We have one week to go before the next big deadline in the Legislature. Legislative committees have until Thursday, April 11th for bills from the opposite chamber. Those that don't receive a vote by the deadline will go dormant until next year.
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Every legislative session is a mix of the expected and unexpected. In this edition of our Bill Watch series, we look at some of the bills we are now paying closer attention to that have come from out of left field.
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Six weeks into the 2019 legislative session, the House and Senate hit their second major deadline last Thursday. Bills that failed to pass off the floor of their chamber of origin are now dead for this session.
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Last week, we reported that just over 1,000 bills and resolutions had survived the initial committee deadline and were still alive. The ranks of surviving bills will be thinned once again by next Thursday, March 14th, the deadline by which bills must pass out of their chamber of origin to avoid being booted off the island (for various exceptions to this rule, see our 2019 Legislative Primer).This coming week will see the sausage-grinding machine speed up considerably, as hundreds of measures vie for hearings during what are expected to be long days and nights on the House and Senate floor. Here are some key bills OK Policy continues to track closely in the areas of criminal justice, education, economic security, and taxes.
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As of today, 1,020 bills and resolutions remain active out of the 2,836 total measures introduced thus far this session. This translates to a 37 percent survival rate. In this update, we stop to mourn or celebrate some of the key pieces of legislation that missed the deadline and have been relegated to the sidelines, if not the graveyard, this session
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By:
Gene Perry
February 26, 2019 // Updated: February 27, 2019
This episode of OKPolicyCast was hosted by Gene Perry and produced by Gene Perry and Jessica Vazquez, with additional production assistance from Lindsay Myers. You can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or RSS. The podcast theme music is by Zébre. If you have any questions…
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This session, the Legislature will have several opportunities to improve the lives of hard-working Oklahomans and their families. Legislators have filed bills to create second chances for the justice-involved, make sure workers have paid time off to care for their own health and the health of their loved ones, and restore the full value of the Earned Income Tax Credit. All of these would be great steps toward creating an Oklahoma that appropriately values and fairly rewards the labor of its citizens.
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By:
Damion Shade
February 20, 2019 // Updated: March 29, 2019
This legislative session, leaders of both parties, the governor, the Oklahoma business community and the public at large have expressed a clear desire to work towards ending Oklahoma’s incarceration crisis. Some of these legislative initiatives build on the progress of Gov. Fallin’s Criminal Justice Task Force, but many proposals represent new attempts to lower Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-world incarceration rate.
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By:
Rebecca Fine
February 19, 2019 // Updated: February 27, 2019
Legislators filed approximately 2,800 bills this session, and about 250 of those dealt with education. This list below only touches the surface of those headed through the Legislature, but they could have considerable impact on Oklahoma's schools.
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In previous years, health care legislation has often come with a sense of existential crisis, as budget cuts and efforts to take away coverage have loomed large. But this year, with a new administration and a healthier budget, lawmakers have a chance to reverse course and offer more readily accessible quality health care in Oklahoma.
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