State Lawmakers File A Flurry Of Bills Before End Of The Year

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY -- State lawmakers have filed bills on subjects ranging from cutting Oklahoma's income tax to declaring the state's official gospel song as they prepare for the 2011 legislative session that begins in February.

Nearly 80 Senate and 40 House bills have been filed as of Wednesday.

Among those filed this week is a bill to reduce the state's top income tax rate by one-tenth of 1 percent each year for the next decade at an eventual estimated cost to the state of about $600 million a year.

Another would declare the song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" as Oklahoma's official gospel song. The non-profit African American Registry says the song was written before 1862 by Choctaw Indian slave Wallace Willis in Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma.