Let's Pod This

The State seems to be having a hard time acquiring personal protective equipment (PPE), and that has led to some...questionable purchase decisions and a forthcoming audit of the state Department of Health. Also, it looks like the state budget will be $800M-$1.3B short next year...but why can't the legislature and Governor's office agree on how much?

SHOW NOTES

Announcements 

• Civics Con registration is now open! CivicsCon.com

Overview of what happened this week

• Today is May 1st and, as I’m sure all of our listeners are aware, effective today the state has relaxed some of its ‘safer at home’ rules and allowed certain businesses to reopen. Cities followed suit, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. 
• The state has reportedly received $1.2 Billion in federal funding to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and this week we got some more information about how that money is being spent. 
• On Thursday Governor Stitt announced a new mobile testing program for underserved areas and expanding testing to “anyone who wants it,” even those without symptoms, at any of the state’s 80 drive-thru testing locations. 
• Health Department Commissioner Gary Cox said their goal is to test 90,000 Oklahomans during the month of May. They are also dramatically expanding the number of contract tracer staff, from 150 to more than 1000. 
• How is this going to affect Oklahoma’s response to the pandemic?
• Not all the news about COVID expenditures has been positive. 
• On Tuesday the Oklahoman reported that the state had canceled a $9.5 million purchase of N95 masks because the FBI was investigating the seller. (This sounds like a bad ebay review.) Basically it sounds like it was a “half now, half on delivery” situation.
• The FBI said the company possibly had “fraudulent activity” involving Chinese ventilators and that Oklahoma had been specifically identified as a potential victim. 
• Also on Tuesday, the Oklahoman also reported that Attorney General Mike Hunter has requested the state auditor’s office to conduct yet another investigation of the State Department of Health, specifically related to how they’ve been handling COVID-19 related purchasing decisions.
• How are they making these decisions? Who's the person making most of these decisions?
• Aside from the FBI-investigated company , what are some other questionable purchasing decisions have been made?
• Is this really the state’s fault, or is it just because every country in the world is trying to procure these items and most are made in the one country where this all started?
• In other financial news, the state legislature is expected to reconvene next week to get pass a budget for next year. The problem, of course, is that the state is expected to have between $800M - $1.3B less than this year...but they’re not sure how much. Thats a big variance, and #okleg isn't happy with the Governor’s office.
• Big cuts to education coming? Big enough to undo what what 
• LWV vs Election Board lawsuit was heard this week; ruling should come soon

A whole lot has happened over the last week! From declarations of revenue failures at the state and city level, to civic groups suing the election board, to legislative candidates who don't actually live in Oklahoma, to - wait for it - the state is slowly beginning to reopen. But is that a good idea? We discuss it all!

• Governor Stitt announced that SQ802, Medicaid Expansion, will be on the ballot on June 30th.
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• Quick recap:
• On Monday, April 6th, Governor Stitt cancelled the Board of Equalization meeting because his ‘digital transformation’ project was not funded. So, he only signed 2 of the 3 bills the legislature passed to help shore up this year’s budget, but without that third bill, there was still a $416M hole in the budget. Basically, they state was funded through the end of April, but we didn’t have enough money for May and June. The legislature scoffed.
• So, a week later, on Tuesday, April 13th, House & Senate leaders sued the Governor to force the Board of Equalization to meet, because they have to declare a revenue failure in order for OMES to be allowed to access the state’s Rainy Day Fund. The Governor scoffed.
• This week, the Governor unceremoniously called a meeting of the Board of Equalization, who meet via Zoom and declared a revenue failure for current fiscal year (FY2020). While most everyone agrees that next fiscal year (FY21, which begins on July 1st) will also have a revenue failure, we have to wait until we get there before the Board of Equalization can make that determination. (But that didn’t stop the Governor from announcing his proposal for budget cuts for both FY21 and FY22.
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• Meanwhile, the price of oil went negative. Congresswoman Kendra Horn suggests the US invest $3 billion to add additional oil to the strategic oil reserve.
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• Oklahoma City basically declared a revenue failure and announced across-the-board departmental budget cuts ranging from 3-11%. Cities are funded by sales tax revenue and, well, the world is closed.
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• Governor signed gaming compacts with two tribes and it includes sports betting, but the legislature and the Attorney General aren’t on board. But...why is that, really?
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• Challenges to candidacy were heard and they were...pretty bizarre.
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• On Thursday, the Oklahoma League of Women Voters and two individuals filed legal action against the Election Board to try and force changes to absentee voting to make voting by mail safer and easier, while still maintaining the integrity and security of our elections. 
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• And, of course, in COVID-related news, OU has made a new, faster test and the Governor announced his plan to reopen the state...but not everyone is on board with that plan. About an hour ago, Mayor Holt said he plans to lift the ‘shelter in place’ order on May 1st, but with social distancing and other sanitary guidelines. If data changes before May 1st or afterwards, he will not hesitate to put it back in place. More testing sites are opening; you can go to https://doineedacovid19test.com/ to find out.

• As we look towards next week, Governor’s emergency powers ends (CHEPA) on April 30th. The legislature will have to reconvene to decide whether to grant the Governor another 30 days of powers should the Governor request them. 

We spend a little extra time discussing not just the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic but how we get to the end of the pandemic, specifically four proposals for how we get there.

SHOW NOTES

• State of play in Oklahoma
• Avg Tests per day: 1440 (265-2750)
• Positivity: 7.0%
• # Tests available: 86,603
• Testing supplies available: 41,327 
• Serology testing is underway

• How does OK stack up?
• To test at SK levels: 31,000 tests daily (2.7 days)
• At levels recommended by Paul Romer: 280,000 daily (about 3 hours)
• Serology: How accurate? What does it mean? 

Update on Stitt v #okleg

• On Tuesday, the House & Senate filed a lawsuit against the Governor...what???
• They argue that since Stitt didn’t sign nor veto SB199, that it is now law
• And thus, the Board of Equalization must meet in order to declare a revenue failure since the law is in place
• Board of Equalization set to meet April 20. Does that mean the Governor is giving in? 

Update on candidate filing 

• 46 of 148 seats unopposed. Much more than the last two cycles, but appears to be average overall. 

Now is a good time to reach out to lawmakers at home - social media, email, phone, etc. 

Just when it seemed like the 2020 #okleg session was going to be smooth & uneventful, budget negotiations took an unexpected turn this week when the Governor threatened across-the-board cuts all state agencies if his "digital transformation" project isn't fully funded. In response, House & Senate leaders pushed back hard in an attempt to call his bluff. Where does leave us?

On Thursday Governor Stitt invoked the Catastrophic Health Emergency Powers Act (CHEPA), which is a set of emergency powers that was passed after 9/11 to enable the state to respond more quickly to a nuclear or biological attack. 

Needless to say, this has never been used before. 

What we know this means: 

• Well, the Legislature will go back to the Capitol next week for a special session to ratify the Governor’s declaration, and we’ll talk more about the legislative action aspect of this later on in the show.
• More directly, CHEPA gives the Governor VERY broad powers, some might argue that he is now the most powerful Governor in state history. 

But there's a lot more to it than that. Friend of the pod, Brian Ted Jones, is a Oklahoma attorney who has been doing some research into this. Listeners might remember Brian as a  former guest during our criminal justice series last year, and we wanted to have him come back on to share what he’s learned about CHEPA thus far. 

Back to what the legislature is doing next:

• Special session
• And also maybe regular session?
• Budget scenarios: Rep. Wallace says no budget cuts
• But also, a revenue failure has already been declared!

Most of country is now working from home, and that includes the state legislature. We're joined by Oklahoma House minority leader, Representative Emily Virgin, and House majority floor leader, Representative Jon Echols, to talk about how #okleg is working remotely, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will have on the state budget, and what bills we might see squeak though this session.

America is officially shut down, and that includes Oklahoma. Except for, you know, a poor response to the global pandemic, the state legislature amending the Open Meeting Act, elections being delayed, Senator Infofe suspiciously selling some stock, and people from Maine knitting llama wool. Special guest Effie Rorke joins us as we cover all of that and more in this week's episode!  Show notes are below.

Coronavirus update

• OU & OSU, many others online-only for remainder of semester, graduations postponed
• OSDE expected to do same for public schools - school meals will still be served and Supt Hofmeister waived all state testing for this school year
• State epidemiologist replaced (presumably because he’s better at epidemiology than at press conferences)
• State has a critical shortage of coronavirus testing supplies, so only the most sick or at-risk are being tested
• As testing expands, the number of cases diagnoses WILL increase dramatically over the next several weeks. Officials expecting a surge. [The Frontier] ⅔ of current positive cases are in the OKC metro
• Just to reiterate: it at all possible, STAY HOME
• A word about death and severity rates: 
• US 1.3%
• SK 1.0%
• Worldwide 4.1%
• A word about exponential growth
• We had our first COVID-19 death; a Tulsan 

Oklahoma Government Stuff

• Legislature passed two bills on Tuesday: one to allow money to be transferred out of the Lengthy Trial Fund (that most of us probably didn’t know existed)
• State Senate is recessing until March 27th 
• Legislature made changes to the state’s Open Meeting Act to allow public entities to meet via teleconference or video conference. FOI Oklahoma weighed in, AG is helping clarify rules
• Governor Stitt continues to pursue his plan for Medicaid
• Terrible time for a public comment period, and yet, they’re still doing it
• Campaign against it: https://coverok.org/
• Future elections:
• Election Board declared an “election emergency,” clearing the way for April elections to be rescheduled
• Will this impact candidate filings and June primaries? 

Run down on federal legislation that has been passed / what is being worked on 

• Initial appropriation
• Families First Coronavirus Response Act
• Stimulus bill 

Senator James Inhofe

• Voted against coronavirus package (as did Lankford)
• NYT reporting Inhofe was among a group of US senators who dumped stocks ahead of pandemic really taking off

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a State of Emergency has been declared at the city, state, and federal level. These declarations have far-reaching impact and consequences and, frankly, we are in uncharted waters. Here to help us walk through everything that has happened in the past 48 to 72 hours for my cohosts, Bailey Perkins and Scott Melson. 

Last Friday President Trump declared a national state of emergency, which was followed by a similar declaration on Sunday from the mayors of Oklahoma City and Stillwater, as well as Governor Stitt. We are recording this on Monday evening, and so far today I have seen that the mayors of Yukon and Tulsa have also declared state of emergency in those jurisdictions. Additionally, the Oklahoma state Department of Education has canceled school throughout the state until April 6, the Cherokee in Chickasaw tribes are clothes in their casinos, (Most of the casinos in Las Vegas are also closed, for what it's worth), and the Oklahoma legislature announced they are making significant changes to their operations to expedite passage of the budget and other constitutionally required duties. Yesterday the CDC said that all public events with 50 or more people for the next 8 weeks should be canceled, and today they updated that to be all public events with more than 10 people should be canceled. 

How about we start by talking about what a state of emergency declaration is, and why there are different ones, walk through what a state of emergency means at each level.

So, why do we have different ones? 

[discussion]

So, a when the president declares a national state of emergency for a public health emergency, it basically enacts three laws: the Public Health Service Act, Stafford Act, Social Security Act, as well as some other laws.

• The Stafford Act is the government’s main mechanism for responding to major disasters and emergencies. It permits tapping into an account that currently has more than $40 billion, which it could use to do things like buy medical supplies and equipment. Often used with natural disasters, previously also used by President Clinton to respond to the West Nile outbreak 
•  It frees up federal funds and other resources to help when “federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety.” 
• also empowers the president to direct any federal agency to use its personnel, facilities and equipment to support state and local emergency efforts, disseminate public health and safety information, provide public health and safety measures, and distribute supplies like medicine and food.
• unlocks extra powers under Section 1135 of the Social Security Act aimed at making it easier to get medical supplies and doctors and nurses where they are needed most. (Prev used by by Obama to address H1N1 aka Swine Flu.

Okay, let’s move down to the state level.

[discussion]

And finally, down to the city level.

[discussion]

Resources

cdc.gov

Coronavirus.health.ok.gov

Regionalfoodbank.org/covid19 

Okfoodbank.org 

Good news coverage:

The Frontier

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We discuss the coronavirus outbreak that is sweeping the country (and how it's being handled here in Oklahoma), a bill to outlaw child marriages that both failed and passed in the same week, a cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for state employees, and an update on HJR 1027, which would affect ballot initiatives.

Super Tuesday has come & gone...but just how 'super' was it this year? We also talk about the Oklahoma response to COVID-19 (aka coronavirus), especially in the face of the Governor's plan to consolidate health agencies AND his just-announced plan to...expand Medicaid? Oh, and the legislature basically wants to end the initiative petition process. What a week!