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Will Contentious End to Special Session Weigh on 2018 Regular Session?

Matt Trotter
/
KWGS

After settling on a "cash and cuts" plan to end the special session, many Oklahoma lawmakers are looking to the regular session as the time to pass revenue bills.

That may be tough.

Tax increases require 75 percent majorities of both chambers, and their relationship is a bit strained after the sudden end of special session. The Senate took action twice in special session trying to get the House to pass revenue measures, first passing a resolution spelling out what a package should include and then amending one that didn't include a gross production tax.

Sen. Jason Smalley took offense to the House adjourning Friday morning as the Senate debated the budget plan lawmakers ultimately sent to the governor.

"If you ever, ever want a better relationship with this body, do not do something like that again," Smalley said. "That was rude, and that was unprofessional. You sine died to require us to pass this, and I'm a little disheartened right now among some of them that I call dear friends."

Sen. Roger Thompson quoted Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s final speech on the floor Friday as a reminder to his colleagues of what the stakes will be when the regular session begins in 80 days.

"He said, 'The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; and those in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick and the needy and the handicapped,'" Thompson said. "Members, that must be our priority."

The House may have more to do to fix the relationship between Republicans and Democrats. Rep. Forrest Bennett called out his Republican colleagues for shutting down the minority party’s lines of questioning as they passed the special session budget bill this week.

"I love so many of you on the other side of the aisle. I respect you, and I truly want to change the culture in this building," Bennett said. "But it starts with you respecting our desire to ask questions — as annoying and small and rhetorical as you think they are — and debate."

Several House Democrats have expressed frustration with Republicans’ procedural actions in special session. House debate on the "cash and cuts" plan ended with Majority Leader Jon Echols saying many Democrats have lied through their demands for revenue bills.

"To representatives that stand up — like the representative from Tahlequah — that says they're for revenue, voted against House Bill 2403 ... a bill that would have created $100 million in recurring revenue — the hypocrisy is thick," Echols said, referencing a regular session bill that limited itemized deductions other than charitable contributions.

Rep. Emily Virgin said her party has made tough votes over the years Republicans didn’t, like for Medicaid expansion and against income tax cuts.

"And now you want to blame us for this situation? How dare you. You want us to save you from this dumpster fire that you have created?" Virgin said.

A grand bargain revenue package would have passed last week if both parties brought 75 percent of their members’ votes for the measure. Republicans did not.

Lawmakers will have to deal with a budget hole in regular session of at least $500 million and as much as $800 million, according to current estimates.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.