OK Policy Blog

Featured Read

2023 Census data: Oklahoma ranks as sixth poorest state

By: Oklahoma Policy Institute
September 12, 2024 // Updated: September 12, 2024
Lawmakers have options to improve Oklahomans’ well-being, access to prosperity Data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey released Sept. 12 show that Oklahoma’s poverty rate was 15.9 percent, which was the nation’s sixth highest. The national poverty rate… Read more More...

Recent Posts

Oklahoma Highway Patrol withdrawal sparks legal and legislative pushback (Capitol Update)

By: Steve Lewis
July 22, 2025 // Updated: July 22, 2025
Oklahoma Department of Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton announced that, beginning November 1st, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol will stop patrolling interstate highways in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metro areas. According to Tipton, the change is intended to enhance statewide… Read more [More...]

Weekly Wonk: The Big ‘Beautiful’ Delay | Oklahoma shouldn’t allow private prisons to reopen as immigration detention centers. Here are 6 reasons why. | Senators request interim study to rethink how Oklahoma cities are funded (Capitol Update)

By: Oklahoma Policy Institute
July 20, 2025 // Updated: July 19, 2025
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In… Read more [More...]

Senators request interim study to rethink how Oklahoma cities are funded (Capitol Update)

By: Steve Lewis
July 15, 2025 // Updated: July 14, 2025
A couple of freshmen senators from Oklahoma’s two largest metro areas have made a bipartisan request for a legislative interim study to look for ways to “stabilize” municipal funding in Oklahoma. Sen. Christi Gillespie, R-Broken Arrow, and Sen. Mark Mann,… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma shouldn’t allow private prisons to reopen as immigration detention centers. Here are 6 reasons why. 

By: Oklahoma Policy Institute
July 14, 2025 // Updated: July 14, 2025
This article was co-authored by Gabriela Ramirez-Perez, Immigration Policy Analyst and Polina Rozhkova, Data Analyst. In the current administration, more and more immigrants are being funneled to detention centers or being held in other forms of federal Immigration and Customs… Read more [More...]

Weekly Wonk: Community-led crisis response is working, but Oklahoma needs a statewide solution | Making Oklahoma healthy requires more than a slogan | Oklahoma’s “failure to protect” law under scrutiny in new interim study

By: Oklahoma Policy Institute
July 13, 2025 // Updated: July 11, 2025
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In… Read more [More...]

Community-led crisis response is working, but Oklahoma needs a statewide solution (Commentary)

By: Kati Malicoate
July 11, 2025 // Updated: July 11, 2025
Oklahoma City's new Mobile Integrated Healthcare (MIH) program represents a meaningful step toward the justice reform envisioned by Oklahoma voters nearly a decade ago. But expanding similar services beyond metro areas requires sustained commitment and investment from the state. [More...]

Oklahoma’s “failure to protect” law under scrutiny in new interim study (Capitol Update)

By: Steve Lewis
July 7, 2025 // Updated: July 7, 2025
Last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, announced that senators had requested 90 interim studies to be conducted while the legislature is out of session. In the Senate, interim studies are assigned to various standing committees, and the… Read more [More...]

Weekly Wonk: Statement from the OK Policy on passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” | True patriotism means speaking up | Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of new business court law | More

By: Oklahoma Policy Institute
July 6, 2025 // Updated: July 5, 2025
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In… Read more [More...]

Statement from the Oklahoma Policy Institute on passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill”

By: Shiloh Kantz
July 3, 2025 // Updated: July 5, 2025
On July 3, 2025, H.R.1 — also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — cleared both chambers of Congress and now heads to the President’s desk for final approval. Statement from OK Policy’s Executive Director Shiloh Kantz:  Today’s… Read more [More...]

Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of new business court law (Capitol Update)

By: Steve Lewis
June 30, 2025 // Updated: July 3, 2025
It didn’t take long for a challenge to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s new business courts to be filed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The lawsuit, filed last week,  asked the court to declare the law — which is scheduled to go… Read more [More...]

Search the Blog