This last week brought about the end of the 2010 legislative session. I must say that this was probably the most intense week of legislative proceedings that I have observed in my four years of legislative service. Much happened in this last week and I could write an entire series of articles about just the happenings of this one week.

Legislators worked late into the night each night trying to meet the Constitutional deadline of adjourning at 5 p.m. on Friday and succeeded with just 5 minutes to spare.

The process came to a standstill on Friday when the House considered a component of the budget agreement to enact a 16 million dollar fee increase. The vote was held open for about an hour when several legislators in an apparent attempt to leverage a favor from legislative leadership joined with those of us who were opposed to the fee increase and voted against the proposal. As you might expect, this resulted in pressure being placed on those legislators who were voting against the fee increase because it was a bad policy proposal. The possibility of a special legislative session was brought up if the fee increase was not approved.

I think it is contemptible that legislators would trade their votes for favors and believe that the public would express significant outrage if they realized that legislators were engaging in these petty politics.

And, the situation risked placing the legislators who were already against the fee increase in a very uncomfortable position as they did want to support a fee increase but neither did they want to de-rail the budget agreement and force a special session.

Fortunately, I escaped much of this pressure. During my time in the legislature I have maintained a policy of voting against debt, fee and tax increases, pork earmarks and the creation of new government bureaucracies. Being known as a legislator whose is going to stand by these four policies and who is not open to trading votes allows me to avoid being susceptible to arm-twisting. Other legislators can predict my voting habit and don’t have to worry about what they must give up in order to get my support. My vote will be based on the quality of the proposed policy. This has allowed me to build a relationship with other legislators which is built on trust and consistency and not on a temporary political alliance.

Eventually a few legislators changed their votes and the fee increase was approved on a 52-48 vote.

However, I do believe that our opposition to the fee and tax increases sent a strong message. In the future, the state budget should be balanced by eliminating inappropriate and inefficient functions of state government and not by legislating fees and taxes which will simply add to the cost of living that the citizens are forced to pay.

Legislative leadership recently completed negotiations with the Governor regarding the approval of a  budget agreement for the state’s next fiscal year.

As always, the agreement represents negotiated positions by all involved parties and as such does not necessarily represent the stand of a single group. Many times this puts House appropriations officials in the position of having to secure support for provisions of the budget with which they do not agree. I understand this dilemma. However, I have never felt that as members of the House we should vote for bad policy simply because the Governor or the Senate is asking us to do it. Likewise, those groups should not support bad policy because members of the House have negotiated for it.

As the various bills which constitute this agreement are presented to the House, there are a number of criteria I will use to govern how I vote on the proposal.

As usual, I will be analyzing bills for earmarks. As I have written in the past, I believe legislative earmarks are extremely inappropriate because they violate the important principle of separation of powers between the three branches of government and risk opening the door to “good old boy” politics and corruption. Government expenditures should be allotted according to objective need-based criteria. They should never be made based on politics.

I will not support components of the agreement that include fee or tax increases. I believe the worst thing that government can do during an economic downturn is to increase the cost of government services. Oklahoma fee-based government entities take nearly a billion dollars out of the state’s economy each year, and increasing the amount of this taxation is very bad policy. This does not include the amount of money taken by government entities that are not entirely fee-based, but receive funding from a combination of fees and appropriations.

Finally, I will oppose the issuance of new debt. In addition to millions of dollars in bonded indebtedness, Oklahoma state government is dealing with billions of dollars in underfunded long-term liabilities. This debt is tying up state resources for many years into the future and serves to make it difficult to truly reform Oklahoma’s antiquated tax code. I believe that our state and nation will face a day of reckoning for the reckless policies of assuming so much debt; we must do whatever we can to stop policy leaders from incurring additional indebtedness.

These are the principles I will apply when voting on the state’s 2011 budget.

Legislation clarifying the ability of Title 19 Road Districts to provide for adequate draining from rural road surfaces has been signed by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry.

House Bill 2306, by State Representative Jason Murphey and State Senator Patrick Anderson, was sponsored after a member of a Logan County Title 19 Road District asked for the new law.

“The Title 19 Road District appears to be an almost exclusive entity to Logan County,” Murphey explained. “Logan County is served by a number of Title 19 Road Districts due to its large unincorporated population, rapidly growing rural population, and the tremendous need for adequate road maintenance brought about by an increased amount of traffic.”

This marks the second successive year Murphey has won approval for legislation assisting Logan County road districts. Last year’s House Bill 2194 established a pay-as-you-go mechanism to allow Title 19 Road Districts to construct new roads without having to go into debt.

Legislation clarifying the ability of Title 19 Road Districts to provide for adequate draining from rural road surfaces has been signed by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry. House Bill 2306, by State Representative Jason Murphey and State Senator Patrick Anderson, was sponsored after a member of a Logan County Title 19 Road District asked for the new law.

“The Title 19 Road District appears to be an almost exclusive entity to Logan County,” Murphey explained. “Logan County is served by a number of Title 19 Road Districts due to its large unincorporated population, rapidly growing rural population, and the tremendous need for adequate road maintenance brought about by an increased amount of traffic.”

This marks the second successive year Murphey has won approval for legislation assisting Logan County road districts. Last year’s House Bill 2194 established a pay-as-you-go mechanism to allow Title 19 Road Districts to construct new roads without having to go into debt.

A loophole which kept Oklahoma Higher Education entities from meeting a new transparency requirement has been closed down after the Gubernatorial signing of House Bill 2332.

State Representative Jason Murphey authored House Bill 1032 with state Senator Randy Brogdon in 2009, which required state entities to publish all purchases made with a state purchase card. The data was integrated with Oklahoma’s Open Books transparency site and went online last November.

Murphey said the intent of the law was to allow the citizens of Oklahoma to review each and every purchase made by a state employee with state issued purchase cards. However, when the law took effect, a reporter with Oklahoma Television Station News 9 discovered that Higher Education entities did not have to comply with the law and informed Murphey that Higher Education entities were not reporting their spending. Murphey informed the reporter that he would try to close the loophole during the 2010 legislative session.

Murphey attempted to close the loophole in House Bill 2318, authored by Murphey and state Senator Clark Jolley. The effort was temporarily halted in March when HB 2318 was defeated by a vote on the House floor.

“We were not going to give up on letting the citizens see where their money is being spent,” Murphey stated. “We made it a priority to find other legislative vehicles for this language.”

Murphey subsequently placed the statutory closure of the loophole in two other bills, both of which were approved by the House. House Bill 2332, also authored by Jolley, was just recently signed into law by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry.

HB 2332 takes effect immediately.