State Chamber urges "Supply Side Revival", major tax reforms in special session

State Chamber Research Foundation Urges “Supply Side Revival”

Business Think Tank Urges Lawmakers to Adopt Flat Tax and Eliminate Anti-Business Taxes in Special Session 

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The State Chamber Research Foundation (SCRF) is sharing a series of tax proposals for policymakers to consider as they work on tax policy and budget issues in future legislative sessions. The policies, which include both tax cuts for individuals and the elimination of business taxes that discourage growth and investment, are aimed at tackling inflation while promoting long term economic growth and tax relief. 

1889 Institute: ban collective bargaining in government

RESTORE SOVEREIGNTY TO THE PEOPLE: BAN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN GOVERNMENT

Even Franklin Roosevelt opposed collective bargaining in government employment.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (November 23, 2020) – The 1889 Institute has published a new paper titled “Liberate Oklahoma from Public Sector Union Domination.” The paper argues that allowing government to collectively bargain with public employees “robs the people of their sovereignty over government,” which happens because unions can hold the public hostage by denying essential, government-monopolized services when they strike.

As demonstrated a few years ago, Oklahoma’s anti-strike law is inadequate, especially as it relates to teachers. In that case, the more subtle way that unionized public employees undermine the people’s sovereignty is in the way unions act as powerful political influences, effectively allowing government employees to hire their employers by being a key voting bloc. School boards clearly acted more as representatives of unionized employees than representatives of the people, parents, or students.

1889 Institute: Legislature should shield kids from Teachers' Union strikes

The Oklahoma Legislature Should Shield Kids from Teachers' Union Strikes

By Ben Lepak

Oklahoma’s largest teachers’ union has demanded the state adopt a policy that would see schools in 39 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties closed if only three people test positive in the entire county. Any excuse appears to be enough for unions to demand teachers be allowed to stay home from work, but still get paid. The lesson unions took from their successful 2018 walkout is that unbending obstinacy and elevation of adults’ economic interests over children’s well-being and educational advancement will not be punished, but rewarded.

The Legislature should make sure this lesson is unlearned.

It can do so by revising the state’s existing teacher strike law to squarely ban public employees from going on strike, punishable by an automatic loss of employment and benefits, like pensions.

Texas has such a law. There hasn’t been a single public employee strike in that state since the law’s passage in 1993. Incidentally, Democrats controlled Texas when that law was enacted. There was a time when even champions of organized labor like Franklin Roosevelt recognized government employee strikes for what they are, a subversion of government.

1889 Institute: To save the Oklahoma judiciary, we must reform it

 

To Save the Oklahoma Judiciary, We Must Reform It

The Oklahoma Supreme Court too often acts as though it is a super legislature rather than the state’s highest court. It should be a neutral arbiter, applying the laws passed by the actual Legislature to cases that come before it. Instead, the Court appears to first determine the policy result it desires and then dream up the arbitrary legal reasoning necessary to justify that result.

The Oklahoma Legislature is not required to sit idly while the Oklahoma Supreme Court abuses its constitutional authority. It can—and should—act to rein in the Supreme Court. In fact, legislators have a responsibility to jealously guard their own institutional power. After all, we sent them to the Capitol as our representatives. It is what we hired them to do, and they have a duty to do it.

The surest way to reform the Court is to change the way justices are selected. That process is dominated by the Oklahoma Bar Association, under a system documented to produce a more left-wing judiciary than other selection methods. Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, doing so would require the heavy lift of a constitutional amendment.

But the Legislature is not without recourse.

1889 Institute: About those roads in Texas...

About Those Roads in Texas

By Ben Lepak

Perhaps you have encountered a phenomenon most Oklahomans are familiar with: cruising south on I-35, as soon as you cross the Red River the road gets noticeably smoother. The painted lane stripes get a little brighter and the roadside “Welcome to Texas” visitors’ center gleams in the sunlight, a modern and well-maintained reminder of how much more money the Lonestar State spends on public infrastructure than little old Oklahoma.

Or does it? Why are the roads so much, well, better in Texas? Turns out, it isn’t the amount of money spent, at least not when compared to the overall size of the state’s economy and personal income of its inhabitants. Figures compiled by 1889 Institute reveal that Oklahoma actually spends significantly more on roads than Texas as a percentage of both state GDP and personal income. The data was from 2016, before Oklahoma’s tax and spending increases of recent years. The gap is likely greater today.

1889 Institute argues that Oklahoma mayors acted unlawfully with COVID-19 orders

OKLAHOMA MAYORS ACTED UNLAWFULLY WITH COVID-19 ORDERS

The mayors of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Norman lacked authority under state law to order shelter in place.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (May 27, 2020) – The 1889 Institute has published “An Argument that Oklahoma’s Mayors Acted Unlawfully During COVID-19.” The legal analysis is authored by the Institute’s Legal Fellow, Ben Lepak, a municipal law expert given his experience counseling 24 elected officials across three Oklahoma counties in a previous position. He makes the case that mayors improperly issued shelter in place orders under a state law intended to combat riots and looting, not pandemic. The study argues that city social distancing rules more restrictive than the state’s are invalid.

“The mayors of Oklahoma’s three largest cities took extreme measures limiting their citizens’ freedoms and harming them financially without proper legal authority,” said Lepak. “These mayors claimed legal authority under laws that simply were never intended for containing a pandemic,” he said.

In the study, Lepak examines city ordinances and state laws governing the mayors’ orders, and concludes that the mayors misapplied the Riot Control and Prevention Act of 1968 and local city ordinances based on that Act. These laws were passed in response to social unrest in the late 1960s due to racial tensions and opposition to the Vietnam War.

1889 Institute: abolish ABA accreditation for OK law schools, lead way in innovation

ABOLISH ABA ACCREDITATION FOR OKLAHOMA LAW SCHOOLS

Oklahoma can lead the way in legal education innovation.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (March 25, 2020) – According to a new 1889 Institute study, the American Bar Association (ABA) has a monopoly over legal education in the United States since 47 states have made the ABA their exclusive law school accrediting authority. Oklahoma is one of these states. Like the others, this state was urged by the ABA to give it such authority. This creates a conflict of interest wherein a politically active organization has outsized influence over the educations of attorneys, who constitute a plurality of legislators, make up the entirety of the judiciaries, and exercise great influence over executive agencies at the state and national levels.

“Though only 14 percent of lawyers belong to the ABA, they wield outsized influence over all three branches of our government by virtue of their dominance of legal education,” said Ben Lepak, 1889 Institute Legal Fellow and author of the study. “The ABA’s obsolete requirements, such as a certain number of paper volumes in a law library, stultifies innovation, increases the cost of a legal education, and limits the number of individuals educated in the law,” he said.

Lepak’s study points out that the ABA’s original mission in accrediting law schools was not to improve legal education, but to cut down on the number of attorneys due to what many already in the profession considered “overcrowding.” In other words, they wished to raise their fees by reducing the number of new lawyers.

“Since the ABA’s primary mission is to act in its members’ interests, it is a conflicted interest group that doesn’t even speak for most lawyers,” said Lepak.

The paper recommends that the Oklahoma legislature repeal the ABA’s exclusive ability to accredit law schools by repealing the requirement that to practice law in the state, one must have attended an ABA accredited law school. In turn, this should be coupled with a revamp of the bar exam to make it more relevant to the actual practice of law, making it a multi-part exam that would allow provisional licensing in certain aspects of the legal services where an examinee has proven proficient.


About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “Breaking the ABA’s Law School Cartel: A Proposal to Make Oklahoma Top-Ten in Innovative Lawyer Education,” can be found on the nonprofit’s website at http://www.1889institute.org.

1889 Institute: sell state assets to shore up underfunded pensions

SELL STATE ASSETS TO SHORE UP UNDERFUNDED PENSIONS

The state unnecessarily owns enough assets to close the funding gap in public employee pensions.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (January 22, 2020) – The 1889 Institute has published “Leveraging State-Owned Assets to Fund Pensions and Meet Other Long-Term Funding Challenges.” It makes the case for the sale or lease of assets owned by the State of Oklahoma as a way to fund important items like underfunded pensions, infrastructure, and bonded indebtedness. The paper identifies almost $6 billion in assets the state could liquidate and lays out a process to ensure maximum returns and protection for taxpayers.

“Oklahoma can significantly strengthen public employee pensions and make progress meeting other long-term funding challenges if it properly leverages valuable assets it already owns,” said the study’s author, Ben Lepak, 1889 Institute’s Legal Fellow. “Much of this property would be put to better use in the private sector, is not currently taxed, and costs the state money in the form of maintenance expenses,” he said.

In the study, Lepak identifies seven state-owned assets as top candidates for monetization or transfer, including the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET), the Grand River Dam Authority, and Oklahoma’s turnpikes. The study estimates the seven assets listed are worth $5.7 billion, which the state could dedicate to long-term funding needs.

“Our largest pension system, the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), faces over $6.5 billion in unfunded liabilities,” Lepak noted. “Transferring the TSET endowment to TRS would do a great deal to ensure our teachers receive the pensions they’ve been promised.” In addition, Lepak notes that TSET receives annual payments typically in excess of $50 million from tobacco companies, which exceeds TSET’s annual operating expenses.

The study also emphasizes the need for strong policy guidelines in the monetization process to ensure the best result. Among the principles recommended are transparency policies to prevent favoritism and cronyism, placing final decision-making authority outside of the agency controlling the property in question, and using the newly-created Legislative Office for Fiscal Transparency.

“I am proposing to establish a process that enables the state to make regular, clear-eyed decisions about its balance sheet and the best use of limited resources,” Lepak said. “The assets noted in the study are just a starting point. The state should regularly evaluate its assets and sell items it probably shouldn’t have owned in the first place.”

About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “Leveraging State-Owned Assets to Fund Pensions and Meet Other Long-Term Funding Challenges” can be found on the nonprofit’s website at https://1889institute.org/fiscal-policy.

1889 Institute files amicus brief in US Supreme Court over state bar associations and political speech

1889 INSTITUTE FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Oklahoma Bar Association tramples first amendment rights of state’s attorneys

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (January 2, 2019) – The 1889 Institute, an Oklahoma state policy think tank, has filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court. The amicus (friend of the court) brief asks the court to review the case of a North Dakota attorney who has been forced to fund political causes he opposes through mandatory membership in the state bar association. This also occurs in Oklahoma, where attorneys are forced, by law, to join the Oklahoma Bar Association if they wish to practice in the state.

“The Oklahoma Bar Association uses its members’ money for political and ideological advocacy, not just to make sure lawyers are qualified and behave ethically.” said Ben Lepak, Legal Fellow at the 1889 Institute and author of the brief. “That violates lawyers’ First Amendment right to freedom of association and their right to choose what political speech they will and will not support with their money.”

Lepak went on to say, “And it’s totally unnecessary. In 18 states, attorneys aren’t forced to join a bar association or pay money to a bar association to practice law, but the state still regulates attorneys, and attorneys still pay for the cost of that regulation.”

1889 Institute’s brief argues that the case of Fleck v. Wetch has national reach, so the court should do far more than merely correct one bad decision of a lower court. The brief highlights the political activity of the Oklahoma Bar Association, which the brief argues is representative of political activity by mandatory associations in 30 other states. The Supreme Court reviews only a small fraction of the cases it is asked to hear.

A similar lawsuit was filed against the Oklahoma Bar Association in March 2019 by a Tulsa attorney who has accused the OBA of using his mandatory dues to fund political activity. That case is pending in federal court in Oklahoma City. If the nation’s Supreme Court takes the North Dakota case, attorneys nationwide, including Oklahoma attorneys, might see their First Amendment rights vindicated.”

The 1889 Institute has critiqued the OBA’s compulsory membership. It has also criticized the privileged status the OBA holds in selecting state judges. Publications include “The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s Unchecked Abuse of Power in Attorney Regulation,” “Legislators in Black Robes: Unelected Lawmaking by the Oklahoma Supreme Court,” and “Taming Judicial Overreach: 12 Actions the Legislature Can Take Immediately.”


About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The Fleck Brief, and other reports on licensing can be found on the nonprofit’s website at http://www.1889institute.org/licensing.html. Reports on the Oklahoma judicial system are available at https://1889institute.org/govt-profiteering. 

1889 Institute: Reforms needed to tame overreaching state courts

Reforms Needed to Tame Oklahoma’s Overreaching Courts

12 actions the Oklahoma Legislature take immediately

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (October 23, 2019) – A new 1889 Institute publication, “Taming Judicial Overreach: 12 Actions the Legislature Can Take Immediately” fulfills a promise from Ben Lepak, 1889 Institute’s Legal Fellow, to publish a list of statutory court reform recommendations. That promise was made in a previous report, “Legislators in Black Robes: Unelected Lawmaking by the Oklahoma Supreme Court,” a study that showed how the court often acts as an unelected legislature.

Although four specific recommendations were included in the previous paper, with one that would require amending the constitution, other statutory reforms are possible. These are explained in detail in the new paper; these reforms include:

1. Eliminate the Judicial Nominating Commission’s (JNC) role in filling vacancies for all courts below the Supreme Court.
2. Remove the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA) from the process of selecting JNC members.
3. Re-organize the Court of Civil Appeals to create a true intermediate appellate court.
4. Make the JNC subject to the Open Meetings Act.
5. Ban lobbying of the Legislature by members of the Supreme Court and employees of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
6. Limit Public Interest Standing.
7. Establish rules for recusal of justices from cases, and prescribe procedures for appointing special (substitute) justices.
8. Add “improperly exercising the powers of the legislative branch” as a ground for impeachment of a Supreme Court justice.
9. Implement a term limit for Supreme Court justices.
10. Require additional information to be reported by the judicial branch annually for purposes of oversight.
11. Make the Supreme Court subject to the Open Records Act.
12. Require the Supreme Court to Maintain a More Easily Accessible Docket.

In explaining his reason for proposing these reforms Ben Lepak said, “The Oklahoma Legislature need not sit idly as the Supreme Court whittles away at the Legislature’s legitimate constitutional authority, but can take immediate action without having to go to the voters to amend the constitution.” Lepak went on to say, “The Legislature, as the people’s legitimate representatives in government not only can take these actions, but owe it to their constituents to do so, and must if they are to uphold the Rule of Law.”

About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an independent Oklahoma think tank committed to state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “Taming Judicial Overreach: 12 Actions the Legislature Can Take Immediately” can be found on the nonprofit’s website at https://1889institute.org/govt-profiteering.

1889 Institute: Why are OKCPS teachers begging for basics?

OKCPS Teachers Begging for Basics

1889 Institute identifies $34,000 in basic supplies teacher have had to beg for.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (October 9, 2019) – The 1889 Institute has published a study that identifies $34,000 in charitable solicitations by Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) teachers in their efforts to obtain basic necessities for classrooms that the district should be automatically providing.  Entitled “Why Are OKCPS Teachers Begging the Public for Basics?” the paper highlights 64 separate solicitations from teachers across the district for basics, including frogs to dissect, whiteboard supplies, sets of dictionaries, chairs to fit tables for small children, and basic physical education supplies. All of the solicitations are from the DonorsChoose.org website and were identified on August 22, 2019.

“We did not look at the entire state’s Donors Choose solicitations on that date, but the Piedmont district, which spends about 70 percent of what OKCPS does, had no teacher solicitations for basic necessities on that date,” said 1889 Institute Director Byron Schlomach. Schlomach authored the report with research assistance from fellow 1889 Institute analysts Mike Davis and Ben Lepak. Schlomach pointed out that the necessities identified are only a small proportion of all the Donors Choose solicitations since his study only sought to identify true classroom necessities.

The report points out that OKCPS is not a low-spending district in the state, but is relatively well-funded. Therefore, the study argues, the fact that OKCPS teachers are effectively begging for necessities, like bulbs for district-provided projectors and printers due to poorly-maintained school copiers, is strong evidence that priorities are poorly decided.

Schlomach said he got the idea for the study from his wife having to do a Donors Choose solicitation for copy paper last year, since her campus was not being provided with it. “I wondered if other teachers were being denied such basic supplies. Clearly, they are,” said Schlomach. “Now, I only wonder what I don’t know. How much have teachers spent on basics the district should be readily providing, given that I know the district can afford them? How many teachers around the state are dealing with the same neglect from their district administrations?” he asked.


About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “Why Are OKCPS Teachers Begging the Public for Basics?” and other reports on public education finance can be found on the nonprofit’s website at https://1889institute.org/education-finance-1.

1889 Institute releases study showing OK Supreme Court's abuse of power

1889 INSTITUTE RELEASES STUDY SHOWING OKLAHOMA SUPREME COURT’S ABUSE OF POWER

The Court often acts like a legislature with its judicial opinions.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (September 4, 2019) – The 1889 Institute has published “Legislators in Black Robes: Unelected Lawmaking by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.” It makes the case that the Court often decides cases based on what its majority thinks the law ought to be rather than what it actually is. This violates the rule of law, the separation of powers, and robs from Oklahomans their right to self-government.

“Legislating from the bench is a problem everywhere, but it is particularly bad in Oklahoma because the Supreme Court ignores the very restrained role granted it by the Oklahoma Constitution,” said the study’s author, Ben Lepak, 1889 Institute’s Legal Fellow. “Oklahoma’s Supreme Court justices seem to view themselves as super legislators making public policy rather than judges deciding cases,” he said.

In the study, Lepak identifies four main methods used by the Court to illegitimately inject itself into the role of policymaking rather than proper legal interpretation. These include selectively exploiting the constitution’s single-subject requirement for proposed laws, selectively enforcing the constitution’s prohibition on special laws, declaring laws they do not like to be ambiguous when they’re actually quite clear, and declaring themselves eligible to review a law based on the dubious misuse of standing based on “public interest.”

“It is no wonder Oklahoma was added to a national ‘Judicial Hellhole’ list, considering the Supreme Court’s inconsistent and often arbitrary application of legal rules,” said Lepak. “The Court seems to decide the outcome it wants first, and then supplies whatever legal reasoning is needed to achieve that result. If the case has the potential to benefit trial lawyers, it’s pretty easy to predict how the Supreme Court will rule,” he explained.

Lepak’s study points out that trial lawyers effectively control the process of selecting Supreme Court justices in Oklahoma. He recommends fundamentally changing the way Oklahoma selects judges and justices. He pointed out that the legislature could act on its own to fix the lower courts, but changing the process for Oklahoma’s Supreme Court requires a constitutional amendment.


About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “Legislators in Black Robes: Unelected Lawmaking by the Oklahoma Supreme Court” can be found on the nonprofit’s website at https://1889institute.org/govt-profiteering.

1889 Institute: OK Bar Association lawsuit exposes issues beyond just free speech

ISSUES WITH ATTORNEY LICENSING BIGGER THAN SCHELL v. WILLIAMS

The problems go beyond violations of free speech

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (March 29, 2019) – In its February 2019 report, “The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s Unchecked Abuse of Power in Attorney Regulation,” the 1889 Institute brought up the free speech issue over which Mark Schell, a Tulsa attorney, is suing the Oklahoma Bar Association. The lawsuit, and 1889’s report, argue that requiring attorneys to be members of, and pay mandatory dues to, the Oklahoma Bar Association violates the First Amendment. These requirements amount to forced speech since the Association uses part of the dues to advocate political positions many attorneys find personally objectionable.

The 1889 Institute’s report identifies another highly important issue not being litigated, but that should be urgently addressed. As described in the publication, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has violated the fundamental constitutional principle of the separation of powers. It did so by commandeering legislative and executive powers, declaring for itself sole power to authorize and administer attorney licensing in Oklahoma. In so doing, the Oklahoma Supreme Court declared it had the power to control all aspects of the practice of law in Oklahoma, not just practice before Oklahoma’s state courts. The other two branches did nothing to protect their usurped constitutional powers.

“My hope is that this lawsuit will spark a wider discussion and ultimately, more extensive reform in both how Oklahoma regulates attorneys and in how we select our judges,” said Ben Lepak, Legal Fellow at the 1889 Institute. “Judges and attorneys in Oklahoma are part of a system of regulation that violates the Oklahoma and U.S. Constitutions, undermining the Rule of Law,” he said.

“The federal lawsuit is attempting to tackle one narrow aspect of the problem,” said Lepak. “That is a positive development, but far more fundamental reform is needed. If the state Supreme Court won’t act on its own to remedy these constitutional violations, the state legislature and governor should re-assert their authority and override the Court.”


About the 1889 Institute
The 1889 Institute is an Oklahoma think tank committed to independent, principled state policy fostering limited and responsible government, free enterprise and a robust civil society. The publication, “The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s Unchecked Abuse of Power in Attorney Regulation” can be found on the nonprofit’s website at http://www.1889institute.org/licensing.