman of a committee was granted the discretion over which bills would be heard and which bills would not receive consideration.
There are rarely used provisions of the rules that allow the members of a committee to bypass the chairman, but excising these provisions are so controversial that they are almost never attempted.
This vests a tremendous amount of authority in the handful of a few chairmen and essentially creates two classes of legislators. As you might imagine, the special interests and lobbyists heavily invest in a chairman’s re-election committees, almost guaranteeing the chairman’s re-election. Of course, this also makes the chairman very responsive to the special interests. This warps the policy-making process and in my view, provides an unhealthy advantage to the special interest.
I am certainly the first to admit that many bad pieces of legislation quickly disappear without consideration because of this system. This is probably the most convincing argument used by the proponents of the status quo. But I am a big believer in the fact that even if it costs him his next election, it is the job of the legislator to man up and vote “No” on bad legislation.
I supported the Key proposal. While his effort was not successful this year, I believe that the groundwork has been laid for continual reforms in this area. Over the past seven years, the House has experienced a series of process and transparency reforms and I am optimistic that they will continue in a responsible yet consistent manner. In my view, the time is not far off when each bill will receive a hearing.
Next week, I will write about how I reconcile my belief that each bill should be heard with my responsibilities as a committee chairman in a system where committee chairmen are expected to kill bad legislation.
The proposal posits that by virtue of his election, a State Representative should have the right to ask for an on-the-record vote by Oklahoma’s policy makers for or against an idea.
I have observed at all levels of government that those who do not want to be on the record with a controversial vote will try to control the agenda and deprive one of their own members from the right to place an item before the group for consideration. Filtering agenda items through a chairman or mayor is probably the most common method used by those who wish to have exclusive control over the agenda.
I have always felt that it should be a fundamental right of an elected official to place an item before a board and at the very least receive an on-the-record vote.
At some point in the past, the Legislature put in place the system by which the chairman of a committee was granted the discretion over which bills would be heard and which bills would not receive consideration.
There are rarely used provisions of the rules that allow the members of a committee to bypass the chairman, but excising these provisions are so controversial that they are almost never attempted.
This vests a tremendous amount of authority in the handful of a few chairmen and essentially creates two classes of legislators. As you might imagine, the special interests and lobbyists heavily invest in a chairman’s re-election committees, almost guaranteeing the chairman’s re-election. Of course, this also makes the chairman very responsive to the special interests. This warps the policy-making process and in my view, provides an unhealthy advantage to the special interest.
I am certainly the first to admit that many bad pieces of legislation quickly disappear without consideration because of this system. This is probably the most convincing argument used by the proponents of the status quo. But I am a big believer in the fact that even if it costs him his next election, it is the job of the legislator to man up and vote “No” on bad legislation.
I supported the Key proposal. While his effort was not successful this year, I believe that the groundwork has been laid for continual reforms in this area. Over the past seven years, the House has experienced a series of process and transparency reforms and I am optimistic that they will continue in a responsible yet consistent manner. In my view, the time is not far off when each bill will receive a hearing.
Next week, I will write about how I reconcile my belief that each bill should be heard with my responsibilities as a committee chairman in a system where committee chairmen are expected to kill bad legislation.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Supporting the Balanced Budget Amendment
Last month, a grassroots group known as Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) sought support from legislators across the nation to bring attention to the need for a balanced budget amendment to the United States constitution. Since three-fourths of the states must ratify any constitutional amendment, it is important for state legislators to support the proposal.
This is not a new concept. In 1982, President Ronald Regean called on Congress to approve a balanced budget amendment.
Reagan stated, “This amendment will, of course, have to be ratified by three-fourths of the States. But I'm confident that the grassroots support for a balanced budget amendment is out there and will carry the day against the special interests. Most Americans understand the need for a balanced budget, and most Americans have seen how difficult it is for the Congress to withstand the pressures for more spending. This amendment will force government to stay within the limit of its revenues. Government will have to do what each of us does with our own family budgets -- spend no more than we can afford. Only a constitutional amendment will do the job. We've tried the carrot and it failed. With the stick of a balanced budget amendment, we can stop government squandering, overtaxing ways, and save our economy.”
Congress never heeded Reagan’s call. At that time, the national debt was under 2 trillion dollars. Now, the debt is set to surpass 14 trillion dollars, and charts show the debt is rapidly increasing in a frightening hockey stick curve.
I believe that when Congress refused to heed Reagan’s call, they may have passed the point of no return. However, some in Congress have viewed the recent debate over raising the national debt limit as another opportunity to introduce the balanced budget amendment.
I felt this issue was of such importance that I volunteered to circulate a letter documenting the commitment of Oklahoma legislators to ratify the amendment.
I am happy to report that there is a tremendous amount of support for the proposal in our legislature. Getting legislators to sign a policy letter during a legislative interim is not an easy task. However, the sentiment for the issue was so strong, that 42 legislators immediately signed on. I don’t think I ever recall a time when so many legislators signed onto a policy letter.
After the letter was mailed, a significant number of additional legislators expressed a desire to also sign the letter. We will have to send another letter. In total, it appears that a bi-partisan majority of the Oklahoma House of Representatives will have signed on.
There is little doubt that if given the opportunity, Oklahoma will become one of the first states to ratify the balanced budget amendment.
This is not a new concept. In 1982, President Ronald Regean called on Congress to approve a balanced budget amendment.
Reagan stated, “This amendment will, of course, have to be ratified by three-fourths of the States. But I'm confident that the grassroots support for a balanced budget amendment is out there and will carry the day against the special interests. Most Americans understand the need for a balanced budget, and most Americans have seen how difficult it is for the Congress to withstand the pressures for more spending. This amendment will force government to stay within the limit of its revenues. Government will have to do what each of us does with our own family budgets -- spend no more than we can afford. Only a constitutional amendment will do the job. We've tried the carrot and it failed. With the stick of a balanced budget amendment, we can stop government squandering, overtaxing ways, and save our economy.”
Congress never heeded Reagan’s call. At that time, the national debt was under 2 trillion dollars. Now, the debt is set to surpass 14 trillion dollars, and charts show the debt is rapidly increasing in a frightening hockey stick curve.
I believe that when Congress refused to heed Reagan’s call, they may have passed the point of no return. However, some in Congress have viewed the recent debate over raising the national debt limit as another opportunity to introduce the balanced budget amendment.
I felt this issue was of such importance that I volunteered to circulate a letter documenting the commitment of Oklahoma legislators to ratify the amendment.
I am happy to report that there is a tremendous amount of support for the proposal in our legislature. Getting legislators to sign a policy letter during a legislative interim is not an easy task. However, the sentiment for the issue was so strong, that 42 legislators immediately signed on. I don’t think I ever recall a time when so many legislators signed onto a policy letter.
After the letter was mailed, a significant number of additional legislators expressed a desire to also sign the letter. We will have to send another letter. In total, it appears that a bi-partisan majority of the Oklahoma House of Representatives will have signed on.
There is little doubt that if given the opportunity, Oklahoma will become one of the first states to ratify the balanced budget amendment.
Monday, July 18, 2011
State Officials Making a Difference
During the past three weeks I have used this medium to describe the role Oklahoma’s newly elected officials have played in working toward smaller state government.
I initially envisioned that I would write about this in just one article. However, I have observed so many different attempts by these officials to eliminate wasteful spending, that one article has grown into four.
I enjoyed the opportunity to work with new Labor Commissioner Mark Costello this year. I spent a significant amount of time this year working with Labor Department officials as part of our state agency consolidation processes. Costello has made of point of declaring his opposition to “sacred cows” in state government and has been a strong advocate for reducing the size of government through agency consolidation. I look forward to working with Costello in the future to consolidate unnecessary overhead in state government. Without a doubt, Costello has emerged as one of the state’s leading advocate for government reform.
I am also extremely appreciative of the fact that new Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb is drawing attention to the state’s need for asset management. You may recall in the past that I have described how state assets such as buildings have not even been included in a centralized inventory. Can you image what would happen to a privately owned business that could not even tell you what buildings it owned? A cursory compendium of state assets has recently been curated, and this document should provide us a start in attempting to get a handle on this huge problem.
The Lieutenant Governor’s leadership on this issue will be crucial in finding the millions of dollars of state assets that should be removed from the hands of the government and returned to the free market where they belong.
This fall, the Government Modernization committee will conduct a study led by State Representative TW Shannon to analyze the need for a much more aggressive state asset management solution.
Finally, a most dramatic transformation has occurred in the state Department of Education. You may recall from a previous article how at the end of 2010, the department refused to follow state law that required an assessment of their information technology assets. This was an important study that was necessary to determine the possible money savings from the implementation of an enterprise-wide IT consolidation plan. It was incredible that a state bureaucracy just ignored the law.
Once new Superintendent of Education Janet Barresi took office, all of this changed. The Department of Education transformed into a leader in following the IT consolidation law and actually became the first large state agency to consolidate under the state’s IT consolidation plan. The savings is expected to run as high as $600,000 each year. At a time when too many state agencies are still fighting the IT consolidation, it is very exciting to see this type of transformation occur inside a state bureaucracy. $600,000 is a lot of money and the taxpayers have been well served by this decision.
I believe these actions reflect the fact that many of Oklahoma’s newly elected officials have a real desire to reduce government spending. I am confident that most of them will remain true to this goal and that Oklahoma will be well served in the upcoming years.
I initially envisioned that I would write about this in just one article. However, I have observed so many different attempts by these officials to eliminate wasteful spending, that one article has grown into four.
I enjoyed the opportunity to work with new Labor Commissioner Mark Costello this year. I spent a significant amount of time this year working with Labor Department officials as part of our state agency consolidation processes. Costello has made of point of declaring his opposition to “sacred cows” in state government and has been a strong advocate for reducing the size of government through agency consolidation. I look forward to working with Costello in the future to consolidate unnecessary overhead in state government. Without a doubt, Costello has emerged as one of the state’s leading advocate for government reform.
I am also extremely appreciative of the fact that new Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb is drawing attention to the state’s need for asset management. You may recall in the past that I have described how state assets such as buildings have not even been included in a centralized inventory. Can you image what would happen to a privately owned business that could not even tell you what buildings it owned? A cursory compendium of state assets has recently been curated, and this document should provide us a start in attempting to get a handle on this huge problem.
The Lieutenant Governor’s leadership on this issue will be crucial in finding the millions of dollars of state assets that should be removed from the hands of the government and returned to the free market where they belong.
This fall, the Government Modernization committee will conduct a study led by State Representative TW Shannon to analyze the need for a much more aggressive state asset management solution.
Finally, a most dramatic transformation has occurred in the state Department of Education. You may recall from a previous article how at the end of 2010, the department refused to follow state law that required an assessment of their information technology assets. This was an important study that was necessary to determine the possible money savings from the implementation of an enterprise-wide IT consolidation plan. It was incredible that a state bureaucracy just ignored the law.
Once new Superintendent of Education Janet Barresi took office, all of this changed. The Department of Education transformed into a leader in following the IT consolidation law and actually became the first large state agency to consolidate under the state’s IT consolidation plan. The savings is expected to run as high as $600,000 each year. At a time when too many state agencies are still fighting the IT consolidation, it is very exciting to see this type of transformation occur inside a state bureaucracy. $600,000 is a lot of money and the taxpayers have been well served by this decision.
I believe these actions reflect the fact that many of Oklahoma’s newly elected officials have a real desire to reduce government spending. I am confident that most of them will remain true to this goal and that Oklahoma will be well served in the upcoming years.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Modernizing the State Treasurer's Office
This year I enjoyed the opportunity to work with several of Oklahoma's new statewide elected officials in their efforts to modernize state government. I served as the House author for modernization legislation on behalf of State Treasurer Ken Miller, State Auditor Gary Jones, Attorney General Scott Pruitt and State Superintendent Janet Barresi.
When State Treasurer Ken Miller took office, he commissioned his staff with the responsibility of finding inefficiencies and drafting proposed updates of state law when necessary to address those inefficiencies.
Miller’s modernization proposal was sponsored in the form of Senate Bill 571. The bill was authored by Senator Clark Jolley in the Senate and I carried the bill in the House.
Senate Bill 571 targeted several areas. The bill updated procedures for the liquidation of properties deposited into the state’s unclaimed property fund. In the past, state officials had to engage in antiquated and duplicative procedures that added unnecessary cost and had to eventually be paid by those who owned the property. Miller’s bill streamlined those unnecessary process procedures so that the unnecessary cost was not passed on to property owners.
Miller also noted that the state had thousands of dollars remaining in an old account that had been used to pay claims from a 2004-era tax refund program. The fund had not experienced a claim for several years but the funds were tied down awaiting claims that were obviously never going to be filed. SB 571 closed down this unnecessary fund.
SB 571 also put an end to redundant reporting processes that interfered with each other because they used the same data but had to be filed at two different times. SB 571 synchronized the filing process so that the reports could be filed using the same data sets.
These provisions of SB 571 probably won’t receive any attention from the media. Very few citizens realized any of these issues even existed. But that bill will save taxpayer money and resources that otherwise would have been wasted. I especially appreciate Treasurer Miller’s commitment to doing the right thing and modernizing government process even when no one was paying attention. I believe that speaks to his good intent and am happy to have been able to assist Miller and Senator Jolley in doing the right thing for state taxpayers.
Next week I intend to write about some of the other modernization initiatives requested by other state officials.
When State Treasurer Ken Miller took office, he commissioned his staff with the responsibility of finding inefficiencies and drafting proposed updates of state law when necessary to address those inefficiencies.
Miller’s modernization proposal was sponsored in the form of Senate Bill 571. The bill was authored by Senator Clark Jolley in the Senate and I carried the bill in the House.
Senate Bill 571 targeted several areas. The bill updated procedures for the liquidation of properties deposited into the state’s unclaimed property fund. In the past, state officials had to engage in antiquated and duplicative procedures that added unnecessary cost and had to eventually be paid by those who owned the property. Miller’s bill streamlined those unnecessary process procedures so that the unnecessary cost was not passed on to property owners.
Miller also noted that the state had thousands of dollars remaining in an old account that had been used to pay claims from a 2004-era tax refund program. The fund had not experienced a claim for several years but the funds were tied down awaiting claims that were obviously never going to be filed. SB 571 closed down this unnecessary fund.
SB 571 also put an end to redundant reporting processes that interfered with each other because they used the same data but had to be filed at two different times. SB 571 synchronized the filing process so that the reports could be filed using the same data sets.
These provisions of SB 571 probably won’t receive any attention from the media. Very few citizens realized any of these issues even existed. But that bill will save taxpayer money and resources that otherwise would have been wasted. I especially appreciate Treasurer Miller’s commitment to doing the right thing and modernizing government process even when no one was paying attention. I believe that speaks to his good intent and am happy to have been able to assist Miller and Senator Jolley in doing the right thing for state taxpayers.
Next week I intend to write about some of the other modernization initiatives requested by other state officials.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)