House Votes to Secure Fire Funding By Rep. Joe Dorman Legislation that prevents the diversion of state money intended for firefighting service training is one vote away from the governor's desk. House Bill 1520, creates the "Firefighter Training Revolving Fund." The bill directs funding for firefighting programs through Oklahoma State University Fire Service Training, funneling the cash primarily through the State Fire Marshal Commission. The commission would be required to ensure the money is used for training programs as lawmakers intend. Read more... Murphey Legislative Update By Rep. jason Murphey This week I was provided with a copy of the latest version of the proposed state budget also known as Senate Bill 334. This bill will contain the majority of the budget agreement recently reached between legislative leaders and the Governor. The 45 page bill proposes to spend over 6.9 billion of our tax dollars as part of the fiscal year 2008 state budget. This budget will expand the size of state government base appropriations by $377 million dollars, or about 5.7% more than last year's bas appropriation of 6.5 billion dollars. If you have read budget related news stories or caught the sound bytes on television, you may find this statement confusing. Read More... A "Poison" in the Body Politic By Senator Jay Paul Gumm Hello again, everybody! A few weeks ago, I wrote of a “poison” being injected into the body politic.This poison is spreading, and, if left unchecked, this venom could threaten the ability of elected officials to find real solutions to the challenges we face. Threats, fear and intimidation are beginning to take the place of reasoned discussion, honest debate and good-faith efforts to find common ground on important issues.My positions on a pair of important though divisive issues have attracted anger from both extremes of the political spectrum. The two issues are the difficult and complex issues of tort reform and abortion. Read more...

Labels: OK Legislator's Blog, Rep. Jason Murphey, Rep. Joe Dorman, Sen. Gumm

Posted at 5/23/2007 05:21:00 PM