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The Weekly Wonk is a summary of Oklahoma Policy Institute’s events, publications, blog posts, and coverage. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This week on the OK Policy blog, we discussed the legal challenges to two bill passed by the state legislature this spring. An upcoming lecture in OKDHS’s Policy and Practice lecture series examines incarceration and mental illness. Now that the dust has settled following the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period, we took stock of its impact in Oklahoma. In his Journal Record column, Executive Director David Blatt wondered why state officials are so committed to removing access to affordable health insurance in Oklahoma.
In The Know, our daily morning news briefing, was on break this week because we at OK Policy were otherwise occupied with the 2014 Summer Policy Institute (SPI). SPI brought together 50 top college students from across the state together for an intensive four-day seminar on public policy in Oklahoma. Ourselves and students tweeted about the event using the hashtag #okspi. You can see a collection of SPI’s Twitter activity on Storify.
KWGS Public Radio Tulsa also recorded much of the Institute and have posted their footage online, where you can listen to SPI’s panel discussions on Oklahoma’s fiscal challenges, education, poverty and opportunity, health care, and more. Our weekly OK Policy Podcast features highlights from KWGS’s coverage, including discussion of Oklahoma’s education system and fiscal challenges, and the history of the Cherokee people in Oklahoma. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS.
During SPI, we honored former Oklahoma Governor and US Senator Henry Bellmon with our 2014 Good Sense/Good Cents award, and held a subsequent panel and reception honoring his legacy. The Tulsa World described the event here. The Tulsa World also covered our breakout session discussing the refugee crisis at the border and the children housed at Ft. Sill.
The Weekly Wonk’s regular roundup of the Editorial of the Week, Quote of the Week, Numbers of the Day, and Policy Notes will return next week!
