Senate has a busy week

Sen. Richard Lerblance
Special to the News-Capital

May 10, 2008 01:17 pm

— Week 14 is completed and only two weeks are left in this session.
Thursday I was pleased to introduce Marilyn Turvey, of McAlester, as the Nurse of the Day in the Senate. Emily Johnson, a second grade student from Vian, was presented a sitation as a Reading Rainbow first place winner for her book The Great Peanut Brakeout.
The Senate confirmed the re-nomination of Randy Saunier, of McAlester, to the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission for another three-year term and Burl Williams, of Stigler, was reconfirmed for another term on the Board of Regents of Eastern Oklahoma State College.
As a senator I am always receiving information, statistics, reports and information about many agencies that work in the state of Oklahoma. I received a report from the Department of Pediatrics at the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. This report caught my eye due to the information it contained. The OU Children’s Physicians Center is the only multi-specialty group practice dedicated to comprehensive health care for the children of Oklahoma. They care for children from every county in the state as well as train medical students and perform research to discover new approaches to health care for our children. Last year the team of physicians cared for more than 203,000 children. Of that number, 1,607 children were from Pittsburg, Latimer, Haskell and a portion of Sequoyah counties. It is important that we continue to fund these facilities so this health care can continue for our children.
I have received a lot of calls and e-mails regarding the “English Only” bill. On Wednesday, the Oklahoma State Senate passed SB 163. However, what was passed was a simplified version of the original language in the bill sent over from the House. The bill as passed provides that the English language is the official language of the state of Oklahoma. The state will not be required to print materials in any language other than English and the proposal will be submitted to a vote of the people on the date of the next statewide primary election or special election, whichever occurs first. This bill was sent to conference committee with specific instructions to return the legislation with the language as described above.
We have to be very careful at this time of the session, as we are receiving House amendments that we might not like and have to kill them, or conference committee reports are coming out that contain language that is not acceptable.
District 7 State Sen. Richard Lerblance: State Capitol 513-B, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK, 73105-4808. Oklahoma City: 405-521-5604. Hartshorne: 918-297-2501 or (918) 297-2890.