March 4th 2018 Newsletter
Special Session Step On Oklahoma RINO Index is out
We said back in the summer that we would score the Special Session and use the results to update our 2017 Oklahoma RINO Index as the best indication of a woken up legislator is for them to turn on the donor class and House leadership by helping to stave off the hundreds of millions of dollars in new and increased taxes that Mary Fallin and the State Chamber of Commerce were planning to shove through the Special Session after the illegal bills were overturned by the Supreme Court.
Of course few conservatives foresaw the Step On Oklahoma effort so the Special Session Index became even more important. This week Sooner Politics' David Van pitched in on a joint effort to research the tax increase bills and score the legislators on their votes. David Van pulled the research and Sooner Tea Party graded the votes using our constant stance of scoring bad votes, not votes where legislators were obligated to do the right thing based upon their membership in the GOP and their claims while running for office.
The legislators were scored on five bills, all tax bills in some way, a departure from our standard diverse list of legislation but all that was possible in a special session devoted to raising taxes.
The bills were as follows:
HB 1035X, the tax increase on cigarettes and other tobacco. The vote was 54 to 44, with 76 votes needed to pass thanks to the constitutional protections of SQ 640. Follow the link above to view the votes of the House members. This was a bad vote for many reasons, first the tobacco taxes impact the poor, working classes, and the mentally ill more than anyone else. Very little of the money was to be used to stop smoking, and we have the TSET funds for that already that are being wasted on bike trails and paid ads telling us to drink water. The pointed out waste in the budget hadn't been addressed, in fact Fallin threatened to veto any bill that cut waste. No audits have been done despite the loss or theft of tens of millions of dollars in state money.
HB 1054X, which taxed cigarettes, tobacco, and added new fuel taxes. That one nearly passed, 71 to 27, with 76 votes needed to raise taxes thanks to SQ 640's protections. One has to know that this was once again another log rolling bill that would have been challenged had it passed.
HB 1085X, which was another Gross Production Tax increase from 2% to 4% and/or a change in exemption dates. It failed on a 64 to 31 vote, needing 76 to pass. We at STP are ambivalent on the GPT increases for several reasons. First some change needs done because the old vertical well businesses are penalized while the newer horizontal wells, fracking, are given massive tax exemptions. Yet raising taxes of any kind before the waste is looked at and agency performance audits are done overrides the imbalance in taxation and the resulting unfairness. The fact is that the donor class are terrified over SQ 795 vote coming up in November, they see their bribe money paid to legislators going down the drain if that thing passes. SQ 795 puts an additional 5% GPT tax on oil wells in the first 36 months, evading the bought and paid for tax evasion credits that the donor classes paid to have passed in earlier years. The money will go to teacher pay increases and education. In the end HB 1085X was a vote to head off SQ 795 passing by passing slightly higher taxes for the oil industry and as it would be simple legislation it could later be overturned and rolled back to the old corporate welfare. Not so with the state question.
HB 1033XX was the notorious Step On Oklahoma Plan, fronted by the same old suspects in the donor class and the Oklahoman and other liberal media. Presented as a bunch of newly energized disinterested businessmen that spontaneously put together a plan to "save" the state from the incompetent legislature (whom they had bribed to raise taxes illegally) the plan and the "heroes" and selfless men and women that were pushing the plan were constantly paraded on the liberal media. HB 1033X went down 63 to 35 with 76 votes needed to pass. The bill would have place nearly a half billion dollars in new and increased tobacco taxes despite the hundreds of millions of TSET money that was being wasted each year on "drink more water" ads and bike trails. TSET has always been corporate welfare and a place for politicians to find work after terming out of office.
HB 1020XX was one of the only bills where a Yes vote was good as it was a small cut to state agencies to balance the budget. The Democrats messed up voting against this but that is their tactics, to try to rally their base by obstructing. Kind of weird, our allies in stopping the tax increases but they are against balancing the budget with some tiny cuts.
Some of the legislators really turned their votes around. Those with more than 25 points improvement are listed below. The second column is their district number, the third column is their Party, the fourth column is their 2017 RINO Index score, and the fourth column is their Special Session score. Some started out very low and shot way up, some were already in the top twenty conservatives but were in tough districts but they put everything on the line and voted against the tax increases. These are the legislators that will be targeted in 2018 so they are going to need two things; first to remain consistent conservative legislators and second, get some help from conservatives outside their districts to ensure they survive the slanderous attacks by the Step On Oklahoma crowd.
Here are the scores for all House Members. The Senate had few bills to score and if you control the House the Senate is as dangerous a bucket of kittens.
Feel free to share this and use it in anyway fit. Put a copy on your phone or keep the email in your inbox so you can look up a politician's score and add it behind their name when posting anything about them online.
