Is Oklahoma trying to be America’s least progressive state?

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Is Oklahoma trying to be America’s least progressive state?

As a budget crisis bites, liberals and some conservatives wonder
if rightwing fears over abortion and transgender rights are tipping
their state into chaos

Tom Dart in Oklahoma City
Saturday 28 May 2016 16.06 BST

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Oklahoma Republicans introduced a resolution calling for President Barack Obama’s impeachment and, with the end of the session looming, scrambled to push through Senate Bill 1619. The bill justified its late addition to the slate by claiming a public health and safety “emergency” and pressing two hot-button topics: proposing that if a school allows transgender students to use the facilities of their choice, a student with “sincerely held religious beliefs” could request a “religious accommodation” for access to a transgender-free bathroom.

Its proponents argued the bill fought DC overreach while protecting religious liberty and child safety. Opponents decried it as bigoted, unnecessary and impractical. Content aside, to many in a struggling state the bill’s timing seemed awry.

Oklahoma’s intertwined relationship between politics and the energy industry is unabashedly symbolised at the statehouse, where oil derricks stand on the grounds.

Since the summer of 2014, sinking prices of crude oil and natural gas have contributed to a $1.3bn budget shortfall. Yet only a couple of days before the end of the legislative session, some rightwing lawmakers were occupied with transgender “bathroom bills” and plots to override a veto by the Republican governor, Mary Fallin, of a bill defying federal law that would in effect have banned abortions by criminalising doctors who perform them.

In the middle of a crisis so severe that some Oklahoma school districts are switching to four-day weeks to save money, the state’s politicians voted for this seemingly unconstitutional measure that would inevitably have become embroiled in legal action. They fussed about restrooms, which transformed from a non-issue to an urgent matter of public safety and religious liberty almost overnight.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/28/oklahoma-abortion-transgender-bathroom-bill-mary-fallin

[beachbum bob]

1. they fight for that title with every other conservative run state....

[SCantiGOP]

2. SC still in contention

We slipped behind when the Gov and legislative leaders said no to a NC-style bathroom bill, but then the Gov signed an obviously unconstitutional abortion ban after 19 weeks tin get us back in contention.

[beachbum bob]

3. they have to fight kansas and wisconsin as they tailspin there way too

[SCantiGOP]

4. Wisconsin doesn't have the stupidity needed

Kansas, however, does seem like a Final
Four team along with Mississippi, LA and NC.

[beachbum bob]

5. wisc has tried...

[SCantiGOP]

6. While your Governor will make the All-Star team

You really can't compete with the Confederacy when it comes to pure stupid governance.
For example; the heads of all 3 branches of government in Alabama - executive, legislative and judicial - are, in order, facing impeachment, on trial, and currently suspended from office.
Match that, formerly progressive Yankee state!