Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 32
Last week was an exciting week here at the Capitol. The Senate passed Senate Bill 1125, which lays out the framework for the $12.47 billion Fiscal Year 2025 budget agreement. The new fiscal year begins July 1, 2024. This year’s budget process was the first time in recent history that the budget negotiation process was open to the public and live-streamed. Because the budget was completed, we were able to meet our constitutional obligation of passing a budget, and Sine Die was a day early. On W...
The deadline week for bills to make it out of committee is over. The next two weeks will be fast and furious. We have over 230 House bills to consider on the Senate floor, and I am sure there will be several that will be up for heated debate. I have five House bills to present on the Senate Floor and 3 Senate bills that are moving through the House. As with any session, our obligation is to deliver a balanced budget to the Governor for his signature. This process takes months of preparation and...
Week 2 of committee meetings of considering House bills is under our belt. There were several bills in Public Safety and one bill in Veterans and Military Affairs. This week will be the last week to hear House policy bills in committee. Due to the transparent budget process the Senate has put in place, there has been a stalemate in hearing House bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hopefully, that issue will be resolved soon, and budget negotiations can proceed. On Monday, we...
We met again at the Capitol this past week in a special legislative session to approve projects that were submitted to the Legislature for consideration to receive a portion of our state’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars. These are federal monies our state received from the ARPA plan that was passed by Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our state received $11 billion, most of which was given directly to our state agencies. However, the Legislature was given $1.87 billion to a...
It was an honor to recently welcome Gov. Kevin Stitt to District 19 to visit with innovative businesses in Enid who’ve utilized federal COVID-19 relief aid and/or Oklahoma Department of Commerce grants funded through the CARES Act. We also toured several local businesses, including No Man’s Land Beef Jerky and Brueggemann’s. Eleven businesses across Enid were invited to the roundtable discussion with the governor, including the Leonardo’s Children’s Museum, Mead Jewelers, the Bridal Shop and...
We have many Oklahoma agriculture legends that call northwestern Oklahoma home, and I’m happy to congratulate Dr. Barry Pollard for being added to this list as he was chosen to receive the 2020 Governor’s Outstanding Achievement in Agriculture Award. He’s also the newest inductee into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame. I’m sure most of you know Barry and the passion he has for the agricultural industry. He’s a neurosurgeon by day and rancher by night, and somehow has enough time to own P&...
First and foremost, I’d like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the last few months. It’s been a true honor to serve District 19 over the past four years, and I’m looking forward to another four-year term. There will no doubt be many challenges come our way, but I know if we work together for the betterment of Oklahoma, we will prevail. While it seems like most news over the past few months has been negative, I’d like to share a little positivity with you this week. A...
Last week marked a busy one across District 19 as we continued with wheat harvest in western Oklahoma. I was honored to have Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell join me to see first-hand the hard work and dedication it takes each year to make harvest a success. We hosted a meet and greet event in Burlington, and it was a pleasure to show the lieutenant governor around our community. Last fall, I had the honor of joining Lt. Gov. Pinnell on an agricultural trade mission to Taiwan to advocate for Oklahoma’s g...
It’s been busy across District 19 the past few weeks as my fellow farmers and I have been preparing for harvest. I’d like to send my best wishes and blessings for all of those working tirelessly in their fields to feed our great state and nation. My heart also goes out to those who’ve lost property in the wildfires this past week. We all know Mother Nature can sometimes be cruel, and I can’t imagine the pain these families must be going through. Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell will be in the area on Thurs...
I’ve been pleased with our state’s process for releasing detailed COVID-19 data regarding cases in our municipalities and counties throughout the pandemic, and like many of you, was taken back by the governor’s announcement earlier this month that the State Department of Health would no longer be releasing this information. While in the middle of the pandemic, the legislature gave the governor expanded powers so the health department could provide personal health information to first respo...
As of May 29, we have officially concluded the Second Session of the 57th Legislature. This session was historic – after the COVID-19 pandemic quickly spread across the state, we were flexible and transitioned to a blend of both in-person and virtual meetings to complete our business. Although our time at the Capitol was cut short, I’m still proud of the progress we made in key areas like education and health care to move our state forward. As I’ve shared before, we passed a cost-...
While the Senate adjourned on May 15 by passing Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, we allowed ourselves the ability to come back to the Capitol and override any additional vetoes the governor may have handed down. Unfortunately, we did have to reconvene this past Friday to handle this business and ensure a couple of bills become law. Overriding a veto takes a two-thirds majority in both chambers, meaning there must be 68 “yes” votes in the House and 32 in the Senate. Any veto action we took was...
The state budget has been in the spotlight as we’ve returned to the Capitol to finish our legislative business before the constitutionally required deadline of 5 p.m. on the last Friday in May. I reported last week that the Senate and House worked together to create a budget package that will mitigate agency cuts to our core services even during the $1.3 billion revenue shortfall caused by COVID-19 and extremely low oil and gas prices. Unfortunately, the governor did not agree with some of t...
After a series of unprecedented events over the last few months, the Senate and House have agreed to a Fiscal Year 2021 budget that protects core services to the fullest extent possible amid the current economic downturn. In February, the governor and the Board of Equalization projected that we would have about $85 million less to spend in 2021 than we did in 2020. Then, COVID-19 happened. Businesses and restaurants across the state closed and oil and gas prices dipped to historic lows. This...
If you’ve yet to complete your census, I’d like to once again urge you to do so as soon as possible. Although we’ve seen improvement in recent weeks, Oklahoma is still behind the national response rate average. As of May 1, the national average was 54.6 percent. Oklahoma’s response rate was 49 percent, which ranks 41st in the nation. Across the district, Garfield County’s response was 55.8 percent; Kay’s was 54 percent; Grant’s was 39.1 percent; and Alfalfa’s was 36.5 percent. Notable cities inc...
The governor released a three-phase plan on Wednesday to reopen the state, which will have an immediate impact on businesses across District 19. The plan is based on the scientific modeling from public health experts and will be rolled out in phases to reduce the risk of a surge in cases. The first phase began on Friday, April 24th, when personal care businesses like hair salons, barber shops, spas, nail salons and pet groomers were able to reopen for business. It’s important to remember that a... Full story
While our state and nation continue to focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important that we do not forget about the United States Census. I’ve returned my census form, and I hope you will, too. The census is mandated by the Constitution to be taken every 10 years, and it’s extremely important we get a full count. Unfortunately, our state response rate has trailed the national rate by about five percentage points. As of April 17, the national response rate was 49.4 percent and t...
The legislature convened at the Capitol on Monday to approve Gov. Stitt's declaration of a health emergency under the Catastrophic Emergency Powers Act, which was passed in 2003 in response to 9/11. This is the first time in our state's history this act has been used and approved. The governor now has additional powers to spend money and suspend rules and regulations to better coordinate COVID-19 response efforts across the state for the next 30 days. We also passed three bills to address the...
The governor declared a “health emergency” on Thursday, which triggered a provision in state statute that requires the legislature to convene in a special session to confirm or deny the health emergency declaration. We will meet on Monday, April 6, to discuss this, as well as the revenue failure for the 2020 fiscal year budget. I’ll keep you updated on the actions we take on these issues. The governor announced last week that the state department of health is changing some of the restr...
Gov. Kevin Stitt announced a series of new temporary restrictions that will impact the daily lives of many across District 19 on Tuesday. Headlining the restrictions was the “Safer at Home” order, which requires those in vulnerable populations to remain at home except for essential travel like trips to the grocery store, pharmacy or doctor’s office. Vulnerable populations include those 65 and older and individuals with serious underlying medical conditions. The governor also prohibited gathering... Full story
As I’m sure you all know, the coronavirus pandemic has quickly swept across the United States. The virus has now been reported in all 50 states, and numbers continue to rise daily here in Oklahoma. It’s hard to think that life was normal a little more than a week ago, but now cities across the United States are facing mandatory closures and encouraging people to stay home. The Senate had the chance to hear from Gary Cox, the Oklahoma Commissioner of Health, and he informed us of steps the Dep...
We have officially passed the March 12 deadline to vote on bills that originated in this chamber. These measures now head to the House of Representatives to begin the committee and floor approving process, and vice versa. We gave approval to just over 350 Senate bills, and the House approved more than 400 of their own. An important measure did pass the House this past week that now will move to the Senate for consideration. House Bill 3350 would give a cost-of-living adjustment, also known as a...
The Senate has been busy ahead of the March 12 deadline to vote on bills that were introduced in this chamber. We considered 175 bills last week and will have more than 200 to vote on ahead of the deadline if we hear every bill that passed through committee. There were also several hundred bills carried over from the last legislative session that we could consider, meaning bills filed last year that did not advance could be voted on this year. I’m the Senate author for one of these carried-over...
The Senate passed an important deadline this past week. All Senate bills must have been heard in committee by February 27 in order to be heard on the floor and continue the legislative process. Our next deadline is March 12. All Senate bills must be heard on the floor by this date. The full Senate recently approved my first bill this session, which is aimed to protect our children in the event of a car crash. Current Oklahoma law does not require children ages eight to 17 to buckle up in the bac...
Rural health care received a boost in the Senate last week. The Senate unanimously passed a measure allowing collaboration between Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) and physicians, which is an issue that has been stalled at the Capitol for years. Senate Bill 801 changes the CRNA and physician relationship from supervisory to collaborative. CRNAs are sometimes the only providers for critical access hospitals and other health care centers in rural Oklahoma. This measure modernizes...
