Weekly Opinion/Editorial

OPENING UP THE PROCESS!

by Steve Fair

Oklahoma House Speaker-Designate Kris Steele, (R-Shawnee) announced last week he plans to change how the conference committee process in the State House works. Steele says the procedure will make the whole legislative process more transparent and open to the public.

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A conference committee is a committee appointed by the State House and State Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. The committee is usually composed of the senior members of the committee where the bill originated.
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Beginning with the 2011 legislative session, Steele said all conference committee reports will be posted online for a full day before the bill can be considered on the House floor. The current House rules require conference reports be posted on the calendar for a minimum of 24 hours for review, except for the last two days of session. Steele also plans to take away the exception for the last two days.
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"We have come so far in a few short years in making Oklahoma one of the most open and accessible governments in the country," said Steele. "These changes, and others that may come later, will make our state government more transparent while also bringing the legislative process into homes across Oklahoma so people can become more involved."
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Additionally, Steele said that next year conference committee reports posted online for member and public review will also contain a link to the previous versions of the bill so the changes can be more easily spotted.

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Representative Dennis Johnson, (R-Duncan) supports Steele’s proposal. “Making government transparent is a good thing. I believe the changes will get more people involved in the process and by putting it online, it will be accessible to virtually everyone,” Johnson said.

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Since Republicans took control of the State House in 2004, they have worked to ‘open up’ Oklahoma government. For the first time in state history, ‘committee votes’ were recorded starting in 2005. Prior to that, like Vegas-what happened in the committee room stayed in the committee room. For years, good legislation was buried in committee and because committee votes were not recorded, the public had no idea who was stonewalling good legislation.
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In 2007, the House went to an exclusively online model, where members were given lap top computers and amendments and varying versions of bills were all available online as soon as they were filed for not only the members, but the public and the press as well. This was a major improvement over the previous system which often had bills passed before the public was even aware of them.
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In 2009, the House launched a video program that allows all members to speak directly to Oklahomans through the House website about important legislation under consideration. Last year, every legislative session was live streamed, so any interested citizen can view the process from a computer anywhere.
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Oklahoma has made significant progress in ‘opening up the process,’ but Steele’s idea on giving the Oklahoma taxpayer 24 hours to see/study a conference committee bill before its voted on the floor is excellent.
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Most major legislation requires a conference committee report. Steele’s proposal will do two things.

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First, it will allow the public time to look at bills before they are voted on. The key is for concerned, engaged Oklahoma citizens to regularly monitor the website to make see what is about to be voted on. If it’s something they are passionate about, they will have time to contact their legislator before the bill is voted on.
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Second, Steele’s proposal will discourage legislators from hurrying up legislation they don’t want the public to know anything about. In the past, we’ve had legislators who believe they know what we need better than we do and they rush bills through in order to keep the public ‘in the dark.’
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We have a ‘representative’ form of government. That’s where we vote on a person and send them up there to vote on the bills. As Will Rogers said, “Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.” But that doesn’t mean we can’t influence them on a particular bill- in fact we should.

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Steele’s plan to open up the process a little more to the public will result in more public input in legislation, resulting in better legislation. Better legislation will move Oklahoma forward.