Issues

Back the Badge is concerned about many of the same issues that are important to you as well.

Traffic Safety

Almost as many people are killed each year in this country in traffic related incidents as we lost in all of the Vietnam War or the Korean War--each year! Believe it or not, if everyone followed every traffic law to the letter, we could almost stop all of the traffic collisions!

Road and Bridge Condition

Until a better way of delivering police services is created, the best we have now is patrol cars with police officers. If you call the police and a road is under construction or a bridge is out, we can't get to you. If roads are rough, that tears up tax-provided equipment and is uncomfortable for us over a long work shift.

Crime and Public Safety

The Bread and Butter of a law enforcement officer's life. Many times the victims of crimes and the officers attending to them have a much better view of the effectiveness of our criminal laws. We believe that Back the Badge can be a conduit to the legislators who craft those laws.

HB1804

It is the position of Back the Badge that we will enforce laws passed by the people's representatives. It is not right, fair, productive, safe, or legal to assume any person is a criminal based solely on their appearance. We believe that the Constitution of the United States is built around the ideas that you are prosecuted based on what you do, not who or what you are.

With that in mind, if a person commits some violation and is arrested, they are arrested for what they did. That can sometimes lead to a person being also prosecuted for not being in our country legally. That sometimes happens and can be unfortunate.

It is not usually in the best interest of local law enforcement to go into community areas and make sweeping arrests for status violations. That scares away potential witnesses, quashes victims who might want to report crimes to local officers and creates a large gap between the community and local officials. Such sweeps are best left to federal officials.

Salary, Pension, and Benefits

Public Safety officers see and experience many things that cannot be described. There are horrors in our society that must be dealt with, and someone must do that. We know that.

In exchange, we ask for three pretty general things:

  1. As much as we can be trained, equipped, and prepared, for these events, please--we need as much as we can get.
  2. Not to be rich, but perhaps enough to raise our family well, and maybe go fishing, rebuild old cars,collect stamps, or do something that helps us deal with well--what we deal with.
  3. Again not to be rich, but also not to be wanting in our twilight years.

2008 Legislative Session

The rising costs of materials has made copper a hot commodity. Making folks identify themselves before they can sell scrap material might do for that market what Oklahoma did for methamphetamine! Meth didn't disappear, but it got harder to get what it takes to make it!

We applaud the Deputies in Tulsa and Oklahoma Counties for getting a little more job protection this legislative session. As of this report a just cause bill is awaiting the governor's signature!

Our retirees were granted a 4% cost of living raise. It turned out to be 2% per year and we all know about the REAL cost of living but, something is better than nothing!

We preserved the Fire and Police Arbitration Act (FPAA) from some pretty serious attention. It is interesting to note that the FPAA has been around since 1972. Since that time not a single city in Oklahoma has gone bust or bankrupt because of it, despite the moans and groans of city fathers statewide!

2008 Candidate Report