Fridays with Coopy: Spring Break Edition

If you think spring break is for kids only, welcome to the Oklahoma Legislature. This week has shown Oklahoma high school students are not the only ones thinking of sand and slopes.

The amount of time lawmakers spent in session this week can be counted in minutes, not hours, minutes. On Tuesday, the state House of Representatives met for 23 minutes, and 10 of those minutes were spent cleaning the spittle out of Rep. Mike Reynolds microphone.

Legislators brought their kids to work as the House and Senate chambers turned into child care centers. Toddlers were instructed on which button you push for yea, which button you push for nay and which button you push to call Doctor Who. (The David Tennant Doctor, not the goofy Matt Smith Doctor.)

The reason for the Legislature’s own version of dead week is due to last week being the deadline for bills to be voted on and moved to the other chamber.  Any bill which did not pass out of the chamber it originated from by last week is dead for the session. This is the easiest way to kill a bill without having to vote on it. That is what happened to the bill which would have removed the Legislature’s exemption from the Oklahoma Open Records Act. No legislator wants to be seen voting against a bill giving the public the right to know what their elected officials are doing behind closed doors.

Just how much of a lazy week was it? On Wednesday, the Senate and House sent messages to each other saying we will take the rest of the week off if you will. You get the same answer when the MILF teacher asks the 15-year-old to stay after school.

But the week was not a total loss. Measures were approved which declared March as Red Cross Month and proclaiming Girls Scout Day at the capitol. Tax payer dollars at work baby. Let’s hope that next week we get a better use of them.

Scott Cooper, an awarding-winning journalist for enterprise and investigative reporting, is the editor and publisher of OKLegalNews.com. He can be reached at scooper@oklegalnews.com.