By Rep. Jason Murphey

Last week I enjoyed being in attendance at a Social Media conference which encouraged participants to engage in discussion and strategy sharing regarding their use of social media. Myself and State Representative Joe Dorman were in attendance to share our experiences of using social media as Legislators.

This forum provided me with an opportunity to explain how House Bill 2318 will empower the state’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) to develop and implement uniform social media policies by which state government can use social media.

I believe this is extremely important as social media provides the potential to establish an effective feedback mechanism in which the citizens can let state officials, and everyone else for that matter, know about the performance of state government.

In the past, when a citizen was ill-served by state government they likely had a few select channels into which they could direct their story of state government’s failure to perform. They could place a call to the bureaucracy which had performed poorly and with luck their complaint might reach up into the bureaucracy at some level. However, it is extremely unlikely that the leadership in that particular bureaucracy would ever hear about, much less remedy, the wrong. In too many cases the citizen’s voice simply goes unheard. Read more…

State Rep. Joe Dorman will join two other American state lawmakers and one Canadian federal lawmaker on the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s Transatlantic Dialogue Program Study and Information Tour of Germany.

“I am honored to serve on the tour, representing Oklahoma in a visit to Germany , where they’ve just underwent federal elections,” Dorman, D-Rush Springs said. “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to interact with German officials and get ideas as well as share ideas with them about our government.”

The Transatlantic Dialogue Program (TAD) is part of the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The TAD promotes the exchange among decision makers to exchange their ideas, opinions, and experiences in order to formulate new approaches and solutions for future-orientated politics. Part of this dialogue is a program for German and U.S. State Legislators as well as Canadian Federal Legislators. Read more…

I’m sorry I missed last week’s column. It was a busy week and I did not have the chance to sit down and reflect on all which occurred. I’ll try to get everyone caught up to date.

My family lost my grandmother, Jackie Henderson, to cancer this past Friday. She lived in Jacksboro, Texas and her funeral was on Monday. It was a service she would have liked as people reflected on the good times with her and the memories which brought back laughs. It was the first time many of our cousins had been together in years and we agreed that we would try to spend more time together, especially since many of them have children the same age as when we would get together at holidays. She and my grandfather were very supportive of the grandkids and encouraged us to achieve our dreams. All eight of their grandchildren will have completed college degrees (one is in his final year). This is truly the meaning of family values when they worked to improve the lives of the next two generations of their family. Read more…

Learning from the Failures of other States

Rep. Jason Murphey

If you spend much time watching business or news networks such as CNBC or FOX, you may have noticed a commercial promoting Michigan as a good location for business owners to conduct business. For the past several years, Michigan’s political leaders have offered $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and spent another $1.6 billion in outlays to create and retain jobs. The subsidies include tax breaks for film production, funding for new industrial plants, and millions for the nationwide TV ads starring celebrities talking about business and tourism to Michigan.

Upon seeing the ad, and aside from thinking about how wasteful it is for state government to spend money on television commercials, I seriously question how the politicians in Michigan can so aggressively insult the intelligence of American business owners. Read more…

ESenator Gumm’s “Senate Minute” for Sept. 11-17, 2009 – Sales Tax Holiday and Real Tax Reform

Hello again, everybody! Recently, I was in a political skirmish with an organization that issued a report critical of Oklahoma’s back-to-school sales tax holiday.

Passing the sales tax holiday was one of the most important legislative goals I had when you elected me to be your senator. Forces from big city mayors to high-dollar lobbyists worked to defeat the proposal. After years of hard work, perseverance and bipartisan cooperation, we finally overcame those obstacles to pass the bill.

Although the sales tax holiday has been in effect for three years, and is very popular across Oklahoma, some still fight it. One of those groups continuing to oppose the sales tax holiday is The Tax Foundation, a Washington special interest group. Read more…

By Rep. Jason Murphey
I will be hosting a series of Town Hall Meetings across House District 31 this week.

During the last mid-term interim, I conducted a series of these meetings in order to provide updates about both state and local government events and to provide an opportunity for questions and answers so my constituents could be better informed about issues of importance to them.

The meetings were attended by several hundred people and provided another opportunity to see how people felt about the issues at hand. This feedback has allowed me to advocate for issues such as road funding and property tax reform knowing that I was representing the desires of the people. I am also very appreciative to a number of other elected officials who took the time to attend those meetings as guest speakers. Read more…

I was in Oklahoma City over most of the weekend visiting friends in the hospital. I won’t mention their names, but please keep those from our area who are sick or injured in your prayers. It is amazing what the will of people and the spirit can do to heal when there are friends who believe in you. I’m sorry I had to miss a couple of events at home, but I felt that I needed to be at the hospital to be with friends and help those families in need.
Best wishes are to be extended to one of my colleagues who will be leaving the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Ryan McMullen, who shares a portion of Caddo County with me, as well as other parts of the state to the west and north, will be leaving the legislature to take a position in the Presidential administration running the USDA Rural Development Programs. This area is key to providing assistance through grants and loans to rural Oklahoma. Ryan will do an excellent job in this job. Read more…

DURANT, Okla. – Hello again, everyone! The summer generally is a very slow time at the State Capitol. With the legislative session complete, lawmakers return to their districts and their families. The focus of lawmakers’ work becomes constituent service and preparation for the next year’s session of the Legislature.

One of the ways in which we prepare for the next legislative session is through a series of meetings called interim studies. Lawmakers request these studies to get more information on issues; the interim gives us more time for in-depth study. Read more…

By Rep. Joe Dorman

I had the opportunity to visit with the folks over in Apache on Friday at the Rattlesnake Festival. I had the opportunity to film a portion of the activities for Wild Oklahoma, a local wildlife show that is broadcast on Sunday mornings. If you get the chance, check it out on their website for the day it will air. Ron Orf put me in the snake pit once again this year and I was able to help him with one of the shows he put on for the public. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun this experience in and I appreciate the Rattlesnake Association for allowing me to participate each year. Read more…

DURANT, Okla. – Hello again, everyone! We have reached the point in the 2009 session where every bill still alive has passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives, albeit in different forms.

Before any bill can go to the governor, it must pass both the Senate and House in identical form. The remaining four weeks of session will be devoted to hammering out those final versions.

The most important job of the Legislature each year – writing the state budget – is largely undone. This, to me, is very strange as we face a significant budget shortfall.

Cuts will be unavoidable; the challenge is to ensure the cuts do not unduly impact state services on which Oklahomans depend. I certainly hope during the final four weeks of session, more attention must be given to what should have been “job number one.” Read more…

Official English Approved – The Final Month of Session

By Rep. Jason Murphey

Last week marked yet another deadline by which the House of Representatives and Senate had to take action on legislation or risk having the legislation not be heard this year.

Much debate centered around whether or not the Senate would approve a bill that would allow the people to vote on making English Oklahoma’s official language. Due to the insistence of the leadership of the House of Representatives, House author Representative Randy Terrill and Senate author Senator Anthony Sykes, House Resolution 1042 was approved shortly before the Senate’s deadline.

It appears there was a significant amount of negotiating between the advocates of a “common English” proposal and those who wanted an “official English” distinction. In the end, the compromise proposal states that all official actions of the state shall be conducted in English, except as required by federal law. The proposal would not limit the use, study or encouragement of American Indian languages and also says that an agency cannot be sued if it cannot provide materials in a language other than English.

The Senate approved the proposal by a vote of 44-2 and it now returns to the House where the House will have the option of accepting the Senate amendments sending the proposal to a vote of the people. I would have preferred a stronger version of the bill. Read more…

I want to start off this week by reminding everyone of the Apache Rattlesnake Hunt April 16 -19th. I hope you will have the chance to attend. I will be there and look forward to having some fun as this is a great annual festival that is very family-friendly. I am also having Lasik surgery on my eyes on Friday, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers that it is successful.

I have been busy with reading bills over the past few weeks and have also had the chance to visit with many folks from back home while they have been at the Capitol. We had over 50 bills considered in the Appropriations and Budget committee on Monday and the schedule will be the same for the next committee meeting on Thursday. We also considered Senate Bill 834, which was voted out of the Common Education committee on a straight party vote (Republicans for the bill, Democrats against it). I had the chance to speak to a group of teachers in Chickasha on Thursday along with Sen. Ron Justice about this bill. I feel this bill goes too far with deregulation of schools and will provide too many problems at the local level, and also has the chance to reduce the amount the state appropriates to common education in the future. Read more…

Adding Even More Debt

By Rep. Jason Murphey

Last week, the House approved the issuance of new long-term debt to finance a dam project on the Arkansas River in the Tulsa area. This means that each year, more of your money will be added to the millions of tax payer dollars that are tied down to paying debt and debt interest.

You may remember that last year the Legislature approved a major debt package in the last few days of the legislative session. The Tulsa dam project was one of the issues in this bill. Since that time, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has held that the debt bill was unconstitutional because it “log-rolled” more than one issue into the bill.

I feel that the Court should have also held the bill unconstitutional because it did not allow the people to vote on the bond issuance, which I believe is probably required by our state Constitution in this instance. Read more…

Hello again, everyone! Once again this last week, Oklahoma was plagued by wildfires that destroyed property and threatened lives.

The primary defense against many of these fires scattered across rural Oklahoma were volunteer firefighters. Every firefighter is a hero; they risk their own lives to protect our businesses, our homes, our families.
Volunteer firefighters are something special. Geographically, volunteer firefighters are the first line of defense across most of Oklahoma. For no pay, and with precious little resources, volunteer firefighters save countless dollars in property and untold lives every year. Read more…

Opposing Debt in a Debt-Happy Society

By Rep. Jason Murphey

If you are like me, you are very upset by the recent actions of the federal government. Under the false pretense of an economic stimulus, they are using the economic downturn to approve yet another nearly trillion dollars of debt! The latest “stimulus” bill consists of a tremendous amount of political pork, some of which is no doubt designed to help the organizations that put the current office holders in power. This is just the latest (and worst) in a series of actions taken by the federal government over the past few years that are unimaginably irresponsible.

We have come to a time in our nation’s history when our leaders are actually purporting to be able to partially eliminate a downturn in the market. Markets naturally have ebbs and flows and it is to be expected that every few years there will be another downturn. There are many who are now in power who seem to have put aside the perspective provided by hundreds of years of history to such an extent that they really believe the government is powerful enough to prevent an economic downturn. Do we really want a government that views itself like that? Read more…

Hello again, everyone! The 2009 session of the Oklahoma Legislature has arrived.

With the beginning of each legislative session comes the renewed struggle to make Oklahoma an even better place to live, work and raise a family. During the session, there will be epic disagreements; each idea placed before the Legislature must endure intense questioning and careful scrutiny.

Health care will be one of the most important issues discussed during the 2009 session of the Oklahoma Legislature. That debate began last year with measures to require health insurance coverage of autism and clinical trials. Read more…

Dorman Calls for Disaster Funding Reform

State Rep. Joe Dorman today urged legislators to allow the people of Oklahoma the opportunity to vote to reform state law to ensure disaster funding is readily available following future ice storms and other disasters.
House Joint Resolution 1018, by Dorman, would amend the Oklahoma Constitution to require that money from the state’s Constitutional Reserve Fund (also known as the Rainy Day Fund) be used to provide matching funds for federal disaster relief appropriations. The proposed amendment, which would be sent to the voters for approval at the next general election, requires that the emergency funding be provided before Rainy Day Fund money is used for any other purpose.
“For too long, disaster funding has been at the bottom of the priority list at the Legislature when it should be at the top,” said Dorman, D-Rush Springs. “This legislation will ensure that families, communities and counties are not left waiting months or even years for the state to act after a natural disaster.” Read more…

I had the opportunity to file my bills last week as the deadline fell to turn in ideas for legislation for the 2009 Legislative Session. There were 1,269 bills, 46 joint resolutions and six concurrent resolutions filed in the House of Representatives. I expect things will go along normal lines and most bills will be killed early in the committee process. The issue of having less money from the previous session of more than $300 million will also prevent many of the ideas from being considered due to cost restraints. Most of my bills have limited fiscal impact, so I hope I will be able to work with the various chairs to get hearings and passage on them.

Two ideas I’ve worked with Lieutenant Governor Askins on this interim will be in legislation this session. One…Read more…

Changing the Way Government does Business

By Rep. Jason Murphey

If you listen to or read the various news stories regarding Oklahoma’s budget situation, you might have received the false impression that a budget shortfall is a negative circumstance poised to cause all sorts of harm and confusion.

By some estimates, state government spending will be $300 to $500 million less this year than last year. Those who have an appreciation for big government see this as a very unfortunate event because they know that government will most likely be required to shrink in size this year.

I believe the shortfall presents the Legislature with a most exciting opportunity not only to cut through bureaucratic waste and make government more cost effective, but also to streamline and modernize government services so as to provide much improved customer service to the people. Read more…

I want to start off by wishing everyone out there a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I had a busy week as I was able to catch up with many people at their end of year gatherings and parties. I was able to enjoy time with the Grady and Caddo County Superintendents, the Cyril school teachers, the Elgin school teachers, the Rush Springs Lions Club and several other groups and individuals. I also had the chance to visit with a group of students from Cement Public Schools as they took a tour of the Capitol and I prepared chili for the staff at the Capitol earlier this week as a thanks for the great job they did this past year for us.

The bill deadline for writing language will be on hand next week, so I’ve been working some long hours getting the wording correct in the bills. Among the ideas I requested, here are a few of them: Read more…

Giving our Money to the Corrupt

By Rep. Jason Murphey

Two weeks ago I wrote about a future discussion in the Legislature between those who believe Oklahoma can improve economically by reducing the size of government and lowering taxes, and those who feel that Oklahoma should continue to develop a wide array of giveaways in the name of economic development.

As State Representative, I have observed that whenever a new problem crops up, it takes very little time for people to look to government to provide a solution. All too often they fail to account for the fact that if government expands to provide the solution, it will make politicians more powerful, and better enable those who wish to use this power for inappropriate or counterproductive purposes.

In the case of economic development, those who advocate for giveaways to incentivize business will point to the problem of economic blight and ask for the government to take away our taxpayers dollars, give that money to politicians or bureaucrats to control, and then give them the power to determine who receives the benefit.

A prominent example of this type of abuse has been alleged in the state of Illinois. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is accused of trying to strong-arm the Chicago Tribune into firing critical editorial writers by leveraging his power to help give the Tribune millions of dollars. Read more…

Giving Special Interests The Power To Take Your Property

By Rep. Jason Murphey

In the past, I have written about the possibility of the expansion of the Trans-Texas Corridor into Oklahoma and described why it is important that we not allow foreign-owned companies to control Oklahoma roads.

The example of the foreign-owned Texas toll road is one example of this type of abuse. However, this is not the only example of Texas allowing privately owned interests to operate much like the government in order to make a profit.

Over the past few years, a wealthy Texas businessman decided to incur the risk of investing in a product that he believes will be in great demand in the future. That product is water. The businessman formed a corporation known as Mesa Water and acquired water rights in a large aquifer in the Texas panhandle and tried to market this water to the nearby city of Amarillo. Read more…

My interim study last week provided a great deal of information regarding our elections process in Oklahoma. There were very few problems at the polls and the provisional ballots are currently being reviewed for authenticity and will be included in the totals, even though none can possibly change outcomes on the elections. Thank you to those of you that voted and helped make this election turnout just short of a state record. Read more…

Senator Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, was the guest on the Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008 edition of KXII’s First News Forum, a public affairs program hosted by Charlie Haldeman. The senator answered questions on a host of subjects including the election results, priorities for the Oklahoma Legislature in 2008 and the change in legislative leadership. This is the opening segment.

Hat tip:senatorgumm