In the latest example of poor leadership by Charles McCall, the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, he has demoted Rep. Leslie Osborn from her position as Chair of the Appropriations and Budget Committee. This comes one day after Osborn defended DHS from criticism by McCall. But instead of honestly admitting to punishing Osborn for being insubordinate, McCall’s spokesman has inexplicably claimed that Osborn’s ouster is unrelated to her publicly disagreeing with the Speaker. But again, this is merely the latest misstep by McCall in a series of many.

The session began on a sour note when another of McCall’s lieutenants, Dan Kirby, picked to chair the powerful Business, Commerce and Real Estate Committee, became embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal. Kirby resigned and then rescinded that resignation. Later he would find himself facing the possibility of expulsion and finally did irrevocably resign. By failing to impress upon Kirby the futility of the situation, McCall allowed the session to begin under a cloud of drama and intrigue that distracted from the serious work of dealing with the budget shortfall.

With the budget being the primary concern, there were proposals to raise revenue in various ways but many House Republicans remained opposed to large-scale tax increases. Because Oklahoma requires a three-fourths majority to pass tax hikes in the Legislature, it doesn’t take much to block new taxes. Between failures to deal with Democrats or with the state Senate where the pro tem, Mike Schultz, scuttled a revenue package over his opposition to the expansion of casino gambling. Rep. Jason Murphey, initially optimistic about greater transparency and more targeted oversight of state spending, blames the Governor’s service tax increase plan for derailing the work of the House. But it falls back on McCall for making the preparations Murphey details and then failing to follow through. After all, previous House leadership was certainly able to bully the Governor.

In addition to abandoning a sound foundation upon which to approach the budget, McCall made another horrific choice of a committee chairman to go along with picking Dan Kirby to head Business, Commerce and Real Estate. Putting Scott Biggs in charge of the Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections was, considering the passage of SQ 780, just asking for trouble. In league with a handful of other legislators, including the ill-fated Sen. Ralph Shortey, Biggs tried to roll back 780’s drug decriminalization but remained mum about the measure’s relaxation of property crimes classification. And he pigeon-holed criminal justice reform, even in the face of criticism from the Governor. McCall could have but chose not to reassign those bills to another committee where they would be given a hearing, ensuring that there would be no meaningful criminal justice reform this year.

And of course the legislative session concluded with the passage of a budget based on three t̶a̶x̶ fee increases that did not receive three-fourths support but were declared to not be revenue raising measures. These measures are being challenged in court and appear likely to be overturned which will likely mean a special session. If it comes that, however, barring a palace coup it will still be Charles McCall running the House. Perhaps there aren’t any other GOP representatives who could do a better job, but there sure aren’t any that could do much worse.