Will House and Senate Leadership Ignore the
Will of the People in the Special Session?
Special interests run Oklahoma, that much is clear. There is a host of competing interests but they all beat the same drum; raise taxes instead of cutting spending so their share of the pie expands. Leadership in both chambers bowed to the money from special interests last spring and illegally passed both the cigarette tax and the car tax but the high court itself bowed to the money and influence and denied the state constitution's protections and prohibitions against raising taxes without a vote of the people.
And now Oklahoma taxpayers will pay for a special session to correct leadership's weakness and failings and both chambers of leadership are aiming for a raid on the state rainy day fund and bringing back the increase on smoking tax. I personally am not a smoker but singling out one particular demographic to oppress with taxation isn't good government. These days most of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is taxes, with much of that money wasted in the tobacco settlement fund, a haven for ex lawmakers and their cronies. Increasing taxes also increases the size of government and allows it to do more useless things to repay cronies and special interest groups like medical companies and the chronically unemployed/welfare class.
So, rather than cut the state budget across the board by about 3% the legislature is going to take another run at passing a cigarette tax increase. Now a revenue bill can't pass in the last five days of a session and the constitution doesn't set out special sessions as unique and exempt from that constitutional protection so that means a two week special session and tens of thousands of dollars per day. It also means cutting a deal with Democrats, without which the needed super majority of 75% cannot be found. Even then, the mood of the House isn't what it was in the spring of 2017.
Democrat Scott Inman is running for Governor, a long shot race, intended to stroke his vanity and fund raising for the Party more than a reasonable chance of winning the seat. But the guy doesn't want to be humiliated with a huge loss so he isn't likely to cooperate in raising taxes after fighting against those same raises in the session. Most likely he will turn on Governor Fallin and throw the Republicans under the buss rather than take the blame for higher taxes. Added to that is the taint of the bimbo irruption at the end of his campaign in 2016, Inman isn't looking to give his enemies reason to come after him hammer and tong.
House Freshmen Republicans aren't likely to be the chumps they were in the session. Most of them scored poorly in both the OCPAC index and the Sooner Tea Party index and most have heard from their voters about their voting record. Look toward seeing many of the freshmen doing a U turn and beginning to represent their voters rather than the special interests.
Finally, Trump has faced obstruction and sabotage from the RINO Republicans like McCain and Ryan and the mood of the people has hardened toward liberal Republicans, to the point that Congressional Republicans are on record fearing a loss of "moderate" Republican seats in 2018 and 2020. The last thing a Republican House member wants in 2018 is to be associated with raising taxes and going against the Republican Party Platform.
