OKPNS EXCLUSIVE: Stealin’ & Repealin’??
Scheme Aims to Pick Taxpayer Pockets and Re-Open Floodgates for New Illegal Alien Invasion
Responding to a question from the Oklahoma Political New Service, Rep. Terrill says he has not been contacted by Cain or Price about the difficulties 1804 may have caused the two industries. “They’ve not said a word to me, and it concerns me that these companies would launch a multi-million dollar scorched-earth campaign without once speaking to me. If illegal aliens making the modern equivalent of slave labor wages are critical to their vitality, it makes me very, very concerned about the future of those companies,” Rep. Terrill told OKPNS.
Oklahoma City – An OKPNS investigation has unmasked an elaborate but seemingly foolish scheme by corporations and some chambers of commerce to pass a sales tax for improvements to Ford Arena and simultaneously double-cross those same voters by launching a multi-million dollar campaign to repeal the state’s wildly popular immigration reform bill.Insiders believe that if the public discovers the linkage between the two efforts, there could be a voter backlash, adversely affecting the March 4th penny sales tax election, and subsequently killing Oklahoma City’s bid to land an NBA franchise.
While OKPNS has been critical of the Oklahoma press in the past for enormous lapses in journalistic judgment, this time the oversight is inexcusable. This one should have been uncovered some time ago, but it has not been explained anywhere in Oklahoma media or in the blogosphere.
Incredibly, the scheme calls for not just one campaign of deceit but two disingenuous and risky double-crosses: one aimed at the voters and another aimed at a popular state representative, which could unravel an effort to gain tax credits for the energy and technology sector. One insider summed up the plot in this way, “Take their money, and then give them more illegal aliens. Take the tax credits, and politically harm the chairman of the revenue and tax committee. If true, I have never witnessed a more loathsome act.”
Oklahoma Political News Service has learned that the repeal plan is being kept in a low profile mode for two reasons. First, the corporate chiefs want the March 4th penny sales tax election to go off without a hitch, because of the fear of a massive voter backlash if citizens discover the agenda to repeal HB 1804 BEFORE the voters’ pockets are picked.
Second, the corporate bosses do not want to agitate Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, HB 1804 author and now a national leader in the immigration reform movement. Why? Because these and other corporate leaders are lobbying for millions of dollars in tax credits for the energy and telecommunications industries. To do that, they will need the support of the House Revenue and Tax Committee, chaired by Rep. Randy Terrill.
We at OKPNS thought when we heard this that this plan, risky and idiotic as it may seem, that it must be so ingenious that we couldn’t grasp its complexities. “No, you’re wrong,” another capitol insider suggests. “It’s the product of idiots.”
The March 4th vote seeks to raise $122 million, through a penny sales tax for 15 months to improve the Ford Center and build a practice facility so it can attract the Seattle Supersonics here starting in 2009. Dubbed “MAPS for Millionaires,” it is a relatively unpopular and controversial initiative. City leaders are planning a campaign to get voters to see the initiative in a positive light.
The OKPNS revelations of corporate dissembling will undoubtedly add to the initiative’s problems: a SurveyUSA poll done on January 29th for Oklahoma City TV station KFOR-TV showed the measure trailing 48-47, despite nearly universal positive media coverage of the proposal and no real organized opposition.
With apologies to KTOK afternoon drive host Mark Shannon, who hinted at the story last Friday, this is a story that the lazy and timid Oklahoma capitol press corps should have uncovered weeks ago. It’s best summed up by a capitol regular, who when told of the scheme said, “When the voters find out that the rich boys, who want the taxpayers to pimp their basketball arena, are going to turn around and try to open the floodgates to bring back illegal immigrants, there will be hell to pay,” she says.
Names connected to the plan include AT&T Oklahoma President Don Cain, as well as a public relations official at Chesapeake Energy named Tom Price. Sources say Chesapeake Energy is quietly discussing with allies a multi-million dollar campaign to repeal HB 1804. Ironically, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon has an ownership stake in the Sonics, and tying the penny sales tax election to the same people who are attempting to weaken the immigration law would be damaging to his investment. Cain is also Chairman of the state’s chamber of commerce, a relatively weak business lobby group that stood mute in 2007 as HB 1804 was rocketing through the legislature. The three largest chambers of commerce, the state, Tulsa and Oklahoma City chambers, are officially on record as opposing the immigration reform bill.
This scenario becomes even more unusual when you consider that AT&T and Chesapeake have millions of dollars in tax credits pending at the capitol. Those items will most likely be heard in Terrill’s committee, and the Chairman, a social and fiscal conservative who follows the Reagan brand of conservatism, abhors corporate welfare. And now AT&T and Chesapeake, among others, have been exposed as insincere at precisely the wrong time.
“Their bosses are going to freak, but not as much as the voters,” our insider says. “Terrill will kill Cain’s tax credits, as he should, and I suspect that Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony, who loathes AT&T, will want to know more. It could be a PR nightmare for him.”
The insider goes on to say that arrogance may have led the corporation group to overestimate their political IQ. “As for Chesapeake, they’re not playing against naïve little old OG&E this time. I don’t give a damn how much money they have: Terrill will line up that oil company with illegal aliens and the public will go with him. Their tax credits will be dead, too. They’re up against perhaps the smartest and most skilled politician in Oklahoma. He’s media savvy due to his television and radio gig, and he has a wealthy national following as the Pied Piper of immigration reform. The phone company and an oil company against Randy Terrill is an unfair fight: Terrill wins going away.”
So why would two large business corporations plot against an elected official that holds the key to their corporate welfare this session? “This is incredibly stupid. Tell me it’s not true. They’re plotting against and polling against the Revenue and Tax Chairman of the House of Representatives? It will boomerang against the phone industry, the energy sector and undermine public confidence against business as a whole,” an Oklahoma City lobbyist familiar with the situation says.
Responding to a question from OKPNS, Rep. Terrill says he has not been contacted by Cain or Price about the difficulties 1804 may have caused the two industries. “They’ve not said a word to me, and it concerns me that these companies would launch a multi-million dollar scorched-earth campaign without once speaking to me. If illegal aliens making the modern equivalent of slave labor wages are critical to their vitality, it makes me very, very concerned about the future of those companies,” Rep. Terrill tells us.
Other capitol observers say that at least one organization connected with this scheme has performed extensive polling on the possibility of repealing HB 1804, and that repeal will be almost impossible. “It’s too popular, [Terrill] is too popular and even a massive educational effort would fall short,” he says.
So what now? From our vantage point, the plan has put at risk the March 4th election, energy tax credits and cellular telephone tax credits. There will be interesting fallout if the dominoes fall where they appear to be heading and the arena tax fails in March and HB 1804 is still standing in June. Or maybe they’ll get away with it: after all, it still is the Oklahoma media. In that case, maybe only readers of OKPNS will ever know.
TRAITORS AND THEIVES-NO WONDER AT&T IS TRYING TO RIP ME OFF!
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