OCPAC e-mail - Session starts - craziness begins & Why readers should join OCPAC!

[Charlie Meadows]

Members and friends of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC)

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

++  SESSION STARTS - CRAZINESS BEGINS!

++  WHY READERS SHOULD JOIN OCPAC

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, January 28th 2015, will be held at Olivet Baptist Church, 1201 Northwest 10th street in OKC. Our folks really enjoyed Mr. Trent England last week, that program can be viewed at www.oklahomacpac.com as well as other past programs. This week we will continue with lawmakers coming to explain the key bills they have authored and are pushing. On Wednesday the 14th we had State Representatives Bobby Cleveland, Sally Kern, Tom Newell and Lewis Moore. This week we are set to have State Representatives Jon Echols, Dan Fisher, Randy Grau and Jason Murphey. Then a week from this Wednesday we will have 4 more lawmakers including some from the Senate. These are very informative meetings and I encourage folks to attend. 

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

*  SUNDAY AFTERNOON  -  STATE CAPITOL  -  It always happens on Super Bowl Sunday, the annual “Pray for Your Legislator Day”, held each year the day before the legislative session begins. Folks are urged to attend by entering on the West side of the Capitol and going to the Senate and/or House Chambers to pray for your personal lawmaker or others as well. The time is between 2 and 3:00 pm, please be respectful. You may leave a note of encouragement for everyone you sit in their chair and pray for. There is plenty of time to return home to see the Super Bowl if that is something necessary in one’s life.

*  TUESDAY EVENING  FEB 10TH  -  OKC AREA  -  The Oklahoma Christian Home Educators’ Consociation (OCHEC) is hosting their annual Capitol Day at the Capitol and then in the evening they are hosting a banquet to celebrate 30 years for the organizations involvement in advocating for those in the state that have chosen to home educate their children. The keynote speaker for the banquet is Dr. Ben Carson, one of the expected presidential candidates on the Republican party ticket. I was able to hear Dr. Carson last September in Dallas and he is very impressive. He is certainly one of the 3 candidates I am currently considering getting behind as the next candidate for the Republicans to put up against the eventual Democrat candidate. 

The evening will include a Dinner, book signing and silent auction. The location will be the Renaissance Convention Center, 10 North Broadway in downtown OKC. For more information or to RSVP log on to www.OCHEC.com. 

*  TUESDAY EVENING  FEB 10TH  -  OKC AREA  -  There will be a banquet honoring the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper and its editors for 35 years of faithful publication of Oklahoma’s Conservative Voice. The banquet will be on Tuesday evening, February 10th beginning at 6:30 pm. The location will be the Character Inn Conference Center, 520 West Main in downtown OKC. Senator Anthony Sykes will be the Emcee for the evening. If you make reservations before February first the cost to attend is $12 per person or $15 at the door. To make reservations log on to:  www.soonergop.com.   

++  SESSION STARTS, CRAZINESS BEGINS!

The 2015 legislative session is set to begin next Monday, February 2nd. As with all legislative sessions some good will be done and some bad. Some of it is just craziness. One of the worst bills I have seen so far is legislation is intended to make major reforms to our voting processes such as everyone voting by mail or registration on line and the elimination of run-off elections. Not only would those ideas invite fraud into the system, it would go a long way toward turning Oklahoma into a liberal state like Washington, Oregon or Colorado, all states with such voting systems. 

The bills are sponsored by State Senator David Holt (R-OKC). It appears Senator Holt is trying to solve a so called problem of low voter turn-out, without ever asking the question as to why turnout is dropping. 

Could it be the only races in question this past election cycle were state school superintendent and a handful of legislative races and as such the demoralized Democrats in the state just didn’t care to show up? Could it also be many conservative Republicans, so tired of “Democrat-Light candidates in their own party running for office, they just didn’t care to show up? Or the vast majority of those eligible to vote, so poorly educated by our government schools or so “into themselves”, that they are oblivious to what is going on and could care less. These latter two groups are the last people in Oklahoma I want to see being reminded by a ballot in the mail to do their “civic duty”.

Of course almost everyone in the Education industry that makes a living off the task of “educating” the “children” are trying to find a way to raise teacher salaries. State Auditor Gary Jones believes starting teachers, you know those who just got their diploma but haven’t proven they can teach a child how to tie a shoe as yet, get the same wage as a starting lawmaker. 

I have a different thought on that Gary. Since a starting lawmaker gets the same salary as a lawmaker in their 12th year in office, why not lower the average salaries of teachers, now at about $44,500 a year to the average salaries of all lawmakers, about $39,000 a year. Or still another idea, bring those salaries into line with teachers in private schools, probably about $28,000 per year. 

Just another idea, want to compare the outcomes of government school educated kids with those educated in private schools? Republicans used to support pay increases for teachers based on merit rather than increasing pay across the board. That would mean bad teachers, and they do exist, would be getting pay raises the same amount as our excellent teachers. 

Of course eliminating the educationally worthless all day 4 year old pre-school classes would free up a lot of money that could be used in the higher grades for teacher raises as well as take some of the pressure off local districts to have to build ever more buildings.   

Not all that has been introduced is bad, just one case of valuable legislation is being introduced by Representative Sally Kern (R-Bethany & Warr Acres). Kern has introduced 3 very important bills regarding the homosexual communitie’s agenda. The first measure is legislation to not pay any state employee that would issue a marriage license to homosexuals wanting to get married, since doing so would be a violation of our State Constitution. This is actually a bill to nullify the unconstitutional overreach of the federal judiciary.     

 

One of her bills would prevent a minister from being taking to court if they refused to marry a homosexual couple. I would say that is a very important piece of legislation to Biblical pastors, priests, rabbis and even Muslim religious leaders, though the hirelings, false prophets and liberal clergy will probably not like such a measure. Then her final bill in this regard would prevent any business or person not willing to service homosexuals such as providing a wedding cake, flowers or wedding pictures out of religious conscience from being taken to court by the bigoted homosexuals that see tolerance as a one way street only.

Of course I am just scratching the surface as there are over 2,000 pieces of legislation introduced for this year’s session, way too many. One of the best reforms in this area would be to limit house members to no more than 5 bills and senate members to no more than 8 outside of budget bills by the budget charimen. 

++  WHY READERS SHOULD JOIN OCPAC

Representative Paul Wesselhoft (R-Moore), one of Oklahoma’s consistently conservative lawmakers introduced legislation to extend term limits to 16 years from the current number of 12. His bill would not apply to any lawmaker currently in office. He basically tries to make the case that this would prevent excessive influence from lobbyists working for special interest groups. In addition he suggests we have a lot of good lawmakers with experience that have to be termed out after only 12 years. 

With all due respect, I strongly disagree. Any lawmaker in the hip pocket of the lobbyists, and they do exist, through their first 12 years will remain in the hip pocket for another 4 years if the terms are extended. More importantly the 2016 elections will have 13 Republicans in the House and 11 in the Senate termed out. Out of those 24 Republicans only 4, maybe 5 are true conservatives, with the rest of them being moderate to extremely liberal such as Dr. Doug Cox (RINO-Grove). 

Therefore, the 2016 elections are the most important election cycle in Oklahoma since 2004, the first year term limits fully kicked in. We have the opportunity to replace the worst class of Republicans in state history since term limits with a much more conservative group of lawmakers. That is why it is imperative we raise the money necessary to support good conservative candidates. The future direction of state politics will depend greatly on the outcomes of the 2016 elections and as such, we need folks to join to fill our war chest to be able to find and support good conservatives to state office. Please consider joining today, it is the only method we use to raise funds for good candidates.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charlie...@gmail.com 

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