I'm sure we've all heard, by now, about Oklahoma's attempt to shut down abortions in the state completely, by making it a felony to perform them. But just in case you hadn't, here's evidence:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/19/oklahoma-legislature-passes-bill-making-it-a-felony-to-perform-abortions/Lawmakers in Oklahoma approved a bill Thursday that would make performing abortions a felony and revoke the medical licenses of most physicians who assist in such procedures.
...
According to the measure, known as SB1552, a person who performs or induces an abortion will be guilty of a felony and punished with between one and three years in the state penitentiary.
This legislation also says that any physician who participates in an abortion — deemed “unprofessional conduct” in the bill — will be “prohibited from obtaining or renewing a license to practice medicine in this state.” However, medical licenses will not be stripped from doctors who perform abortions deemed necessary to save the mother’s life.
Relevant portions quoted. That's all well and good, a nice direct challenge to Roe v Wade that I'm sure Oklahoma will have no trouble paying the legal fees and defense for...
Oh wait. Oklahoma's budget is falling apart.
http://okpolicy.org/budget-crisis-unprecedented-disaster-oklahoma/Last month came news that Oklahoma City Public Schools will cut 208 classroom teaching positions because of state budget cuts. Tulsa Public Schools is considering reducing or eliminating school buses for all but special education students.
...
Going into this fiscal year (before the mid-year 7 percent cuts), appropriations for the Oklahoma Health Department were down almost 20 percent compared to fiscal year 2009. So when the next round of cuts happened, the Department announced they are eliminating a child abuse prevention program that had been providing education and support services to 700 at-risk families; they are closing five to seven county health department sites, which could make immunizations, epidemic monitoring, and other key health services inaccessible for large parts of rural and small town Oklahoma; they are eliminating the Uncompensated Care Fund, which had been a vital source of revenue for the community health centers serving many of Oklahoma’s large number of uninsured patients.
...
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services also already made deep cuts this year that will reduce services for more than 73,000 Oklahomans. These cuts come at a time when Oklahoma has been widely recognized to be experiencing a mental health crisis even as we provide some of lowest funding for mental health treatment in the nation.
Again, quoted some relevant portions of the article for easy reading. So, all this looks pretty bad. A state with a budget already in, let's be honest, a crisis, choosing to start up an expensive legal battle with the federal government and the Supreme Court. So surely they're not going to do anything else that might have a negative impact on their state, right?
Oh wait, this is Oklahoma, where the social conservatives rule the roost. So of course they decide to, wait for it... introduce a measure to impeach President Obama. Why, you ask?
Why, over the White House guidance of transgender rights, of course.Oklahoma's Republican-dominated legislature has filed a measure calling for President Barack Obama's impeachment over his administration's recommendations on accommodating transgender students, saying he overstepped his constitutional authority.
Lawmakers in the socially conservative state are also expected to take up a measure as early as Friday that would allow students to claim a religious right to have separate but equal bathrooms and changing facilities to segregate them from transgender students.
The bill introduced on Thursday night could force schools into costly construction, which would be difficult for them to complete after lawmakers significantly cut education funding to plug a $1.3 billion state budget shortfall.
The impeachment resolution also introduced on Thursday night calls on the Oklahoma members of the U.S. House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Obama, the U.S. attorney general, the U.S. secretary of education and others over the letter.
...
The impeachment call seems to be on shaky ground since the letter offered non-binding guidance and did not have the force of law, legal experts told local media.
State Representative John Bennett, a Republican, said in a statement the White House directive was "biblically wrong," and a violation of state sovereignty.
...
The measure was introduced just hours after lawmakers in the budget-challenged state set itself up for a bruising legal fight after approving a bill that would make abortions a felony punishable by up to three years in prison for doctors who perform them.
Abortion rights groups have promised a court battle if Governor Mary Fallin, a anti-abortion Republican, approves the measure.
So. In a day or two, a state in the midst of a budget crisis passes a law to ban abortion, against the directive of the Supreme Court, and then merely hours later, votes for another expensive legal battle... oh, and in the process, forcing schools to spend over a billion dollars when, as quoted above, they can't afford school buses.
So, is there such a thing as a state run worse than Oklahoma?
