After Rep. Scott Inman failed again to force a floor vote on an unscheduled funding bill, The visitors began an angry chant at 10:23am. The presiding officer, Rep. Josh Cockroft, then called upon the Sergeant At Arms & state troopers to "clear the gallery".
Visitors continued their chants as the web feed of the House suddenly quit casting the live proceedings. On Monday the legislature endured a similar atmosphere of partisanship with several hundred visitors (mostly from the teacher's demonstrations) played into the Democrat senior member and former Minority Leader. The explanation for Inman's actions pertain to the many missteps of last week's ambush by the leadership. They went straight to the floor with a bill, bypassing the normal rules, and with just 1 hour of notice a massive tax increase package was passed by more than a 3/4 majority. But the numbers claimed to have been generated and then spent that night, were wrong. The legislature spent more than they can expect to be collected by the new ttaxes. And then they decided to repeal much ofthe $50 million of hotel flat taxes on occupancy. |
The house cameras did not show the disruption in the visitors gallery. We expect media outlets and visitors to be making such photos abundantly available.
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Sooner Politics
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