The Early Contender for Worst Bill of the 2010 Session

Examiner.com:

As the Oklahoma Political News Service reported in late January, Sen. Bingman was given the task of carrying SB 2298, as a political payback bill. But the unintended consequences made it in effect a pro-drug dealer bill that embattled senate leader Glenn Coffee desperately needed to get the official senate albatross, Fred Morgan, out of the building. Capitol insiders say the drug bill revelation and our previous reports last fall of Sen. Coffee’s emotional meltdown contributed to the derailment of Sen. Bingman’s bid on the first day of the legislature.

While the capitol press corps ignored the story, the Bingman defeat nonetheless leaked out through other media reports, with Oklahoma City’s News9 once again scooping the capitol gang. Two days after his Monday defeat, and with his long-term chances to succeed Coffee fading into the sunset, one observer says an obviously freaked-out Bingman, carrying a copy of the OKPNS story, shuttled back and forth feverishly to get leadership to quietly re-assigned the bill, ironically, to Sen. Anthony Sykes’ committee, which would have ensured a quiet death to this colossally-bad idea.

However, last week Bingman sought to put even more distance between himself and this controversy, withdrawing as author on February 8th. Then on Thursday the 11th, the bill was pulled from Sykes’ committee and re-assigned to the Judiciary Committee, so the Coffee-Bingman payback bill continues to attempt to find new life in the political equivalent of a witness protection program. Read more…