By SEN. SEAN BURRAGE on Sep 4, 2013, at 2:24 AM Updated on 9/04/13 at 3:30 AM
Sean Burrage: Why have we waited three months since the Supreme Court's ruling?
Tell us what you think: Is the Legislature's special session to deal with lawsuit reform justified?
Efficiency, effectiveness, less waste, less spending: These are all pet phrases you hear at the state Capitol. Spending $30,000 a day for a special session seems contrary to those slogans.
Yet, Gov. Mary Fallin called for this special session because we supposedly have an emergency situation that necessitates this expenditure of time and money.
So, what's the emergency? Is it that 30,000 hard-working Oklahomans will lose their health insurance at the end of the year? Or that Oklahoma's pension system is underfunded by $13 billion to $47 billion? How about the constant danger our corrections officers are in due to the 30 percent staffing shortage in Oklahoma's prisons? Could it be the spike in the number of children in foster care?
No, none of these issues is dire enough to call for a special session. The "real" emergency is a hypothetical medical malpractice lawsuit.
In June, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma struck down a 2009 law dealing with lawsuit reform. The court's reason for this decision was that the Legislature ignored the single-subject rule - "logrolling" - of the Oklahoma Constitution when it passed this particular law.
This ruling is not the first time the Supreme Court has scolded the Legislature for passing unconstitutional legislation.
Supporters of the special session say restoring these laws cannot wait until the 2014 regular session because there will be an onslaught of frivolous lawsuits that will endanger Oklahoma's economy.
But it's possible these reforms only will get back into statute a mere two months earlier via special session than if they were re-enacted during the regular February legislative session.
If this issue is so urgent, why have we waited three months since the Supreme Court's ruling to have this special session? This special session comes down to high-priced political posturing and expensive pandering to special interests, not good public policy making.
If the majority in the Legislature could guarantee that these bills would pass both houses with emergency clauses, there would be a better case for considering them now instead of waiting until February.
An emergency clause states that "it being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage approval."
The clause means we think this issue is so important, we can't wait 30, 60, or 90 days to get it on the books. But there is no commitment from the supporters of this special session that these bills will be able to pass both houses with emergency clauses.
The truth is, passing these lawsuit reform bills isn't an emergency and has nothing to do with preserving public peace, health or safety. There are clearly some urgent issues we need to address that do, such as the fact that thousands of hardworking Oklahomans are going to be left with no access to health care on Dec. 31 when Insure Oklahoma loses federal funding.
But, apparently, 30,000 real Oklahomans losing their health insurance is not as big of an emergency as imaginary doctors facing hypothethical lawsuits.
So, during the next couple of weeks we're going to spend $30,000 a day to reapprove lawsuit reforms that were logrolled into a single bill in 2009.
We're going to spend $200,000, or more, to protect doctors from lawyers but not to ensure that hard-working Oklahomans have access to health care or make sure our prisons are staffed at safe levels. And when the gavel finally falls on this special session, the people of Oklahoma will have little to nothing to show for the money we spent.
That's neither efficient nor effective government. And once again, we'll find that bad politics trumps good public policy at the Oklahoma Capitol.
Sean Burrage represents Senate District 2, which includes portions of Mayes and Rogers counties. He is the Democratic leader in the Oklahoma Senate.
Original Print Headline: Bad politics trumps good policy in special session
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Gov. Mary Fallin: Lawsuit reform must be addressed now
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The incarceration rate in Oklahoma is among the highest in the nation with approximately 26,000 people behind bars at any given time.
The Nov. 28, 2008, Tulsa World published my Readers Forum piece, "Antietam," in which I reported on a visit my then-8-year-old grandson, Stevie, and I made to Antietam battlefield in rural Maryland.
