The high court gave the go-head for an initiative petition to raise the state’s gross production tax rate to 7 percent for all wells and dedicate the revenue to a $4,000 teacher pay raise. Currently, the tax is 2 percent for the first three years of production and then 7 percent.

The tax hike would generate an estimated $340 million a year.

Organizers of the petition effort still have to get nearly 124,000 verified voter signatures before the issue could go on a ballot. But it’s hard to imagine that the Supreme Court ruling didn’t get the attention of those who have been holding the line against higher severance taxes.

The Step Up Oklahoma proposal to raise the gross production tax rate to 4 percent for the first three years of production had the support of oil men who had previously rejected higher severance taxes. Why? At least in part, the threat of the initiative petition helped push that movement. The Supreme Court’s Monday decision surely pushes that movement a little harder. The risk of a 7 percent gross production tax on all wells (or, at the very least, an expensive and potentially damaging political campaign fighting a teacher pay increase to avoid a 7 percent tax) has got to encourage the oil and gas industry to rethink its positions.

Of course, the threat of a teacher’s strike also plays into the game. The prospects of hundreds of schools closing and teachers, parents and students protesting at the state Capitol — reminiscent of the successful efforts to force through House Bill 1017 taxes and reforms in 1990 — surely has the attention of legislative leaders, who have come up with a flurry of funding ideas in recent days.

A consistent theme coming out of the negotiations is that the demands of Democrats and teachers keep going up. The Oklahoma Education Association is planning a statewide strike unless it gets a $10,000 raise over three years; higher pay for support personnel; funding for other education programs, and a sustainable tax program to pay for it all.

That is a higher reach than was previously on the table, but legislative leaders need only look in the mirror to understand why that happened. When lawmakers failed to pass various proposals last year and the Step Up Oklahoma Plan earlier this year they helped radicalize the OEA’s membership. The date for a possible strike got moved forward and the teachers’ demand harsher. The goalposts moved, and the Legislature moved them.

Once radicalized, the teachers may not be easily mollified.

If there is a breakthrough on the revenue talks, but it falls just short of the OEA’s demand, there will certainly be strong voices within the organization insisting that teachers should hold out.

When the Step Up Oklahoma plan was being debated in the state House, Republican legislative leaders promised that it was their last offer for new revenue, a threat they had used before.

In a fiery speech from the House floor, Rep. Scott Inman, the former leader of House Democrats, promised fellow members and teachers in the gallery that there would be a better offer.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will have more than one shot at this, I promise you,” Inman said.

That prediction appears to be coming true with a number of new proposals now being offered, including several which increase the gross production tax above 4 percent but below 7 percent.

The critical challenge for the oilmen, the Democrats and the teachers will be if they know when to say, “Yes.”