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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 The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Norman encampment cleared again amid broader homelessness crisis (Capitol Update): Arrests and jail appear to offer only temporary relief for local property owners affected by homelessness, while adding strain to the jail and court system. When people are arrested, they must be charged, appear in court, and move through a system that was not designed to address homelessness. Without help and resources, they are likely to become homeless again. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
- From OK Policy: Bulldozers won’t solve homelessness
Policy Matters: Oklahoma can bring dark money into the light: Oklahoma voters this election cycle have been bombarded with outrageous political mailers, turning elections into a contest of sensational attacks — and it’s time we demand something simple: if someone spends thousands to influence our votes, we deserve to know who’s paying for it. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
OK Policy in the News
Oklahoma voters approve voter ID state question; reject tax exemption change: While voting in several runoff elections, Oklahoma voters also voiced their opinions on two state questions. [Fox 25]
Weekly What’s That
Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT)
The Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT), created by SB 1 in 2019, is a division within the Legislative Service Bureau intended to provide greater legislative oversight of state agency budgets. Duties of the Office include gathering information related to proposed agency budgets; evaluating the extent to which each agency fulfills its statutory responsibilities; determining the amount of revenue available to the agency from various sources; comparing current budget information to prior agency requests; and conducting an investigation of any agency as needed to fulfill its responsibilities. The Office is also authorized to conduct performance evaluations and independent comprehensive performance audits. Under legislation passed in 2025 (HB 2728), LOFT was granted the responsibility to conduct impact analyses for proposed administrative rules with a significant fiscal impact.
A 14-member bipartisan legislative committee appointed by the Speaker and the President Pro Tempore and co-chaired by the House and Senate Appropriations committee chairs oversees LOFT’s operations. The committee approved LOFT’s first annual workplan in August 2020.
LOFT released its first report, looking at revenue estimates by the State Board of Equalization, in January 2021; by November 2025, it had released 40 reports on subjects ranging from the Developmental Disabilities Services Waiting List to the state’s use of Coronavirus relief funds and federal education funding, among many others. LOFT has frequently waded into political hot-button subjects, including reports that investigated spending concerns involving State Superintendent Ryan Walters in 2024 and the fiscal condition of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in 2025.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“If you want to have a voice in what happens, you have to use that voice by voting.”
– Becky O’Neal, an Edmond voter, shares why she made it a priority to cast her ballot in Oklahoma’s August runoff election. Voter turnout in Oklahoma is often low, and this election was no exception — but every election gives Oklahomans an opportunity to make their voices heard. [The Oklahoman]
Op-Ed of the Week
Opinion: Is OKC teaching residents that being reasonable doesn’t work?
I went to Oklahoma City Council recently for a reason that had nothing to do with Flock cameras. I was not there to speak about Flock cameras or take a position on them. I was there because I had my own concerns I wanted to bring forward.
As I sat in the meeting, I listened to residents speak about the Flock camera issue. People were angry. They raised their voices. They yelled. Some said things that made me uncomfortable.
And I’ll be honest: I judged them.
Then I had my own experience at City Hall. And suddenly, I understood something I hadn’t understood when I walked into that room. Maybe those people weren’t screaming because they didn’t know how to communicate calmly. Maybe they were screaming because they had already tried.
Maybe they had written the emails. Maybe they had made the phone calls. Maybe they had followed the process. Maybe they had waited. Maybe they had been ignored.
I don’t know that every person in that room had gone through that. I can’t speak for them. But after my own experience, I understand how someone gets there. And that should concern all of us.
We talk about being proactive. We talk about prevention, community engagement and building trust between residents and the institutions that serve them. But the real test isn’t what happens after someone becomes angry enough to demand attention.
The real test is what happens when someone comes to you early and says: “I think something needs to change.”
Do we listen? Do we investigate? Do we follow up? Do we make the person feel that their concern has entered a process where someone is responsible for seeing what happens next? Or does the concern disappear into a system until the person becomes frustrated enough to make noise?
I don’t want Oklahoma City residents to have to become louder and angrier to get attention. I don’t want people to believe the only way to be heard is to create a scene. And I don’t want to sit in another city council meeting watching another group of angry residents and thinking, Why are they behaving like this?
Because now I know something I didn’t know when I walked into that room: Sometimes people don’t start out angry. Sometimes they become angry after being unheard for too long.
Numbers of the Week
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5.7% – The percentage increase of registered independents in Oklahoma from July 2025 to July 2026, which is more than twice the 2.5% increase in all registered voters during that same period. Republican registration increased by 2%, while Democratic registration increased by 1%. As of July, 53.2% of Oklahoma voters are registered as Republican, while 25.3% are registered Democrat and 20.6% are registered independent. [Oklahoma State Election Board]
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26% – The overall turnout rate of eligible voters in Oklahoma’s June Primary Election this year. The 2022 midterm general election turnout was 39.6%. [Oklahoma Voice] | [Ballotpedia]
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54.2% – The share of Oklahoma women who vote on average — below the national average of 60% and ranking Oklahoma 44th in the nation [America’s Health Rankings]
- Wednesday (August 26) was Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the certification of the 19th Amendment and women’s constitutional right to vote.
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535,545 – The number of Oklahomans who voted on State Question 846 on Tuesday. About 7,000 fewer voted on SQ 844, even though both questions appeared on the same ballot. While the state questions drew the most votes on the ballot, turnout was nearly 100,000 lower than it was for State Question 832 in June, continuing the trend of lower participation in runoff elections. [Oklahoma State Election Board]
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31% – The share of Americans who participate at relatively low levels across political, civic, religious, and news-related activities. Compared with other Americans, they are less likely to vote, volunteer, attend public meetings, follow the news, or engage in political advocacy. [Pew Research Center]
What We’re Reading
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New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents: A record-high 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents in 2025, surpassing the 43% measured in 2014, 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, equal shares of U.S. adults — 27% each — identified as either Democrats or Republicans. The recent increase in independent identification is partly attributable to younger generations of Americans (millennials and Generation X) continuing to identify as independents at relatively high rates as they have gotten older. In contrast, older generations of Americans have been less likely to identify as independents over time. Generation Z, like previous generations before them when they were young, identify disproportionately as political independents. [Gallup]
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Voter Turnout in The United States: Voter turnout in the United States is much lower than in other countries, hovering around 60% in presidential elections and 40% in midterm election years. Turnout soars to 90% in countries with mandatory voting and reaches around 70% overall in developed countries. [FairVote]
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The 19th Amendment, Explained: The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920 after decades of organizing by generations of suffragists, prohibited states from denying the right to vote on the basis of sex and marked one of the largest expansions of voting rights in U.S. history. But its promise was not realized equally: Black women and other women of color continued to face poll taxes, literacy tests, discriminatory citizenship laws, English-language barriers, and other forms of voter suppression for decades afterward. Many Native American women, for example, were not recognized as U.S. citizens until 1924 and still faced state-level barriers to voting. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its later language-access protections were essential to making the amendment’s guarantee more meaningful, underscoring that constitutional voting rights require strong, enforceable protections to be fully accessible in practice. [Brennan Center for Justice]
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Low Turnout and High Cost in primary runoffs, 1994-2024: Primary runoffs are used in 10 states when no candidate meets a required vote threshold, but they consistently draw far fewer voters than the first round. Since 1994, 97 percent of congressional runoffs have had lower turnout, and 2024 saw the steepest decline yet, with a median 63 percent fewer voters participating. Runoffs also cost taxpayers millions, often produce winners who receive fewer votes than they did in the initial election, and can encourage more negative campaigning. Ranked-choice voting has been presented as an alternative that determines majority preferences in one higher-turnout election. [FairVote]
- How Americans Are Engaged With News, Politics, Religion and Civic Life: Americans engage with public life in distinct ways: Some are active across politics, community organizations, news, and religion; others participate in community life without much political involvement; many closely follow the news but rarely take further action; and others remain largely disconnected. Older adults tend to participate through traditional activities such as voting, donating, and joining organizations, while younger adults engage more often with news online. These patterns cross party lines, suggesting that civic engagement is shaped by more than political affiliation. People who are more involved also tend to be more interested and knowledgeable about politics and feel more positively connected to their local communities, while those who are less engaged are more likely to feel uncertain about how government and politics work. [Pew Research Center]
