Monday, July 24, 2023

If it feels like the 2023 legislative session just won't end, that's because it hasn't ended yet.

Sure, lawmakers were forced to adjourn the year's "regular" session on the final Friday of May owing to the Oklahoma Constitution, but they called themselves into a concurrent special session and ran most of their budget package through it to make sure they could consider overriding any vetoes from Gov. Kevin Stitt.

If you somehow forgot, Stitt vetoed a pair of bills extending the expiration date of state-tribal compacts on tobacco taxation and motor vehicle licenses by one year. The House returned June 12 — the date originally agreed to by the Senate — and started the override process on the House bill at hand, the motor vehicle measure. The Senate did not show up June 12, but they did come back June 26 and surprised most everyone by falling one vote short of overriding Stitt's veto of the bill to extend the tobacco compacts.

At the time, Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC) promised he would have the votes to try again when the Senate returned on some future date in July.

That future date is today, so make sure you are signed up for NonDoc's direct text program to receive our coverage after whatever happens happens, and enjoy the preview below.

1 minute:
In it to win it,
Senate must begin it

Since the Oklahoma State Senate is about as united as 48 cats in a 40-cat sack, let's start the week with some Billy Joe Shaver wisdom: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.

That appears to be the goal of Senate leadership today, as Treat is expected to call SB 26X up for another shot at a veto override. Because the measure is a Senate bill, overriding Stitt's veto of it must begin in the Senate and then head to the House. (The House already advanced the override for HB 1005X on June 12.)

The Senate's floor agenda says its session will convene at 9 a.m. The House? Well, according to the House GOP Caucus' communications director, they will not be in session today but will return July 31 "if needed."

Will Treat have the votes for the overrides this time? It's unlikely he will put the question on the board a second time without being sure, so we should know the answer fairly soon today.

Read NonDoc's recap of the June 26 vote.

2 minutes:
Opposing override,
Stitt still pushing for new deals

Over the past two months, Stitt has made no secret of his desire for the Legislature not to override his vetoes and extend the current tobacco and motor vehicle compacts. Instead of doing that, he argues, lawmakers should support his offers to tribal nations that involve extending the tobacco compact while modifying the jurisdictional definition to prevent an expanded scope of application following the McGirt v. Oklahoma historic Supreme Court decision.

The specific details are complicated, and to learn more about the language at hand and the background shaping this dispute, consider reading this article from Friday. As it turns out, despite their public disputes, Stitt and Chickasaw Nation Gov. Bill Anoatubby had been emailing offers and correspondence back and forth since mid-May. Their emails were polite, business-like and personal, and they culminated with a meeting Thursday between the two governors' representatives.

In response to the article linked above, Anoatubby emphasized his call for the Legislature to override the veto on SB 26X, even as negotiations with Stitt are ongoing.

“It has always been our approach to work with the Oklahoma governor, regardless of who holds that office and regardless of our disagreements. We remain at the beginning of a long process to establish a durable tobacco compact, and we thank the Oklahoma Legislature for working to provide the time for that work to be done right,” Anoatubby said. “We call on the Oklahoma Legislature to complete its work and override the Oklahoma Governor’s vetoes of the compact extender bills.”

Stitt, meanwhile, has been asking lawmakers not to override his vetoes, and he emailed senators over the weekend to alert them of another offer he apparently sent to Anoatubby after Thursday's meeting between their staff members. That offer includes a two-year extension — through Dec. 31, 2025 — with a clause saying the state and the Chickasaw Nation agree the "jurisdiction" of the tobacco compact is limited only to the trust and allotment lands that had been covered under the compact prior to the McGirt decision that functionally affirmed the existence of Indian Country reservations in eastern Oklahoma.

Read more about Stitt and Anoatubby's negotiations.

3 minutes:
Chickasaw election on Tuesday

Speaking of the Chickasaw Nation, the tribe's general election is set to conclude Tuesday when absentee ballots must be received by the U.S. post office in Ada. Unlike many other tribal nations, Chickasaw voters are not allowed to cast ballots in person, as the entire electoral process is carried out by mail.

While several positions were up for election this year, only one post — the Tishomingo District's Seat 3 — drew more than one candidate when the filing period had concluded. (Gov. Bill Anoatubby, Lt. Gov. Chris Anoatubby and others were reelected by default.)

In the race for the Tishomingo District's Seat 3, eight-time incumbent Steven Woods is being challenged by law enforcement officer Dusk Monetathchi and teacher and coach Shane Langford.

Read more about the Chickasaw Nation election.

5 minutes:
Other budget bills not moving?

If you can remember back to late May (that was three or four years ago, right?) you'll recall that five bills revealed and considered as part of the Legislature's supposed budget agreement failed to make it out of one chamber or another.

The Senate voted down a pair of House bills: one to match future statewide elected official pay with the judicial branch's pay scale; and one to create a new judicial evaluation program that would provide private feedback and analysis for district and appellate court judges. The House responded by not hearing three Senate bills:

• SB 11 to turn the Tourism and Recreation Commission back into a governing body;
• SB 22 to establish a fund and rules for the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture to receive $18 million contingent on matched fundraising; and
• SB 27 to direct $12.5 million to the County Community Safety Investment Fund, which was created to reallocate criminal justice reform savings to community mental health efforts in line with State Question 781.

The judicial evaluation bill's failure in the Senate deeply irritated House Appropriations and Budget Chairman Kevin Wallace (R-Wellston), who has pushed the idea for a couple of years, arguing that new judges often need ongoing training and oversight after they assume the bench.

With the Senate only listing its compact-extension overrides on its agenda today and the House not even coming in at all, it appears that all five of those measures will be dead unless the Legislature votes to extend its special session adjournment (again) beyond July 31.

Meanwhile, a major news story broken last week by Nolan Clay of The Oklahoman may be giving Wallace a way to say, "I told you so," right in his own back yard.

New Lincoln County District Judge Traci Soderstrom was caught on camera spending hours of a murder trial on her phone, perusing social media, texting and (ultimately) getting herself investigated by the Council on Judicial Complaints.

Will the Soderstrom saga help convince senators of Wallace's position next year? Who knows, but you can watch video of her phone-happy fingers below.

5 minutes:
Sen. John Michael Montgomery's final votes

Sen. John Michael Montgomery (R-Lawton) could be making his final votes as a legislator today, as he announced earlier this month that he would resign effective Aug. 1 to become the new director of the Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce.

Underscoring rumors that some senators will be nothing but beer and bones once they lose Montgomery, it's possible that some remarks could be made regarding their departing colleague today.

Last week, Stitt established the filing period for a special Senate District 32 election as July 31 through Aug. 2. The primary election date will be Oct. 10, with a general election called for Dec. 12. 

Read more about Sen. Montgomery's departure.

BONUS: A long story
about a lot of money

In his capacity as the appointed chairman of the Oklahoma Broadband Governing Board, Mike Fina worked closely with a Motorola lobbyist and the company’s territory vice president — Fina’s former employee and his former college roommate, respectively — to steer $20 million to the Department of Public Safety for upgrades to an antiquated Motorola radio system.

In doing so, records indicate Fina acted as an intermediary between Motorola representatives and DPS for the sole-source agreement, and he ultimately caught legislators off guard by having the public board approve $20 million of Broadband Office funding for the project Nov. 29. Over the next three weeks, Motorola Vice President Clay Cassard and Motorola lobbyist Jodi Lewis sent numerous messages about finalizing the contract to Fina, who said Dec. 5 that he was “working to get this thing funded before the end of the month.”

NonDoc requested text and email communications between Fina, Cassard and Lewis in April and received them June 13, the same day Fina says he was removed from the board by Gov. Kevin Stitt.

Read the full story here.

DOUBLE BONUS:
Former Sen. Randy Bass enters hall of fame

Baseball lovers and Oklahoma Legislature history buffs will be excited to learn that former Sen. Randy Bass (D-Lawton) has been inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in Japan owing to his six years playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball League.

Bass, who was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 2004 and served through the 2018 session, is most known for the NPB's "Curse of the Colonel," which originated during the 1985 playoff race. During a celebration of the Hanshin Tigers winning the Central League pennant, fans called out the team's players by name, with a fan who looked like each player jumping into an Osaka canal. When Bass' name was called, revelers toppled a Colonel Sanders statue at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and threw it into the water. While the team won the 1985 World Series, a streak of injury misfortune and losing seasons created the "Curse of the Colonel" legend. (The statue was pulled from the water in 2009.)

Last week, Bass spoke to the New York Times about the honor of being inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

“The Japanese Hall of Fame was never on my radar growing up in that little town of Lawton, Oklahoma,” Bass said. “I’m just grateful to the Hanshin organization that despite the way it ended, all these years later, they still consider me like family and I’m sure this honor wouldn’t be possible without them supporting it.”

Read the New York Times' coverage.

Legislative resources