Just The Facts: Candidate Voting Records on 2016-2018 Tax Hikes

There are a number of current or former state legislators running for higher office, and I wanted to do a quick post on their voting records from the 2016-2018 tax hike spree that Governor Mary Fallin and the GOP-led legislature went on. I already posted about how horrible State Rep. Avery Frix's voting record is ('Fiscal Failure Frix, the worst choice for conservatives in CD2'), so here are the facts about the others.

So, without further ado, Just The Facts: Legislative Voting Records on Major Tax and Fee Increases, 2016-2018.

Green means they voted for the measure (not good, in this case), Red means they voted against the measure (a good conservative vote), Gray means they missed the vote, and blank means they were not eligible to vote (in the case of Reps. Frix and Derby they were not in office; in other cases the bill either did not receive a hearing in that legislative chamber or the member was not on the committee where a vote took place).

The following six candidates are running for the 2nd Congressional District:

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Former State Rep. John Bennett has claimed that he never voted for a tax increase, but that is absolutely not true, as you can see from the above graphic. In 2016, he did not vote with the conservative core caucus on any of these tax/fee increase measures.

The following candidates are running for other offices, denoted above their photos:

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There are a handful of additional ex-legislators running for some of these offices; however, they all pre-dated this time period in the legislature, and Republican-led tax hikes really weren't a thing before or since. 

Not all of the aforementioned measures passed both chambers and were signed into law. Some of these only received votes in either the House or the Senate. You can click the links below to go to the Legislative information page on each bill. I believe I covered all of the main tax and fee increase bills from 2016 through 2018, but can't guarantee that I missed none. If I did miss a few, what I did collect should be enough to give you a good idea.

2016:

• HB3210 - cigarette tax - $190M 
• SB1606 - itemized deduction cap - $97M 
• SB1604 - make the Earned Income Credit nonrefundable - $29M
• SB1577 - Gross Production Tax - $133M 

2017

• HB2348 - standard deduction freeze - $4.4M
• HB2361 - sports ticket fee - $2.6M
• HB2367 - end sales tax vendor deduction - $14.1M
• HB2429 - Gross Production Tax - $94M
• HB2433 - vehicle sales tax - $123M
• SB845 - cigarette tax - $258M (ruled to be unconstitutional)
• HB2372 - cigarette tax - $215M 
• HB2403 - itemized deduction cap - $102M 
• HB2414 - cigarette//fuel/GPT - $385M 

2017 1st Special Session

• HB1035X - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $455M
• HB1054X  - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $455M
• HB1085X - Gross Production Tax - $51M 

2017 2nd Special Session

• HB1010XX - cigarette/fuel/GPT/hotel - $534M (largest tax hike to pass since at least 1990)
• HB1011XX - itemized deduction cap -$94M
• HB1033XX - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $581M

2018

• SB1086 - eliminate capital gains deduction -- $120M
• HJR1050 - would have made it easier for the legislature to raise taxes on Oklahomans, a horrificly bad vote among a list of horrificly bad votes.

I hope this information has been helpful for my readers.