As the Oklahoma Political News Service reported in late January, Sen. Bingman was given the task of carrying SB 2298, as a political payback bill. But the unintended consequences made it in effect a pro-drug dealer bill that embattled senate leader Glenn Coffee desperately needed to get the official senate albatross, Fred Morgan, out of the building. Capitol insiders say the drug bill revelation and our previous reports last fall of Sen. Coffee’s emotional meltdown contributed to the derailment of Sen. Bingman’s bid on the first day of the legislature.
While the capitol press corps ignored the story, the Bingman defeat nonetheless leaked out through other media reports, with Oklahoma City’s News9 once again scooping the capitol gang. Two days after his Monday defeat, and with his long-term chances to succeed Coffee fading into the sunset, one observer says an obviously freaked-out Bingman, carrying a copy of the OKPNS story, shuttled back and forth feverishly to get leadership to quietly re-assigned the bill, ironically, to Sen. Anthony Sykes' committee, which would have ensured a quiet death to this colossally-bad idea.
However, last week Bingman sought to put even more distance between himself and this controversy, withdrawing as author on February 8th. Then on Thursday the 11th, the bill was pulled from Sykes’ committee and re-assigned to the Judiciary Committee, so the Coffee-Bingman payback bill continues to attempt to find new life in the political equivalent of a witness protection program.
Nonetheless, as we reported, Bingman’s bill undermined Sykes' wildly-successful 2009 bill that gave law enforcement adequate resources to fight the exploding Mexican methamphetamine plague. While the bill got the Fred Morgan albatross out from around his neck, it is this colossal misjudgment that contributed to Bingman’s derailment, and most likely mortally wounded his chances to ever become senate leader.
Regardless of where it eventually surfaces, the original SB 2298, now known around the Capitol as “Bingman’s Folly” is the early favorite for worst bill of the 2010 legislature, and a solid lesson why influential political observers are beginning to recognize that bloggers (not crabby old men who cut & paste other's articles) are replacing the old media as the medium best suited to check the excesses of corruption, regardless of party affiliation.
But Wait! There’s More!
Sources tell me that another ridiculous bill, which will result in massive harm to sick Oklahomans, is alive and well awaiting a House floor vote. They tell me it’s a story with a "clownish author" and "more bad guys than an old Hollywood Western." Stay Tuned.
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