By Constitution Staff

Local Oklahoma employers are saddled with the costliest Workers Compensation (WC) system in the country, and those costs are passed along to consumers. Our legislature needs to eliminate this needless drag on our economy.

The losses that we suffer from Oklahoma's broken WC system can be broadly categorized into three areas. First, a recent study shows that -- after adjusting for cost-of-living expenses nationwide -- Oklahoma pays more for WC than any other state.

Second, only in Oklahoma and Tennessee are employees expected to fight their employers in court to remedy workplace injuries. All other states embrace administrative WC systems designed to minimize conflict between labor and management.

Third, revenue opportunities are lost each year from start-up operations choosing to put their payrolls in Texas, which is the one state in the nation where companies can opt out of the WC system altogether. The leaner and more efficient alternative to WC in Texas frequently provides superior benefits to workers and substantial savings to employers who could just as easily have set up shop in Oklahoma if we took a more enlightened approach to workplace injuries. Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman has authored SB 1062, which offers the potential for Oklahoma to catapult its WC system from worst to best in the country. We need to support these efforts in 2013 to finally stop wasting dollars, creating unnecessary conflict between labor and management, and squandering opportunities to attract new businesses to Oklahoma.

Daryl Davis

Oklahoma City, OK

Still A Constitutional Republic

The President was in Israel saying "we're a democracy." I like to think I'm pretty "up" on current events, but I guess I missed this major change in our government. So, I called Sen.Coburn's and Sen. Inhofe's offices in D.C. and asked the aide answering the phone what form of government we have; they both said "democracy." A little shaken I called my house of representatives office in D.C. and thankfully the aide there confirmed we are "still" a constitutional Republic.

My question is: does the President not know the form of government he is part of? Are the congressional aides not educated on how the system up there works? Is Mr. Obama intentionally stating this falsehood in the hopes if he says it enough people will believe it?

Sadly, it appears to be working. Why do we keep looking to government to fix our problems when it's clear they don't have a clue or want to fix anything. Only government can urinate on us, tell us it's raining and subsidize umbrellas to solve the problem. Just look at tax reform -- more tapping the engine with a spanner and saying it's fixed. Wake up America!

Tony Leach

Oklahoma City, OK

Supreme Court Marriage Hearings

The US Supreme Court heard arguments over at least two of the State law or constitutional amendments regarding the "rights" of homosexual "couples" to enter into "marriages." Given the make-up of the members of the Court, it is anyone's guess as to how the justices will decide, especially after the twisted way in which the "ObamaCare" law was declared to be "constitutional" based on it being a "tax," but otherwise not so.

An unfortunate twist is that the Proposition voted in by the residents of California by a majority could be declared "null and void" in the decision and yet the voters of that state are not allowed to be represented as such. To this the question becomes: "What about States' Rights?," that is the basic fact behind the Constitutional limits set forth of just what "rights" have been enumerated as delegated to the Federal Government, with all others "reserved to the States, or to the people."

This sort of intrusion, as have been many others in recent decades, into the rights reserved to the states, is the basic reason given for the enactment of the Second amendment at our founding. It should be remembered that the "Bill of Rights" was promised as amendments because it was accepted that without them, the Constitution would not have been ratified. The founders were well aware of just how oppressive a rogue group of government officials could be, having just obtained independence from just such a situation.

It seems fair to me that same-sex couples could have "legal" protection in areas such as the ability to inherit, joint checking, rights to medical information and insurance, inherit retirement benefits as dependents, and others. These privileges could very well be obtained by the process of partnerships under the law, and would provide the protections and privilege they claim to seek. However, to claim this to be "marriage" is a miscarriage of the language, as is being carried on continually by those of the Communist/Socialist agenda.

"Marriage" is a word that in reality should be reserved to a joining under the religious umbrella. In fact, there are now some clergy, in the Christian world, who are willing to perform marriages without the couple having a "marriage license" from the State. This has become more prevalent, and necessary, for those of us in the older generations because of the terms in many of the retirement programs that terminate the benefits if the survivor should re-marry.

Those apply to "legal" marriages so the church-only marriage allows couples to enjoy the benefits and clear consciences of living together without feeling the stigma of "living in sin." In many cases the practical financial facts would prohibit this. The old adage of "two can live as cheaply as one" is actually not true, but it is true that "two can live together more cheaply than they can live apart." There is a sneaking suspicion in my mind that the state originally went into the marriage license business as a source of funds, since the fee is nothing more than a tax. Also, under our present income tax code, there is a penalty for those who are married. So much for "equal treatment under the law."

It seems that those so aggressively pursuing the course of "same-sex marriages" have a behind the scenes agenda of rendering the Christian and Jewish religions irrelevant in the hopes of bringing about a totally secular society and government. Incidentally, it is highly offensive to me for them to use the word "Gay" as a term for homosexuality, since so many of the friends and acquaintances in my life have had the word "Gay" as a first or last name! Again this has come about as a way to make the practice seem less offensive to the public.

Robert W. McDowell, Jr.

Broken Arrow, OK