Original article can be found here: http://ok2ahour.org/2014/05/27/government-for-and-by-the-few-part-1-special-interests/
Over the next few days we will breakdown the 2014 State Legislative Session and let you know what happened, both good and bad. There were a few successes this year. We got the K-12 School Parking lot bill passed, which has been a long time coming. We saw Mary, Mary, Quite Contrarys veto of the NFA bill overridden. Several procedural bills were passed and signed into law. Also, Rep. ODonnells bill updating the language on the use of deadly force, another bill vetoed by the Governor, was placed into another bill by the Speaker and passed, though as of Friday, it was still waiting to be signed by the Governor.
That seems pretty good, so why is this article about to take a negative turn? Were it not for a handful of elected legislators and a couple of unelected special interests, it could have been a much, much better year.
Before I go any further, let me make something very clear. Often we hear pundits refer to groups like OK2A, GOA, NRA, etc., as special interest groups. OK2A (as well as the others I just mentioned) is NOT a special interest group. We are a group of citizens who have freely associated themselves together to defend and advance one of our most basic and fundamental human rights the right to defend ones self and ones family against tyranny. That is NOT a special interest group! That is First Amendment political speech in action. Now that Ive gotten that out of the way, lets continue.
HJR1026 was the most important piece of legislation dealing with the right to keep and bear arms ever presented to our State Legislature. Weve discussed the reasons concerning the current language in the Oklahoma Constitution and all the case law, so we wont go back over that now. Suffice it to say this bill was necessary to correct the fact that under our state constitution and current case law, we have almost no protection for our right to keep and bear arms. The bill was working its way through the process quite smoothly until Higher Ed took notice.
Now, when we say Higher Ed, we need to understand who we are really talking about. The Higher Ed lobby does NOT represent the students. They dont even represent the faculty and staff. We are talking about the State Board of Regents and the public college and university presidents and especially their ringleader, David Boren. Or, should I say, King David Boren. That, friends, is a special interest.
King Boren is a leftist progressive. He does not like guns and does not want them on his campus. Through the Kings minions (he has an army of lobbyists at his beck and call whose salaries are paid with tax dollars), an amendment to HJR1026 was offered. I quote: This section shall not prevent the coordinating or governing boards of colleges, universities or technology centers from prohibiting the possession of arms on school or board property.
Mull that over for a second. Done? Do you realize what King Boren was attempting to do? He was attempting to place the Presidents and boards of the universities, colleges, and technology centers in a position with more power than the State Legislature in regards to the peoples right to keep and bear arms. How do I know that was their motivation? We offered a compromise that would have instead added the following: This section shall not prevent the Legislature from regulating the possession of arms on the property of a public school district or public institution of higher education. In essence, this would have left regulation of arms on campus as it is now in the hands of the Legislature.
We ran this compromise past the Kings minions. In an email to our Vice President, Danny Hilliard, OUs Vice President of Government Relations (i.e., their head lobbyist), said, The language suggested by our General Legal Counsel .remains their preference to address our concerns. In other words, King Boren doesnt want things to remain as they currently are; he wants to place himself, an unelected and unaccountable university president, in a position with more authority than the elected representatives of the people. Can we call that arrogant? I think we can.
It appears to me that King Boren really does think he is a king and simply wants to get the uneducated surfs with their pitchforks away from his castle and out of his kingdom. The truly unfortunate truth here is that it almost worked! The Senate was poised to add King Borens amendment until we got loud about it and stopped them. But the fact remains, the Senate was more than ready to listen to a true special interest, a group made up of only a few, rather than their bosses the citizens of this state.
During the last week of the session, we still had an opportunity to get HJR1026 passed in spite of King Boren, but one Senator and four Representatives stood in the way (all five were Republicans, by the way). We will name names and give details over the next few days. Stay tuned!
Over the next few days we will breakdown the 2014 State Legislative Session and let you know what happened, both good and bad. There were a few successes this year. We got the K-12 School Parking lot bill passed, which has been a long time coming. We saw Mary, Mary, Quite Contrarys veto of the NFA bill overridden. Several procedural bills were passed and signed into law. Also, Rep. ODonnells bill updating the language on the use of deadly force, another bill vetoed by the Governor, was placed into another bill by the Speaker and passed, though as of Friday, it was still waiting to be signed by the Governor.
That seems pretty good, so why is this article about to take a negative turn? Were it not for a handful of elected legislators and a couple of unelected special interests, it could have been a much, much better year.
Before I go any further, let me make something very clear. Often we hear pundits refer to groups like OK2A, GOA, NRA, etc., as special interest groups. OK2A (as well as the others I just mentioned) is NOT a special interest group. We are a group of citizens who have freely associated themselves together to defend and advance one of our most basic and fundamental human rights the right to defend ones self and ones family against tyranny. That is NOT a special interest group! That is First Amendment political speech in action. Now that Ive gotten that out of the way, lets continue.
HJR1026 was the most important piece of legislation dealing with the right to keep and bear arms ever presented to our State Legislature. Weve discussed the reasons concerning the current language in the Oklahoma Constitution and all the case law, so we wont go back over that now. Suffice it to say this bill was necessary to correct the fact that under our state constitution and current case law, we have almost no protection for our right to keep and bear arms. The bill was working its way through the process quite smoothly until Higher Ed took notice.
Now, when we say Higher Ed, we need to understand who we are really talking about. The Higher Ed lobby does NOT represent the students. They dont even represent the faculty and staff. We are talking about the State Board of Regents and the public college and university presidents and especially their ringleader, David Boren. Or, should I say, King David Boren. That, friends, is a special interest.
King Boren is a leftist progressive. He does not like guns and does not want them on his campus. Through the Kings minions (he has an army of lobbyists at his beck and call whose salaries are paid with tax dollars), an amendment to HJR1026 was offered. I quote: This section shall not prevent the coordinating or governing boards of colleges, universities or technology centers from prohibiting the possession of arms on school or board property.
Mull that over for a second. Done? Do you realize what King Boren was attempting to do? He was attempting to place the Presidents and boards of the universities, colleges, and technology centers in a position with more power than the State Legislature in regards to the peoples right to keep and bear arms. How do I know that was their motivation? We offered a compromise that would have instead added the following: This section shall not prevent the Legislature from regulating the possession of arms on the property of a public school district or public institution of higher education. In essence, this would have left regulation of arms on campus as it is now in the hands of the Legislature.
We ran this compromise past the Kings minions. In an email to our Vice President, Danny Hilliard, OUs Vice President of Government Relations (i.e., their head lobbyist), said, The language suggested by our General Legal Counsel .remains their preference to address our concerns. In other words, King Boren doesnt want things to remain as they currently are; he wants to place himself, an unelected and unaccountable university president, in a position with more authority than the elected representatives of the people. Can we call that arrogant? I think we can.
It appears to me that King Boren really does think he is a king and simply wants to get the uneducated surfs with their pitchforks away from his castle and out of his kingdom. The truly unfortunate truth here is that it almost worked! The Senate was poised to add King Borens amendment until we got loud about it and stopped them. But the fact remains, the Senate was more than ready to listen to a true special interest, a group made up of only a few, rather than their bosses the citizens of this state.
During the last week of the session, we still had an opportunity to get HJR1026 passed in spite of King Boren, but one Senator and four Representatives stood in the way (all five were Republicans, by the way). We will name names and give details over the next few days. Stay tuned!
