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Oklahoma 2022: Tulsa area legislative races
Two State Senate districts and six State House districts that overlap with Tulsa County have general elections on November 8, 2022. Neighboring counties add in four additional State House seats. Here's an overview with my recommendations in six of the races; details after the jump, and more to be added....
No on SQ802: Arkansas warning
Before Oklahomans foolishly enshrine a new, unfunded and unlimited entitlement into our state constitution (SQ802), we ought to heed the experience of our neighbors to the east. On May 13, 2020, when the Oklahoma legislature was debating a Medicaid expansion bill, Arkansas State Representative Josh Miller, a Republican, wrote a...
No on SQ802: Obamacare Medicaid expansion
The only state question on the June 30, 2020, primary ballot is Oklahoma State Question 802. This would create a new Constitutional Amendment, Article XXV-A, requiring the State of Oklahoma to offer Obamacare Medicaid expansion coverage to anyone below a certain income, regardless of the person's work or family status....
Charles G. Hill, Doyen of Dustbury, RIP
A memorial tribute to Charles G. Hill, Oklahoma's best-loved and most-enduring blogger, who died in September 8, 2019.
Oklahoma primary 2018: BatesLine ballot card
Here are the candidates I'm recommending in the Oklahoma primary elections on June 26, 2018, plus links to detailed analysis and recommendations from other trusted voices.
Boston Beer Garden, 1937-1983
Found while looking for something else: In the Tulsa Library's growing digital archive, a December 22, 1983, Tulsa Tribune, story about the the Boston Beer Garden, destroyed by fire in the wee hours of December 21, 1983. The fire took the life of the bar's janitor and night watchman, Lennis...
2016 Oklahoma runoff post-game analysis
David Beaudoin of the Local and Special Elections blog has added last Tuesday's Oklahoma Republican runoff results to his database and has noticed some interesting patterns and a few exceptions to patterns. The percentage of primary first-place finishers who won the runoff was 78%, a bit higher than the five-cycle...
Look for the Chamber label -- then vote for someone else
It may seem counter-intuitive, but if you're a conservative, the Chamber of Commerce is not your friend. Not the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, not the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, not the Tulsa Regional Chamber. If you're a conservative voting in the Republican primary, look to see whom the Chambers are supporting, then give your vote to some other candidate. If the Chambers are attacking a Republican candidate, she's probably worthy of your enthusiastic backing.
Obamacare Medicaid rebalancing bad for Oklahoma
In his Tuesday blogpost, Trent England of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs answers seven questions about "Medicaid Rebalancing", a proposal currently before the Oklahoma legislature. It is an attempt at passing the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, previously rejected by Oklahoma under a different guise, for a short-term benefit (extra federal...
Tom Coburn's farewell to the Senate
Oklahoma's U. S. Senator Tom Coburn did not suffer from senioritis. He made the most of every minute of the final weeks of his ten years in the Senate. On December 9, Coburn issued the latest and last in his long-running series of reports on government waste. Tax DecoderTom_Coburn-Tax_Decoder-2014.pdf, an...
Jonathan Gruber? Never heard of him
Jonathan Gruber is the MIT economics professor, often called the "architect of Obamacare," who has said publicly that Obamacare's passage owed much to the "stupidity of the American people" and that its authors necessarily obfuscated the impacts on taxpayers in order to get the bill passed. "Lack of transparency is...
AG Scott Pruitt on Oklahoma's Obamacare suit
Friday, at Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit in Dallas, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt sat down with the BatesLine team for a wide-ranging conversation about the issues that his office is pursuing on behalf of Oklahomans. Pruitt discussed the EPA's proposed expansion of the definition of "waters...
Arkansas: Costly Medicaid expansion by another name
Yesterday, the Oklahoma Legislature convened for the 2014 session, and Gov. Mary Fallin gave her "State of the State" address. One of the issues that is bound to come up again is whether eligibility Medicaid, the federally-funded health insurance program for low-income and disabled people, should be expanded. They need...
Controlling medical costs through price transparency
On Monday in Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Oklahoma's free-market policy think-tank, hosted a forum on health care, highlighting the value of transparency and direct payment in medical pricing, and the accomplishments of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City in providing high-quality health care for...
Fallin rejects Obamacare exchange, Medicaid expansion
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin announced today that Oklahoma will not create a state-based Obamacare exchange or participate in Obamacare's Medicaid expansion: For the past few months, my staff and I have worked with other lawmakers, Oklahoma stakeholders and health care experts across the country to determine the best course of...
Could Oklahoma unravel Obamacare?
With the judicial and political options for voiding Obamacare now apparently off the table, the final hope to defeat the DMV-ization of the best medical system on the planet may be the vast law's inherent contradictions. Hastily and sloppily put together, there are loopholes in the law that may be...
Oklahoma responses to ObamaCare ruling
My inbox is filling with responses from Oklahoma officials and policy influencers to the ObamaCare ruling. From the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs: The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold the vast majority of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) reemphasizes the need for action at the ballot box and the...
"Protecting Oklahoma Values" and its bogus claims against Katie Henke
An unknown, untraceable organization called "Protecting Oklahoma Values" has sent three postcards to voters in support of Oklahoma House District 71 Democrat candidate Dan Arthrell and attacking Republican nominee Katie Henke. The District 71 seat is the ballot next Tuesday, April 3, 2012, in a special election to fill the...
Government-mandated contraception funding: Debunking the left
-->The Washington, D.C., based blog Alexa Shrugged weighs into the debate over the Obamacare mandate that would force church-owned institutions to fund insurance coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and abortion even if such funding violates the principles of the owners. Alexa has posted three installments in this series, marshaling facts,...
Nancy Rothman: Where did all the money go?
On July 17, 2011, the Tulsa World ran a story on the 2003 appeals court ruling that levied attorney's fees on Tulsa City Council District 2 candidate Nancy Rothman because of her contemptible attempts to alienate her sons from their father and to smear her ex-husband's reputation. (The story ran...
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