Oklahoma's state agencies are taking laws far beyond what the legislature intended.
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Most Oklahomans are far more aware of the elected legislators we send to the capitol, every February. But our daily lives are increasingly more controlled by unelected agency board members, who use their rulemaking powers to create far more restrictions on our freedom.
Let's look at this example from the Oklahoma Dept. of Health. Their appointed board and new commissioner have unveiled yet another set of proposed rules for parents to comply with, in order to claim any delay or exemption from the ever-growing list of 'mandated' vaccines. What makes this set of laws so troubling, is that they now require parents to take classes approved by the state health dept. in order to assert religious and/or philosophical objections to these drug injections. This is essentially the same controversial bill that former Senator Ervin Yen was driven out of office for trying to pass into law, just a couple years ago. But the administrative laws go even further. If parents go through the public process of parading through county health departments and sit through hours of lecturing, shaming, and condescensions.. If they do everything right, and nothing wrong; their acknowledged exemption will no longer be a durable certificate, to extend through the child's 18th birthday. No, this change would require the parents to begin the process all over again, for each child's advancement to the 7th grade. |
While our lawmakers are very accessible to the constituents, the agencies are far less transparent and engaging with the public.
A family with 3 kids would have to successfully complete the educational requirements 6 times, to be properly warned of the consequences of their beliefs.
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Parents would have to rearrange their family schedule in order to attend government propaganda classes when the county health departments decide to make the classes available. Failure to travel to the classes and get the health dept to accurately confirm, will result in a denial of religious/philosophical rights.
This appears to leave physician-approved medical exemptions unchanged. This means that the health department does not question your physician's medical rationale, but they do question parents' religious & philosophical rationale. Sooner Politics was made aware of these proposed rules by the very large & effective advocacy group called Oklahomans For Health & Parental Rights. This group's members worked extensively to see Senator Yen removed from office in the primary elections of June, 2018. The lawmakers clearly respect the passions and principles of the group. But the health department is now seeking to make these laws by passive-aggressive tactics. Last year, the state Ethics Commission tried a similar tactic, to shut down citizens from organizing & attending capitol rallies and demonstrations without proper lobbyist licenses. Those rules would also impact churches, so that public policy issues like abortion, vices, and several moral issues cannot be addressed in church activities around the state. That oppressive set of rules was the idea of a leftist lawmaker from Tulsa; Democrat Meloyde Blancett. We can clearly see a rising passive-aggressive pattern of lawmakers colluding with agencies to create laws that never would have made it out of committees. |
Dr. Ervin Yen was defeated in his senate reelection primary.
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The Attorney General is perhaps the one elected official who can call a foul in this process. In 2018, the Health Dept passed emergency rules which far exceeded the laws they were based on. Citizens sued the Health Dept. and AG Mike Hunter quickly advised the Board of Health that they could only write rules to create process of applying legislative or balloted laws. This led to the Health Department voluntarily rescinding the enacted rules and writing a scaled down set, within a month.
Agency rules have emergency powers which, once they are adopted by the governor, become the law of the land, no matter what time of year they are signed. But the legislature has a review process whereby the rules can be amended or nullified if both chambers decide to, and the governor approves that legislative change. So an agency can simply collaborate with a governor to force oppressive rules on the state, even if that rule would never survive a floor vote in the legislature. Legislative nullification is a procedure which until recently, was almost unheard of. But now the lawmakers are stepping up their oversight. It's largely due to citizens getting informed and motivated to challenge these rules in the legislative review process, which has caused lawmakers to step up their oversight of the hyper-assertiveness of the agencies. |
We're posting the proposed Health Dept. Immunization Regulations below. The said the public can comment on these rules, if they follow the feedback rules they published at:
https://www.ok.gov/health/Organization/Proposed_Amendments_to_OSDH_Rules/index.html . The public can begin giving feedback on Monday, if they can figure out the rules for properly giving feedback? |
The Health Dept's website has this schedule of hearings and comment periods for newly proposed rules, but they fail to clearly explain the acceptable process for public comment. This is just one more example of the lack of transparency and/or attentiveness to the citizens' role in constitutional rights to petition their govt. and seek redress of grievance. The public hearings are scheduled to be held in a very small room, and anyone who identifies as part of an organization will be limited to have only one person speak for up to 2 minutes, on behalf of the entire chapter.
The Board of health is dominated by healthcare institutional administrators and physicians. A governor is allowed one new appointment to this board, each year. Most of the current board are appointees of former Governor, Mary Fallin.
The Board of health is dominated by healthcare institutional administrators and physicians. A governor is allowed one new appointment to this board, each year. Most of the current board are appointees of former Governor, Mary Fallin.
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Public Hearing Information and Rule Documents
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| Notice of Rulemaking Intent, Rule Impact Statement, and Proposed Rule Language | Public Hearing Date/Time |
Location
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Agenda & Public Comment Period Information |
| Chapter 681. Medical Marijuana Control Program | Thursday, March 5, 2020* 9 a.m. to noon - Chapter 681 |
Oklahoma State Department of Health, Room 1102
1000 N.E. 10th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73117
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Meeting Notice & Agenda
Public Comment period open from 02/03/20 to 03/07/20 |
| 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. - Chapter 535 | |||
