A Successful Session

Kirkpatrick Policy Group helps pass and defeat important legislation at the state capitol.

May 29, 2023

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In one of the wildest and most contentious Oklahoma legislative sessions in recent memory, the dust finally settled after adjournment sine die on May 26.

What began on February 6 with over 3,000 bills and joint resolutions filed in the state House of Representatives and Senate in advance of the 59^th Oklahoma Legislature’s first session ended with a flurry of activity as legislators raced to approve last-minute bills and the state’s fiscal year 2024 budget. Kirkpatrick Policy Group (KPG) was there through every committee meeting and floor vote helping pass and defeat legislation according to its mission: to identify, support, and advocate for positions on issues affecting all Oklahomans, including concern for animals, the arts and art education, and women’s reproductive health.

Governor Kevin Stitt made clear his priority at session’s start: school choice legislation must be approved. House and Senate leadership, including Speaker Charles McCall and Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat, disagreed on the exact nature of the education compromise. After months of futility, Stitt vetoed 20 unrelated bills on April 26, seemingly in retribution for the Senate’s reluctance to adopt his education plan.

All this is to say the education debate took up much of the oxygen at the state capitol. At last, on May 26, Governor Stitt signed HB 1934, The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act, providing tax credits based on income for parents who send their child to private or charter schools. He also signed SB 1119 and SB 1121, injecting $625 million into Oklahoma’s public education system – including pay raises and paid maternity leave for teachers, based on tenure – to make the school voucher-like bill more palatable.

With an education deal in place, the flow of legislation finally commenced. Here is a recap of the measures that mattered most to KPG.

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Animals

HB 2530, a bill that would have reduced criminal penalties for cockfighting activity – banned by Oklahoma voters in 2002 – from a felony to a misdemeanor, died in a Senate committee on April 13. Authored by District 19 Representative J.J. Humphrey, the bill had failed once on the House floor before narrowly passing on reconsideration.

“Oklahomans want cockfighting to be illegal, they want felony-level penalties for this cruelty, and they want the law actively enforced in every county,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, which helped lead opposition to the legislation. “Decriminalizing cockfighting was a colossally unpopular and wrong-headed idea.”

Led by an upstart political action committee, the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, that raised $71,000 for its efforts, the failed campaign saw thirty-four state candidates and incumbents receive campaign donations. Animal advocates say cockfighting is a magnet for gambling, drugs, and other illegal activity.

Another bill, HB 1792, would have reduced penalties for a wide swath of Oklahoma felonies, including animal fighting. It passed both the House and Senate, but the bodies could not agree on exact bill language. The bill now lies dormant and could be reintroduced next session.

KPG also championed two bills in the legislature that would incentivize Oklahoma pig farmers to remove gestation crates – metal cages barely larger than a pregnant sow’s body, greatly inhibiting movement and socialization, amounting to torture – from their operations. The practice of using extreme confinement to breed pigs is a relatively recent business development, one that brutalizes pregnant sows during their short lives and has been condemned by animal advocates worldwide.

SB 66 would create a $47 million fund from which the Oklahoma Department of Commerce could allocate grants to farms for the renovation and improvement of breeding sow pig housing facilities. HB 2438 would create a $4 million revolving fund – also through the Department of Commerce – to create the Pregnant Pigs Pilot Program. In both bills, grantees would be required to pledge that all uses of gestation crates be phased out within three years of accepting funds. Grantees who go back on this promise would be required to repay all grant funds.

While both bills lie dormant after not being heard in committee, the cause received a boost after the United States Supreme Court on May 11 upheld California’s Proposition 12, banning the in-state sale of pork products produced from breeding pigs housed in extreme confinement, paving the way for a market-driven solution to the problem. Companies like Walmart, Costco Wholesale, Smithfield, McDonald’s, and many more have all mandated better conditions for pigs in their pork supply chains.

Arts and Arts Education

The biggest victory for the state’s arts community came late in session when the legislature approved a plan to invest $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding that will help rebuild Oklahoma’s arts and cultural sector following the devastating economics effects of the pandemic. KPG advocated and lobbied at the state capitol for passage of this important measure, which became law on May 26. Funds will be administered throughout the state by Allied Arts OKC, Arts Alliance Tulsa, and the Oklahoma Arts Council. “This transformational investment will pay long-term dividends in creative workforce development, talent retainment, education, and more,” Oklahoma Arts Council Executive Director Amber Sharples said. “With 50 percent of the funding prioritized in our plan for rural communities, it will spark vital community and economic development across all 77 counties, reaping benefits for generations to come.”

In state budget negotiations, the Oklahoma Arts Council also received a 15 percent allocation increase over the prior fiscal year, totaling $487,000.

Women’s Reproductive Health‍

Through its partnership with the Economic Development Health Coalition (EDHC), a group of businesses, health care providers, educators and advocates who oppose policy changes that would hinder Oklahoma’s workforce and economic development, KPG helped defeat several harmful bills at the state capitol.

The session began in February with EDHC monitoring 87 bills, only two of which the organization supported. By session’s end, only one bill that the EDHC opposed – SB 613, banning gender affirming care for persons under 18 years of age – became law, but it has already been challenged as unconstitutional by the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Additionally, no restrictions on sex education, which KPG believes is vital in reducing the state’s teen birth rate, were passed at the state capitol.

The defeated bills included:

- SB 202, the so-called Women’s Bill of Rights, would have legally opened the idea that men and women can be “separate but equal,” which could have wide-reaching implications on gender and pregnancy discrimination, especially in the workplace; some advocates also claim the bill’s passage could jeopardize federal funding for state domestic violence shelter and rape crisis shelter facilities.

- SB 397 would have required Oklahoma’s public and charter school districts to submit a list of all library books to the state department of education. Nothing containing “pornographic” or “sexualized” content (including perhaps sex education books) would be allowed to students under the age of 18. Parents could report suspected violations to the state department of education, which could ultimately result in school districts losing state funding.

- SB 368 began as a pro-contraception bill but got hijacked in conference committee by Senators Julie Daniels and Nathan Dahm who added abortion-exception language that could have derailed the bill. Senator Jessica Garvin, the bill’s original author, regained control and rescinded the new bill language, returning it to a contraception protection bill. In the end the bill died without making it onto the Senate floor.

Protecting the Initiative and Referendum Process‍

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KPG celebrated the defeat of SB 518, which would have reformed the state’s constitutionally authorized initiative and referendum process by making it more difficult for petitioners to garner and validate the necessary signatures to add a state question to the ballot.

The bill would have charged a $750 fee to publish a petition in “at least one newspaper of general circulation in the state,” something the secretary of state’s office now pays for. The bill also would have added another data point for the secretary of state to validate from each signature line on the petition. Currently, a resident’s signature and personal information on a petition must match the same information on the Oklahoma voter portal, including the voter’s legal first and last name, ZIP code, address, and birthdate, in at least three places. The bill would have increased the datapoint match total from three to four places.