In a recently brokered deal between the Legislative leaders & Governor Stitt's office; 5 of our state agencies will be restructured to bring more direct accountability to the people.

• Oklahoma Health Care Authority ( $5.581 billion budget)
• Department of Transportation ( $1.895 billion budget)
• Department of Corrections ($603 million budget)
• Office of Juvenile Affairs ($110 million budget)
• Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services ($442 million budget)

  Citizen advocacy groups have long expressed frustration with the agencies in their lack of responsiveness to the people of the state.
  The legislature currently has little effect on how the 5 agencies operate. An annual appropriation is made each year, but very little 'line-item' directives are imposed. Some of these agencies have other funding sources. the federal govt. is a major source of healthcare funding, and ODMHSAS leases out much of their state hospital capacity to corporate contractors, rather than operating the hospitals to full capacity, in-house.
  The deal between the governor & legislature will also gives review & termination powers to the legislature, but only when a super-majority votes 'no confidence'. It's essentially a process similar to impeachment.

  Nearly 8 months after the Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly passed a medical marijuana initiative petition, the legislature is now reviewing the language of a bill which would bring more clarity to the new law.
  Rep. Jon Echols (R-OKC) filed a committee substitute to his previously filed 'shell bill', HB2612. The substance of the bill is the product of unanimous support from the Bicameral Interim Study Group on Medical Marijuana. The group convened last July when the Oklahoma Department of Health inforced several egregious emergency rules which violate the constitutional limits of their authority.
  The District Attorneys are still investigating bribery allegations and other frauds committed by the Health Dept. and other agencies, who were trying to hamper or destroy the law which the voters enacted constitutionally.
  A coalition of patient groups, business associations, and civil rights advocates worked with the Interim study group to bring clarity to the very loosely-written law.
  From that document, Interim Study co-chair, Jon Echols, further honed the document and last Wednesday the group added about 20 other amendments before unanimously recommending the legislation to the legislature.

  The Oklahoma Teachers Unions are now beginning their sabotage offensive against the state's best and fastest-growing public education institutions.... the statewide virtual charter schools.
 Tomorrow the House Education Committee will likely call for passage of HB1395. It just one more layer of the same oppressive mountain of govt. regulations which now burden our traditional school districts.  While no single point of this bill will effectively end charter schools, it will have the same accumulative effect that a snow-laden mountain's avalanche has when the little village in the lower valley is wiped out. Not one single snowflake takes responsibility for any deaths, but gathered together, they bring swift & eminent death.
  The unions, administrators, and parents would do well to call for greater deregulation of all schools, so that the education process can be streamlined with 21st century innovations and provide each student a customized public education for about half the cost.
  That's what our virtual charter schools already do. And the Epic Charter Schools are the highest paid teachers in the state, earning compensations averaging $64,000 each year.
  Urge your lawmakers to begin the process of liberating our administrators from the ridiculous thousands of regulations they now have to comply with. We can have the best teachers in the nation, and pay them the best in the nation, if we would adopt just some of the core operational structure of the virtual public charter schools. 

 But instead, Rep. Sheila Dills and a whole host of new politicians who are owned by the education unions are determined to take down the charter schools which are humiliating their faculties and enrolling their former students.

Connecting with the legislature is more effective than most citizens will ever know. 
Lawmakers find it difficult to truly make wise decisions on policy unless they know the impact it has on the people whose lives are impacted.
  Sometimes a major decision will come down to a sincere and authentic contact by just one ordinary resident of the state.
That could be you and it could change your live and the lives of so many others.
 Be sure to talk with your own legislator, but also the members of a committee hearing bills that impact how you live.

analysis by David Van Risseghem: 

  The voters of Oklahoma created a political earthquake, last June, when they finally succeeded in a major state policy change. Cannabis medicines are now wrestled away from the controls of a nanny-state collection of cops and medical fascists.
Now the legislators are striking back. 
  Here are just a few of the 57 bills already written, filed, and assigned to committees.

SB763 by Sen. McCortney is very dangerous to patient privacy. It sets monthly caps on THC accumulative purchases. It would enable the OMMA to require dispensaries to report & keep a record of each & every purchase.
  It would also set us up for a ban on home-grow because that would render the restrictions as unenforceable.

SB764 More from Sen. McCortney. He wants your other healthcare providers to know all about your Cannabis Med referral. That way you can get kicked off Pain Meds.
  And all along I thought HIPPA was supposed to secure your health privacy. Ends up, it assures the govt. the complete access to your privacy, and the right to share your health info with whoever they decide to.

The Tulsa World perused through many of the 2800 new pieces of legislative proposals. Very few of them had any repealing language. Most of them are an attack on liberty and prosperity.

  Senator David Bullard (R-Durant) has finally written the proposed state question to end the bickering and posturing of our legislature, regarding 2nd amendment rights to keep & bear arms. 
  The amendment resolution needs the majority support of both houses of the legislature, but not a governor's enactment.
 The governor, however; has discretion about when the proposed state constitutional amendment would be voted upon by the people.
  This language imposes upon all state agencies and law enforcement that they have a duty to protect this individual right against any form of infringement.
  Stipulations are made to exclude those convicted of felonies, domestic violence, and those adjudicated as incompetent or involuntarily committed for mental impairment. 
  The language expressly defines arms as including the ammunition and the firearms. It also expands the definition of constitutional self defense 'arms' to include nonlethal and other arms.
​  Ask your legislators if they are willing to cosponsor this resolution. So far no one has.

  The Tuttle farmer who served on the Bicameral Marijuana Interim Study is now ready to start cutting away at the patients' rights and liberties  that were voted into law by the voters, just last June. 
  SB1030 has several changes to state law which would impact the medical patients' opportunities to remain employable, despite their health challenges.    

1. It would allow municipalities the right to ban all inhaled forms of medication consumption outside of a private residence.
2. It allows employers to fire a person just for possessing a patient card, even if they have never had THC in their system
3. It removes some of the medical privacy status of patient cardholder data.
4. It adds a local sales tax to the 7% sales tax, & removes the excise classification of the current collections.
5. It increases the criminal penalty for unlawful possession from $400 & no jail time; up to $1000 & 1 year of jail.

Nothing in the bill provides any additional help to the veterans with PTSD, or the cancer patients getting chemotherapy treatment. Both would face added struggles due to Paxton's new statutory punishments.

  Sen. Casey Murdock (R-Gymon) has filed a bill (SB325) to let counties ban cannabinoid medicines from licensed patients. His bill would also allow employers to terminate employees for-cause if there is a theoretical concern of penalty because of the employee's disability & treatment.

​  This is the first bill filed which seeks to reinstate a prohibition on physicians and patients if the county voters decide to ban the continued cannabis medicine healthcare treatments in that county.
  This is expected to harm thousands of veterans and their families, if Post Traumatic Stress care is needed for such patients. Currently many of the veterans are opting out of the VA's regimen of massive doses of tranquilizers to heavily sedate patients with PTSD, Anxiety Disorder, and other conditions from multiple deployments in battle.
  Cancer treatments may become more deadly without the cannabis meds to alleviate the severe nausea of chemotherapy. This will lead to weakened bodies and more weight loss.
  Those in pain management for severe osteoarthritis and other nerve conditions will have to go back on dangerous opioids to get very temporary relief from excruciating pain.
  This brings up a fundamental issue of whether the majority of voters have a constitutional authority to deprive the minority of lifesaving medicines?
   Sen. Casey Murdock would have us believe that the minority class of patients either.

1. can find other options that don't scare the rest of the county,
2. are faking it, or
3. are expendable;

because he believes the majority of voters' fears are a higher priority to him.