Oklahoma Republicans? What Happened??

It was called the Reagan Revolution: a realignment of the political system away from big government and corruption and toward conservative principles and an economic system steeped in free market ideas.

 

However, in many solid red states over the past decade, the Reagan Principles have been left behind as Republican majorities are ironically increasing in many of those states. And at the core of that paradox is an increasing capitulation by Republican leadership to big business, pimps for the tax credit crowd and more bows to the insurance industry than the President at an OPEC meeting. In other words, the new Oklahoma Sub-Standard.

 

The Oklahoma Sub-Standard began to really pick up steam with the sad regimes of former Senate Leader Glenn Coffee and Speaker Chris Benge. This blogger wrote numerous times of the leadership vacuum that engulfed the un-dynamic duo. Utterly lacking in any sort of skill set that would permit them to succeed in the free-market, these two now litter the public sector landscape with Coffee remote controlling the hapless new Senate Leader Brian Bingman from his perch as advisor to Gov. Fallin, something predicted by the Oklahoma Political News Service over a year ago.

 

But as to the present, observers in the region are pointing to the new Oklahoma Sub-Standard as the sure-fire way to scuttle permanent Republican majorities.  Let’s examine one such issue: so-called ‘tort reform.’

 

I hate frivolous lawsuits, but I hate liars worse.  I’d rather they just tell us the truth and say they need to pay back the folks who bank-rolled their 2010 victories. But Bingman and Coffee keep insisting we desperately need so-called tort reform now, even if we violate the 7th Amendment and impair the right to have a fair trial.     

 

But with all the sincerity of a politician insisting he hadn’t had relations with a certain intern, these two keep mumbling it’s about jobs and other inane foolishness.  But the facts speak otherwise: in 2009, Coffee, an associate at one of Oklahoma’s top insurance defense firms in addition to being Senate Leader (and he couldn’t pay his taxes with THAT portfolio?) engaged the trial bar.  After protracted wrangling, Benge and Coffee declared Oklahoma ‘tort reformed.’  The American Tort Reform Association gave Oklahoma their coveted ‘Gold Medal’ for having the best state civil justice system.  A look back provides clarity on looking forward.  From the Insurance Journal May 22, 2009:

 

 

Question is: were they lying to us then, or are they lying to us now? The answer is both. Republican Leadership knows that we know that these tort reform efforts are a payoff to the lawyer-hating crowd that bankrolled campaign after Republican campaign last fall.  Heck, we can understand that, but for some confusing reason Republican Leadership decided a sweet line of bull was better than the truth. Tort reform was hardly mentioned in the 2010 elections, but on the day after, the huge Republican gains emboldened the leadership to attempt a political Bobby Ewing. 

 

The political Bobby Ewing is central to the establishment of the Oklahoma Sun-Standard.  “What’s a political Bobby Ewing,” you ask?  Flashback to the Eighties: the producers of the CBS mega-hit Dallas killed off J.R. Ewing’s little brother Bobby when actor Patrick Duffy decided he’d had enough of the show and wanted out.  For the 1985-86 season, Bobby Ewing was as dead as Reagan’s Revolution in Oklahoma.  But later, realizing his mistake, Duffy wanted back on, so the producers created a storyline which featured Bobby Ewing’s wife Pam waking up to find Bobby in the shower and she ‘realized’ the  stories of the preceding season (and Bobby Ewing’s death) were nothing more than a long, bad dream. 

 

So in her inaugural state of the state address, new Gov. Mary Fallin included in her speech a line about ending jackpot justice and conservative Republicans and tea party/liberty people were just supposed to think 2009 was a dream, including the part of the 2009 law that was a bailout for bad doctors that never materialized.   

 

But with a slow and un-inquisitive press corps, the Oklahoma Sub-Standard has flourished this session.  Leadership has shucked and jived their way through the process to ensure passage and keep pesky citizens away from all those messy facts.  Just last week, Bingman ran the tort reform bill through his rules committee instead of senate judiciary just to make sure nobody knew what was in the bill, a move so transparent and pathetic that even the capitol press corps could understand.  As Forrest Gump says, “Deceit is as deceit does.”

 

So as Bingman and the embattled Speaker Chris Steele push their 2011 version of a Bobby Ewing, we are left with visions of the man who ended the Cold War (and made us proud to be CONSERVATIVES) spinning in his grave.  As one respected pundit is saying frequently, “If Ronald Reagan Rises from the grave tomorrow he’ll travel to Oklahoma and beat the crap out of Bingman and Steele.”

 

But maybe I’m wrong.  Regardless of your take on tort reform, it is sad that Bingman and Steele would prefer to follow the lightly regarded Coffee and Benge as their role models instead of Reagan.  But as Democratic Rep. Richard Morrissette pointed out on News9’s Your Vote Counts Sunday Morning, seven Republican senators will have the final say on this bill this week.  To vote this faux tort reform bill down will draw heat, but Reagan once said one of the toughest things to teach children is that “truth is more important than the consequences.”  To do the right thing, to send the fake bill back and start telling the truth is a grand consequence. 

 

Here’s hoping that this week seven senators take the first step in demolishing the Oklahoma Sub-Standard.  Call ‘em up and encourage them to remember Reagan because rediscovering courage is a good thing.