The Oklahoma Libertarian Party provides this information for the benefit of
the public, and does not necessarily endorse or oppose any ideas presented.


Members and friends of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC)

This Wednesday March 8th, during our noon luncheon at the Edmond Golden Corral, we begin the process of interviewing the Republican candidates for governor. This week's candidate will be State Senator James Williamson from Tulsa. Senator Williamson is a former teacher, a practicing attorney and was the Senate Minority Leader until last year. He was also the first to announce his intentions to run for governor.

The format each week will be for the candidate to speak for 8-10 minutes. I will then ask a series of 5 questions on the basic crucial issues and then our members will continue with questions. Every member asking a question will be allowed a follow-up question if they believe their first question wasn't adequately answered. So don't miss these important meetings. As in all of our candidate interview processes, I would suggest it is very important to FIRST determine the candidate who would make the best elected official rather than just determine those with the best chance to win, yet once in office they might govern more like a liberal Democrat than a conservative Republican.

Our members unanimously voted to endorse James Dunn for Attorney General this past week and our members overwhelmingly voted to set aside 10% of the PAC monies we raise to be used to support those Republican candidates we later decide to support for state wide races during the general election. We will probably vote to determine which of the candidates we support sometime in October. Therefore I urge everyone who has not joined OCPAC as yet to do so now. We will be casting many important votes over the next several months. Please remember, your dues will be matched dollar for dollar until March 15th by some very generous donors. To be eligible to vote your dues must be paid 4 weeks prior to a vote and you must be present. See the end of this e-mail for instructions on how to join.

Please pay close attention, week before last HB 3119 by Randy Terrill, the comprehensive bill to allow Oklahoma to deal with the illegal alien problem, passed out of committee with the 5 Republicans voting yes and the 4 Democrats voting no. The bill now sits on the General Order Docket waiting to be scheduled for a full hearing and vote on the floor in the House. The determination as to whether it will be heard or not rests with Speaker Todd Hiett. I am sure there will be immense pressure on Speaker Hiett to prevent this measure from being heard. Therefore it is VERY important that we contact Speakers Hiett's office on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, to let him know that we want him to support the Republicans on this issue and not side with the Democrats. This issue is about Oklahoma doing what it can to reverse the enormous costs to taxpayers in the realm of crime, healthcare, increased education costs and the harm to our culture from illegal aliens and their resistance to assimilate. There is an ever increasing number of illegal aliens flooding into Oklahoma and that trend must be reversed. Speaker Hiett's e-mail is: toddhiett@okhouse.gov and the direct line to his office is 405 557-7353. We need to e-mail AND call, preferably on Monday and no later than Tuesday.

On Tuesday the U.S. Senate will consider making a couple of changes to close the "tribal loophole" in campaign finance laws. One proposed amendment is to subject Indian Tribes to the "aggregate contribution limits" ALL OTHER U.S. citizens must follow for federal elections and the other is to require Tribes to report their contributions to the Federal Election Commission, just like the rest of us must do when we form political action committees.

Because of an outdated and divisive concept called "tribal sovereignty", today's Indian Tribes receive welfare with one hand and with the other hand they have an immense business advantage over most everyone else. With their huge gambling profits, because of their elitist status as being superior and above the law everyone else has to live by, they are finding ways to exert enormous political influence on both political parties. If you are concerned with these injustices then you need to contact Both Senator Coburn (Washington fax is 202 224-6008, OKC office 405 231-4941, Tulsa office 918 581-7651 and Lawton 580 357-9878) and Senator Inhofe (Washington fax 202 228-0380, OKC office is 405 608-4381 and Tulsa office is 918 748-5111) to ask them to support these amendments. There is too much lag time for e-mail, so please call or fax no later than Tuesday.

Tuesday will be a ho-hum mayoral election in OKC. I would love to see a better mayor for OKC than Mick Cornet, but I don't believe that person to be his opponent. However there are real elections going on in Tulsa, with both parties having several candidates in the primary election.

The Tulsa area chapter of the Oklahoma Republican Assembly interviewed the various Republican candidates and made the following endorsements, which by the way require a two-thirds super majority. Michael Willis, Tulsa City Auditor, and the following City Council candidates: Rick Westcott, District 2, James Mautino District 6, John M. Eagleton District 7 and Clifford Magee for District 8. They endorsed Chris Medlock for Mayor. Medlock has spoken at OCPAC in the past and he has also been endorsed by our friends, Oklahomans For School Accountability founded by Amanda Teegarden and Kate Price. In addition, the conservative newspaper, The Tulsa Beacon has also endorsed Chris Medlock. The fight in a nutshell is whether the good-ole boy establishment is going to control Tulsa or whether Tulsa will be represented by a more independent and conservative group of people. I personally believe the current Mayor, Bill LaFortune, would best be described as a "central planning, tax and spend Christian socialist."

Have a couple of our Edmond area Lawmakers been rubbing shoulders too much with liberal Democrats and Oklahoma's most powerful special interest group, the teachers union. If there was an award for the dumbest statement of the week by a Republican lawmaker, last week it would surely have gone to a very bright Republican Senator, Clark Jolley (R-Edmond Conservative Index score 60). Senator Jolley started out as a teacher but today is an attorney. The bill sponsored by Democrats Susan Paddack of Ada and Stratton Taylor of Claremore, which would give teachers a $3,000 across the board pay increase, found Senator Jolley, a former teacher, debating on the floor for its passage. He said "I loved being in the classroom, but in Oklahoma you cannot provide for your family" if you're a teacher.

To be blunt there isn't much that turns my stomach more than having to listen to the whiney-butt rhetoric about low teacher pay. If you really want to know my thoughts on the subject read my article in the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper titled, WILL OEA's LAWSUIT CAUSE REPUBLICANS TO GET OUT OF BED WITH THE EDUCATION INDUSTRY?. In the next few paragraphs I want to examine how teachers really fare and then maybe Senator Jolley can answer a substantive question which is: how do people in the private sector in Oklahoma provide for their families on far less money than our high paid teachers who Senator Jolley thinks aren't able to do so for themselves?

Recently an official with the OEA reported the AVERAGE salary of a teacher in Oklahoma is $37,879 per year. All right, lets do a little math. Teachers contract to work 180 days per year which means for every day they are in the classroom they make $210.44 or $1,052.19 per week. Their "profession" is listed as a 35 hour work week. Six hours in class with a required 30 minutes before and after the six hour school day. Therefore their hourly rate while in the classroom is $30.06 per hour. Some teachers do take work home, therefore one hour per day at home drops their hourly pay to $26.30 per hour or two hours at home each weekday brings their hourly wages down to $23.38. I would say some do that much at home but most do not especially on a regular basis.

With the proposed teacher pay increase the numbers will change to $40,879 per year, $227.11 per day, $1,135.53 per week or $32.44 per hour. The average pay for Oklahomans working in the private sector is about $26,000 per year. For that private sector Oklahoman, working 8 hours a day, 240 days per year and counting the value of three weeks paid vacation and 5 paid holidays, for that person to be able to make the same amount a teacher currently makes in just 180 days a year, the private sector Oklahoman's hourly rate must be $18.21 per hour. If the teachers get a $3,000 pay raise the private sector Oklahomans who are paying the teachers salaries must then make $19.65 per hour.

If a person in the private sector were to be paid the same hourly rate, including their vacation and paid holidays, as proposed for teachers, those private sector Oklahomans would make $67,475.20 per year. Truth is, almost anyone wanting to get ahead in life must work more than 40 hours per week. Teachers want to be considered as professionals. Check with business owners and other professionals and you will find many of them work 60 hours or more per week.

This week's nominee for the Liberal Republican Lunacy Award goes to Ken Miller (R-Edmond conservative index score 70). While I have little problem with his bill to put a cap on the pay for legislators to not exceed the salaries of teachers, a closer examination of the measure finds it attaches the salaries of lawmakers to teacher pay. What a clever way for lawmakers to give themselves an almost yearly salary increase. As teacher pay zooms up year by year so will lawmaker pay. Sounds pretty slick to me.

However, I would suggest if Representative Miller wants to represent the private sector taxpayers of Oklahoma who aren't nursing on one of the government teats, then rather than pander to the most powerful and well organized special interest group in the state, the teachers union, why doesn't he offer the following amendment to the Constitution? Lets link legislator pay to the average salary of Oklahomans working in the private sector? Gee, if the only way they could get a pay raise would be for the economy to grow and salaries increase for private sector Oklahomans, then Ken Miller and his colleagues might abandon this centrally planned economy with high taxation, special subsidies, special deals and over regulation for a low tax, minimal regulation vibrant economic environment where real free market businessmen could flourish and provide higher paying jobs for everyone.

Representative Miller indicated higher wages attract better employees and that he hoped that would be true for our state schools. In the private sector I would tend to agree with him but not so in our schools. Over the past 15 years the average salary for teachers has more than doubled and you can't show me any viable study that shows we have better teachers today than 15 years ago. Some of the finest teachers ever to work in a classroom were those who believed they were called to teach and they were dedicated to their calling, even in a day when they really were under-paid. Mostly in the time period prior to about 1975.

Today you will still find some very good teachers in our government schools but also some of the finest teachers of today are working in private schools, sacrificing higher pay so they can use their creative genius to teach their subjects, free from many of the burdensome mandates of the state and federal government and in an environment where they are able to maintain discipline. The vast majority of these dedicated teachers are paid much less than those teachers in our government schools.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

For more information about OCPAC, email Charlie at charliemeadows@peoplepc.com

The Oklahoma Libertarian Party provides this information for the benefit of
the public, and does not necessarily endorse or oppose any ideas presented.
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