Panel advances tattoo bill, tort reform argued 
Capitol Spotlight for weeklies for week of April 9, 2006
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureaus

They're highly visible on college basketball and football players, frequently seen just above the back of low-rise jeans on chic young women, and it's against the law to get them in Oklahoma.
But now tattoos have at least a shot to become legal here by surviving a packed hearing in the House Health and Human Services Committee. 
The panel, headed by Rep. Kris Steele, R-Shawnee voted 15-7 for the bill, authored by the persistent Rep. Al Lindley, D-Oklahoma City. Lindley has for years tried to pass tattoo licensing and health safeguards in the only state without them.
The State Health Department reported a 78 percent increase in Hepatitis C between 2000 and 2003, and 34 percent of the infected were tattooed. Dr. Michael Crutcher, the state health commissioner, testified for the bill and warned of unsanitary conditions in unregulated shops.
Steele said later he allowed the hearing this year because a Tulsa court ruling effectively prevents prosecution of tattooists.
But, arguing against the bill, he said legalizing tattooing because it is being done widely "is absolutely the worst reason we should do it."  
As amended, Senate Bill 806 would bar new tattoo parlors within 1,000 feet of a church, school or playground, artists could not perform while drunk or drugged, anyone under 18 could not get a tattoo or body piercing job and the artists would have to carry $100,000 liability insurance.
 "This has gone long enough," said Rep. Mike Shelton, D-Oklahoma City. "Too many kids in my district are receiving tattoos in the back of someone's house."
Rep. John Wright, R-Broken Arrow, suggested during questioning that a biblical injunction against tattooing had killed previous bills. In debate, however, he pinned his argument on economic development.
"Employers do have a tendency to discriminate, and I do not want to see any economic opportunities diminished by the citizens of our state because of prejudging of an individual's character based on the presence of body art."
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Physicians, business leaders and fellow Republicans rallied with House and Senate GOP leaders in an effort to resurrect provisions of a lawsuit reform bill killed by Senate Democrats.
House Speaker Todd Hiett, R-Kellyville, accused Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee of favoring interests of trial lawyers "over those of working Oklahomans." Senate GOP Leader Glenn Coffee of Oklahoma City said frivolous lawsuits cost citizens $845 a year in everything they purchase.
Hiett said the GOP would continue its push for provisions of House Bill 3120 until the last day of the session if necessary, seeking to incorporate them into other legislation. He called on Gov. Brad Henry and Senate Leader Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater, both lawyers, to use their influence.
Sen. Charles Laster, D-Shawnee, judiciary committee chairman, questioned whether the Republicans really want the bill or if they would rather have the issue as a fund-raiser. It's what's left to them, he said, with right-to-work and workers compensation now off the table.
"The bill they sent over had a lot of problems," he said. "I have to believe the author was awfully mean, or didn't want it to pass." 
Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, a physician, said fear of litigation prompts many doctors to order more and more expensive tests as a defense in case they are sued.
***
The House was full of standup comics, rising to address the designation of the Mexican free-tailed bat as Oklahoma's official flying mammal.
Hearing the bill's author praise the bat's nightly consumption of thousands of mosquitoes, Rep. Thad Balkman, R-Norman, framed a question from the current immigration debate.
"Are you saying there are no willing and able American bats to do the job?" he asked author Jeff Hickman, R-Woodward.
How about trading some eastern Oklahoma chicken litter for bat guano? Rep. Jerry Ellis, D-Valliant, asked.
Rep. Joe Sweeden, D-Pawhuska, deadpanned that Hickman's bill was "one of the greatest pieces of legislation I've seen this session."
"It is a career bill," Hickman acknowledged.
And so it went for a while.
The bat is born in Oklahoma, hanging out mostly in the Alabaster Caverns State Park until it emigrates to Mexico. 
The vote was 83-6.
***
Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said the Senate's failure to hear her library legislation will reduce local control of libraries and allow national organizations to choose the books available to Oklahoma children.
"Most libraries simply purchase books endorsed by the American Library Association and many of those books undermine local community values," Kern said.
Opponents of Kern's House Bill 2158 argued it would take away local control of libraries. It would have threatened funding of libraries if they did not shelve books with homosexual content or sexually explicit language in an adult section.