Scott Cooper

Recent comments made by state Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, regarding homosexuals flared a nationwide response. When the legislator was speaking before a Republican group back in January, a member of the audience secretly recorded her remarks. The audio was posted on YouTube. “The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation; it’s just a fact,” Kern […]

The Oklahoma State Supreme Court handed down county courthouse guidelines March 11 dealing with the availability of court documents to the public, and the type of information the public can see on those documents. In a ruling in which three justices disagreed, the court said private information listed on documents ” such as Social Security […]

House Bill 2200, giving students the right to express their religious viewpoints in school, easily passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, but not without heavy debate Thursday morning on the House floor.   “(The bill) is trying to tell school administrators you don’t know how to protect students’ rights,” said Rep. Ed Cannaday, D-Porum. […]

A recent poll shows just how wide support for Oklahoma City’s 1-cent sales-tax extension stretched. Passage of the measure March 4 means the sales tax enacted in 2002 for MAPS for Kids will be extended for up to another year and a half beginning Jan. 1, 2009. The money will go toward renovating the Ford […]

Oklahoma City voters approved a sales-tax extension Tuesday which may guarantee the  National Basketball Association  comes to Oklahoma City. The final vote count when all 271 precincts reported was 44,849 yes votes, 62 percent, to 27,564 voting against the measure. The approval of the sales tax means one cent of retail sales in Oklahoma City will go towards […]

One of the architects of the first MAPS project has a simple message for Oklahoma City on the upcoming sales-tax extension vote: Seize the moment.   Rick Horrow, chief executive officer of Horrow Sports Ventures, a sports business consulting company in Miami, Fla., spoke before a luncheon crowd hosted by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber […]

Two years ago, the state Legislature punted the issue. Today, they fully embraced the idea.   Nursing home advocates like Wes Bledsoe wanted lawmakers to address the problem of registered sex offenders residing in long-term care facilities. The House Health and Human Services Committee held a hearing in 2005 where Bledsoe asked for the creation […]

Oklahoma City businessman and Seattle SuperSonics ownership group leader Clay Bennett wants to bring the NBA team to Oklahoma City. But is it a lock that if Tuesday’s sales-tax extension passes, Oklahoma City gets a team? “We have applied to relocate to Oklahoma City. That is specific in our application,” Bennett told Oklahoma Gazette. “You […]

The story of Rep. Lance Cargill, R-Harrah, fall seems simple. The man who was the second most powerful elected official in the state as speaker of the House, who advocates for cutting taxes, practiced his own version of tax cuts by not filing. This slipup made its way to the state’s largest newspaper, and the […]

Another round in the battle between former death-row inmate Curtis Edward McCarty and Oklahoma City has been waged. McCarty, 45, is suing the city for wrongful imprisonment, claiming officials violated his constitutional rights to due process. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in December, targets: ” the city,” former forensic chemist Joyce Gilchrist and ” […]