{"id":33436,"date":"2020-10-20T18:29:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T23:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=33436"},"modified":"2021-06-11T14:42:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T19:42:47","slug":"oklahoma-engaged-state-question-814-has-a-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2020\/10\/20\/oklahoma-engaged-state-question-814-has-a-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Engaged: State Question 814 has a history"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 170px; margin-bottom: 20px; border-radius: 10px; overflow:hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 170px;\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https:\/\/player.captivate.fm\/episode\/e3b8a86b-b8d2-48b3-8826-fa9ccf27e0d7\"><\/iframe><\/div><p>There is a lot of history behind State Question 814. If you\u2019re not an Oklahoma government buff, you might not be familiar.<\/p><p>First, here\u2019s a TSET primer. It stands for the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. In the \u201890s, 46 states including Oklahoma sued the major tobacco companies to recoup health care costs associated with tobacco use. The companies settled, and they agreed to pay those states a share of their annual sales. Many states put those eight-figure payments into their general funds \u2014 essentially the state\u2019s checking account. Oklahoma officials instead devised a plan to create TSET. Some of the money goes to the general fund, but 75 percent of it goes to an endowment. TSET uses investment earnings off that endowment to fund public health initiatives, such as tobacco cessation programs and contributions to cancer research.<\/p><p>Voters approved of that idea and put it into the constitution about 20 years ago. Because that\u2019s in the constitution, any changes to TSET would have to be in the constitution, too. In Oklahoma, changing the constitution requires a vote of the people. Which brings us to State Question 814.<\/p><p>Unlike medical marijuana and criminal justice reform, this State Question didn\u2019t start out with voters and an initiative petition. The Legislature put it on the ballot.<\/p><p>It\u2019s looking for a way to cover Oklahoma\u2019s share of Medicaid expansion. Earlier this year, voters approved a state question that will open that health coverage to 200,000 working poor Oklahomans. When states expand, they get a 1-to-9 dollar match from the federal government. Oklahoma is expected to get a billion dollars annually in federal funding, but they have to put up $150 million first.<\/p><p>Some more history: This is far from the first time some Oklahomans have pushed to divert the tobacco settlement payments out of TSET.<\/p><p>Drew Edmondson was the attorney general who filed the lawsuit against the tobacco companies back in 1996, and he was part of the team that designed TSET. He said efforts to shift those payments started right at the beginning.<\/p><p>&#8220;I have a big old cartoon on my wall,&#8221; Edmondson said. &#8220;I have a bunch of them. But one is a tug of war between Governor Keating and me, after the fact, after we won. There&#8217;s a big bag of money and we&#8217;re tugging on either end of it. And the Keating character is saying, &#8216;Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend.&#8217; And the Edmonson character saying, &#8216;save.&#8217; One word, &#8216;Save.'&#8221;<\/p><p>Edmondson says support and opposition didn\u2019t fall along party lines. It was more philosophical. He attributes the ongoing opposition to TSET to the school of thought that says government should never interfere with business.<br \/>\nEdmondson: They didn&#8217;t like something that trial lawyers have jumped on for decades \u2014 trying to alter corporate practice through the courts.<\/p><p>Another factor at play is the belief that government funding should be limited and focus on basic government functions such as highway infrastructure and public safety.<\/p><p>The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs is a think tank in Oklahoma City that advocates for free-market, limited government policy. The organization has long supported changes to TSET funding, similar to the ones proposed in SQ814.<\/p><p>That pitch entered the spotlight in 2017. During a revenue crisis that year, the Legislature created a fee on cigarettes. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled it an unconstitutional tax in disguise and struck it down, creating an even more grim budget hole. OCPA pushed for a state question routing TSET funding to Medicaid at that time, to no avail.<\/p><p>The organization has criticized several of TSET\u2019s initiatives, such as a campaign to cut down on sugary drinks and a program that helps bars and nightlife venues go smoke free. Curtis Shelton, one of the organizations\u2019 policy research fellows, weighed in.<\/p><p>&#8220;TSET\u2019s mission may have started out very specific, but as that endowment has grown \u2014 like I said, it\u2019s over a billion dollars now \u2014 it\u2019s really just up to their discretion what they get to spend it on,&#8221; he said. &#8220;As the money\u2019s grown, it\u2019s become easier and easier for them to kind of siphon off some of that money to these lesser-priority programs.&#8221;<\/p><p><em>Oklahoma Engaged is an election project by NPR member stations in Oklahoma supported by the Inasmuch Foundation, the Kirkpatrick Foundation and Oklahoma Humanities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a lot of history behind State Question 814. If you\u2019re not an Oklahoma government buff, you might not be familiar.First, here\u2019s a TSET primer. It stands for the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. In the \u201890s, 46 states including Oklahoma sued the major tobacco companies to recoup health care costs associated with tobacco use. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":33429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34110,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33436\/revisions\/34110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}