KPG 2023 Year in Review

Kirkpatrick Policy Group celebrates legislative victories, administrative improvements, during the last year.

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January 2, 2024

As we turn the page to 2024, it is constructive to take stock of Kirkpatrick Policy Group’s accomplishments during the past year. A 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, KPG exists to promote social welfare, specifically in the areas of animals, arts and arts education, women’s reproductive health, and protecting Oklahoma’s constitutionally guaranteed right to direct democracy through initiative and referenda.

Looking back, it’s safe to say—2023 was a banner year.

Politics can be a tough business, especially when it feels like you’re swimming upstream against the majority in power. KPG is an independent, nonpartisan organization, but our policy areas sometimes don’t curry favor among the supermajority in the Legislature or the governor’s office. However, we don’t support the causes that we do because they are politically expedient.

We support them because it’s the right thing to do.

Companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife all deserve to live in comfort and with dignity. Women should have access to the full range of reproductive health services, including family planning and contraception. Oklahoma’s teen birth rate—the nation’s fourth highest—can be lowered by protecting access to medically-based, age-appropriate health education in K – 12 public schools. State and federal funding for arts and arts education programs should be increased, because the arts enrich our communities and society, and because arts education leads to better academic outcomes for our students. Direct democracy should be protected to hold our elected officials accountable.

Administratively, KPG grew and increased its influence in 2023. We added staff and proactively approached advocacy. We increased our ability to communicate with the public through a new website, a new mobile app-KPG Connect-to help voters stay informed, and regular social media posts. And we increased our lobbying capabilities at the State Capitol, giving us direct access to lawmakers who can help us advance our causes. In short, we positioned ourselves to affect real political change in 2024.

As we look forward to new challenges and opportunities in the coming year, we want to remind ourselves and our supporters about the victories we shared in 2023. Here’s a brief recap.

Animals

Oklahoma voters banned cockfighting in 2002, making the brutal and cruel custom a felony, but those who cling to the archaic practice worked to decriminalize it in 2023. The Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission (a cockfighting organization, not a real government body) made political contributions to Oklahoma lawmakers, seeking to legitimize cockfighting once again. Representative J.J. Humphrey co-authored HB 2530 with Senator Lonnie Paxton. The bill would have allowed counties to hold elections to reduce cockfighting penalties. KPG joined forces with national animal well-being organizations to defeat this legislation, but it can be reheard in 2024.

In November 2023, Governor Kevin Stitt filmed a video greeting that played during a rally held by the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission. Stitt praised the cockfighting group and said he would support its efforts during the 2024 legislative session. The comments drew statewide outrage, as former Governor Frank Keating, former Attorney General Drew Edmondson, and former University of Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer all condemned Stitt’s remarks. KPG joined the chorus in deploring the cockfighters.

KPG advanced its own policy during the 2023 session in the form of two bills to help pig farmers transition away from cruel extreme confinement methods. SB 66, authored by Senator George Young, and HB 2438, authored by Representative Jason Lowe, would create funds from which the Oklahoma Department of Commerce could allocate grants to farms for the renovation and improvement of breeding sow pig housing facilities. The bills did not advance out of committee but are eligible to be reheard in 2024.

Animal rights activists scored a major victory in May when the United States Supreme Court affirmed California’s Proposition 12, which bans the in-state sale of pork, veal, and egg products produced using extreme confinement. This created shockwaves around the national agriculture community, as pork lobbyists worked to protect profits at the expense of pregnant sow pigs, many of whom are forced to live their lives as reproductive machines in tiny cages. A federal response to the Prop 12 ruling came with the introduction of the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, a bill that, if passed, would take away states’ rights and function as Right to Farm on a national scale. KPG joined the Defeat EATS coalition, a diverse, nationwide group of organizations working toward a common goal: to defeat this dangerous bill. 

Arts and Arts Education

After Governor Kevin Stitt vetoed a $10 million allocation of pandemic relief funds for the Oklahoma Arts Council during a special legislative session in October 2022, arts advocates around the state leapt into action.

KPG attended Oklahomans for the Arts’ annual Arts and Culture Day at the State Capitol in April 2023 to implore legislators to pass the American Rescue Plan Act funding once again. Throughout the session, arts stakeholders statewide pressed lawmakers to pass the funding bill. This time the effort worked, and the allocation became law on May 26. The monies, to be administered across the state by the Oklahoma Arts Council, Allied Arts OKC, and Arts Alliance Tulsa, will help rebuild the state’s arts and cultural sector.

In October 2023, KPG also advocated for the federal Arts Education for All Act, which would encourage arts education programming in early learning centers, public schools, and juvenile justice facilities by clarifying that certain federal programs may support arts education and requiring states to make plans to increase access to arts education programs in K – 12 schools and juvenile justice facilities. 

Women’s Reproductive Health

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision, ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, allowing states to pass their own laws. The Oklahoma legislature had already passed two bills in 2022, SB 1603, banning all abortions beyond the six-week pregnancy mark, except for cases where the mother’s life was in danger, and HB 4327, which allowed for civil lawsuits against those who gave abortions. The Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down both laws in May 2023, ruling them unconstitutional. A 1910 law remained, however, rendering abortions nearly inaccessible in the state.

KPG joined the Economic Development Health Coalition in early 2023, which asserts that efforts to limit sexual health access and education threaten health, safety, and economic opportunity in Oklahoma. Thanks in part to the EDHC’s lobbying efforts, only one bill out of eighty-seven considered potentially damaging became law during the 2023 state legislative session.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has brought turmoil and uncertainty to Oklahoma’s public education system. He sent a letter to state lawmakers in April 2023 calling on them to review books with LGBTQ+ themes, and the Oklahoma State Board of Education approved new administrative rules allowing for a district’s accreditation to be demoted for having “pornographic or sexualized content.” KPG viewed these rules as a potential threat to evidence-based, medically factual, and age-appropriate sexual health education in K – 12 public schools. Instead, KPG promoted a policy of intellectual freedom in municipal and public-school libraries.  

KPG also urged Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation to support increased federal funding for the Title X Family Planning Program and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. 

State Ballot Measure Protection

During the 2023 legislative session, State Senator Julie Daniels filed SB 518, which seeks to charge initiative and referenda proponents $750 to cover the cost of advertising in at least one newspaper in statewide circulation, and to require voter signature data to match more stringently with the same information on the Oklahoma Voter Portal. The bill would also increase the time that objectors could file challenges to ballot measures, from ten to twenty business days. KPG pushed back against this bill, and it was defeated in the House after passing the Senate, but the bill can be reheard in 2024.

Representative Mickey Dollens hosted an interim study in September 2023 that examined attempts to undermine direct democracy in Oklahoma. Experts from around the country testified, and, by study’s end, Dollens proposed the following changes to make the ballot measure process more accessible.

•        Extending the mandated ninety-day signature gathering window;

•        Allowing signature gatherers to use electronic devices to collect petition signatures;

•        Implementing a signature verification deadline for the Oklahoma Secretary of State;

•        Holding state question elections only on general elections dates;

•        Banning foreign campaign spending on state ballot measures; and

•        Fully funding the Oklahoma Ethics Commission.