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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
Policy Matters: Give where you live this holiday season: As the calendar has turned to December, the holidays are quickly approaching, and many of our state’s nonprofits are focusing on end-of-year campaigns. During this important season, I encourage you to give where you live — either in your community or to the causes that live close to your heart. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
Oklahoma lawmakers file bills to help tackle Oklahoma’s teacher shortage (Capitol Update): A couple of bills prefiled for the next legislative session by the Chair and Vice Chair of the Senate Education Committee are thoughtful efforts to meet the challenge of Oklahoma’s critical teacher shortage. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Education, approximately 6,000 teaching positions open annually across Oklahoma, and over 4,000 emergency certified teachers are currently working in classrooms statewide without completing required teacher preparation programs. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy’s work honored with national awards, lifetime achievement award for Angela Monson: The Oklahoma Policy Institute received five national awards for its work during the past year, and longtime Legislative and Outreach Director Angela Monson was honored with a lifetime achievement award during a Dec. 3 ceremony. OK Policy received five Graphies awards in the eight award categories in the competition: Best Outreach or Campaign Plan, Event; Best Donor Solicitation; Best Data Visualization; Best Short Written Product; Best Special Project or Innovation. [OK Policy]
OK Policy in the News
SNAP Cuts Contributed to Evictions Across Oklahoma: In Oklahoma, nearly 17% of the population relies on SNAP, and a quarter of renters are considered extremely low-income. That meant that when SNAP benefits were cut, many renters were left choosing between food and shelter. “Oklahoma renters are already struggling,” said OK Policy’s Sabine Brown. “If you zero in on extremely low-income renters, they’re really going to be struggling due to these SNAP cuts.” [Oklahoma Watch]
Homelessness can happen to anyone: The Oklahoma Policy Institute reported in August 2025 that nearly one in five people experiencing homelessness in the state were over the age of 55. Private charities that run homeless shelters in the state are at a critical stage and are struggling to provide the services – especially since the loss of federal grant funding that helped to defray some costs, said High Plains Outreach Center board members at a recent meeting with area churches. [Woodward News]
OICA Expresses Thanks for Child Advocacy Award Winners: The Steven A. Novick Child Advocacy Award also had two winners, Oklahoma Policy Institute’s child well-being specialist Jill Mencke and Stephen Garvin, a former Human Services worker of 18 years who helped shape Citizens for Children, a Stephens County nonprofit working to help keep biological families united. [Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy]
Opinion: The cost of care could crush 300,000 Oklahomans: Oklahomans already are the nation’s least healthy. Imagine the consequences if Congress fails to preserve Affordable Care Act subsidies. Ninety-four percent of Sooners who rely on the federal exchange for their health insurance also rely on the premium tax credits to be able to afford it, according to OK Policy. [Arnold Hamilton / The Journal Record]
Opinion: Recent book on lethal injections criticizes Oklahoma: Corinna Barrett Lain, the author of “Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection,” recently spoke at OKC’s Full Circle Bookstore. Lain shared the findings from her seven years of research, as well as powerful stories she learned from inmates, attorneys, wardens, and prison guards — and Oklahoma, the birthplace of lethal injections in America, played a huge role in her narratives. [John Thompson / NonDoc]
Weekly What’s That
Senate Bill 1027 (SB 1027) is an Oklahoma law that makes it harder for Oklahomans to use the initiative petition process — the tool citizens use to place state questions on the ballot when lawmakers fail to act. Initiative petitions are the only way voters can propose laws or constitutional amendments directly.
The law’s most significant change is the creation of strict county-level signature caps: the number of signatures can be no more than 11.5% of the total number of votes cast for governor in the most recent general election in each county, and no more than 20.8% for a constitutional petition, can come from any single county, SB 1027 would effectively exclude millions of registered voters from being able to sign an initiative petition.
Alongside the caps, SB 1027 adds several new administrative and procedural hurdles. The Secretary of State gains broader authority to reject the “gist” — the required summary printed atop each signature sheet — and campaigns may be forced to rewrite it before circulation begins. All circulators must be registered Oklahoma voters, must disclose whether they are paid and by whom, and cannot be compensated per signature. The bill bars out-of-state funding for signature-gathering work and requires weekly public expenditure reports — even though similar voter-registration requirements for circulators and bans on out-of-state funding have previously been struck down by the courts. It also allows individual signers to later request removal of their signatures and requires additional personal information from each signer.
SB 1027 does not change the topics citizens may petition on, but it alters the process itself in ways that make qualifying a measure far more burdensome. The new county caps, combined with expanded administrative requirements, push an already restrictive system even further, shifting power away from ordinary Oklahomans and toward the state.
As of November 2025, the law is under active review by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“I had to decide whether I wanted to pay rent or buy food. Food was more important because I need food now.”
— Kori Petty, an Oklahoma mother who fell behind on her rent during the government shutdown and found herself in eviction court Thanksgiving week. Petty was on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and during the shutdown, when SNAP benefits were cut off, she had to choose between feeding her newborn baby and herself or paying her rent. [Oklahoma Watch]
Op-Ed of the Week
Opinion: The cost of care could crush 300,000 Oklahomans
Oklahomans already are the nation’s least healthy. Imagine the consequences if Congress fails to preserve Affordable Care Act subsidies. Ninety-four percent of Sooners who rely on the federal exchange for their health insurance also rely on the premium tax credits to be able to afford it, according to OK Policy.
That’s nearly 300,000 who could find even ObamaCare’s ever-increasing coverage unaffordable. A third of a million only a heartbeat away from financial ruin if their health fails – the odds of which are higher in Oklahoma than any other state.
If the enhanced tax credits – enacted by Congress in 2021 as a component of the American Rescue Plan Act – are allowed to expire in December, the average premiums will double.
Numbers of the Week
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6,000 – Raising Oklahoma’s minimum wage would prevent more than 6,000 unnecessary emergency room visits per year, saving the public about $5 million annually in medical costs, according to a new report. White Oklahoma residents would account for the largest number of avoided deaths, but Black residents and rural communities would experience larger proportional improvements in health outcomes. [Scioto Analysis]
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-0.8% – Percent change in the number of teachers in the Oklahoma’s public schools over 5 years (2018–19 to 2022–23), while the national rate was +1.7%. [Learning Policy Institute]
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2 in 3 – More than 66% of SNAP participants in Oklahoma, or more than 2 in 3, are in families with children. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Fact Sheet]
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$6,210 – The average annual amount paid by Oklahoma homeowners on insurance premiums, or about $518 a month — almost three times the national average of $2,110 a year, or about $176 a month. [Nerdwallet]
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6,000 – The estimated number of unauthorized immigrant children enrolled in Oklahoma public schools in 2019. That’s about 0.85% of the state’s 703,650 students that year. [Migration Policy Institute]
What We’re Reading
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New Report Finds Raising Minimum Wage to $15 Improves Health Outcome in Oklahoma: A new report conducted by Scioto Analysis and released by This Land Research and Communications collaborative reveals that raising Oklahoma’s minimum wage to $15 per hour would lead to improved health outcomes across the Sooner state by raising household incomes, reducing financial stress, supporting healthier behaviors, and increasing access to care. [This Land Research and Communications]
- Read the full report: Minimum Wages and Health Outcomes in Oklahoma
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An Overview of Teacher Shortages: 2025: Teacher shortages stem from two main factors: fewer people entering the profession and high rates of teachers leaving. Local, state, and federal education leaders and policymakers all play important roles in reducing pervasive teacher shortages. [Learning Policy Institute]
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Keep Families Housed Who Receive Food Assistance (SNAP): Poor and working families may face additional housing insecurity due to the lapse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that lasted from November 1, 2025 to November 12, 2025. Our new memo includes strategies for eviction defense and policy advocacy to curb evictions in response to families’ food expenses caused by the SNAP lapse. [National Housing Law Project]
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It’s harder to get home insurance. That’s changing communities across the U.S.: Home insurance is getting more expensive in the United States, and insurers are pulling back from some regions as the cost of disasters grows. That trend is stretching the limits of what ordinary Americans can afford to protect their homes. Community leaders across the country are sounding the alarm about a nascent, but growing, crisis — one that’s likely to get worse as climate change drives more severe hurricanes, floods and wildfires. [NPR]
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What harsh immigration policies mean for students, families, and schools: Harsh immigration policies are undermining access to public education by creating fear and uncertainty among immigrant families — leading some to withdraw children from school and compromising students’ sense of safety and belonging. Policies restricting enrollment, cutting funding for English learners, or requiring disclosure of immigration status have eroded schools’ roles as inclusive community hubs and forced districts into crisis response instead of learning environments. [Brookings Institute]
