More elements of the Step Up Oklahoma plan are surfacing in legislation filed last week. Rep. Mark Lepak filed four measures which re-structures parts of state government to give the Governor’s Office more responsibility over the executive branch, reduces the number of statewide elected officials, and creates a governor/lt. governor joint ticket on the ballot.
House Bills 3208 and 3209 would consolidate authority in the governor to appoint and remove directors at most of the largest state agencies. Those bills would leave existing boards and commissions in advisory capacities.
“I’ve long believed our executive branch can’t be very productive the way it is organized, which is evident in the problems that were recently disclosed in a couple of our state agencies,” said Lepak. “The ‘weak governor’ model in Oklahoma constrains leadership and almost eliminates the ability to deliver satisfactory results within the state’s bureaucracy. We need a ‘strong governor’ model, where the governor is a true CEO and can provide leadership, oversight and accountability so that we can ultimately get control of, and drive better results in, agencies.”
Lepak said that the strong governor model will strengthen the Legislature as well by ensuring a single elected individual to hold accountable for agency activity.
“The way we are structured today, our part time Legislature has a hard time holding anyone accountable – even with its ‘power of the purse,’ said Lepak. “Agency heads are generally answerable only to boards whose members, once appointed, aren’t answerable to anyone and have terms extending across gubernatorial terms. To the surprise of almost every citizen I’ve ever talked to, the governor has very little authority to run all those agencies, ultimately measured by having the ability to hire and fire agency heads. These bills change that paradigm for the largest state agencies.”
He has also filed House Joint Resolution 1047 and House Joint Resolution 1048. HJR 1047 asks voters to change the Oklahoma constitution to create a governor/lt. governor joint ticket giving the power to the gubernatorial candidate to pick his or her running mate. HJR 1048 asks voters to give the governor the power to appoint the State Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Labor Commissioner.
“The citizens of Oklahoma just want government that works without waste,” said Lepak. “We need one point of accountability in the executive branch – a true governor with real authority. And the governor, regardless of party affiliation, needs to have his or her team of executives in place who are all on the same page, reflecting the policies upon which he or she was elected.
“We often talk about bringing business practices to government, but in what business do we hire 11 nearly co-equal leaders, with none accountable to the other? The fundamental problem we need to solve is that everyone is in charge, and therefore, no one is in charge. With 11 officeholders elected statewide, all running separate campaigns, perhaps espousing different priorities and policies, what do we expect?”
There’s a reason the Oklahoma’s constitution has not be amended by the voters to increase the power of the Governor. It’s worked well all of these years.
Poor Mary hasn’t gotten her way to increase taxes all over the place and to continue ridiculous overspending and corruption so her little chamber of commerce crowd “step up” to bring these tired old ideas up. Mary continues to fiddle while Oklahoma’s economy crashes and “burns” due to corruption and mismanagement by agencies. Enough is ENOUGH!