Have you ever yawned, pondered your bedtime and been shocked to realize it's only 7 p.m.? At the Oklahoma State Capitol this month, lawmakers, staff, lobbyists and the press have all found themselves suffering from the legislative equivalent: How is today only the third Monday of session?
Of course, Gov. Kevin Stitt's ill-fated special session pre-party affected the Capitol's circadian rhythm. Sure, Stitt's tax-cut talk is dominating headlines and press conferences so far, but legislators have been juggling myriad machinations of policy posturing through the first two weeks, both in committee hearings and private meetings.
"There will be things that none of us in this room envision coming up that will be the hottest topic in two weeks," Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC) predicted Feb. 5 on the first day of session. "I'm sure of it."
With the Board of Equalization finalizing FY 2025 revenue estimates last week, chamber budget leaders are expected to meet somewhere, sometime and agree on which spreadsheets, graph paper and safety scissors to use while crafting next year's agency appropriations.
Hip, hip, hooray! We are one week from the year's first legislative deadline, and about three months away from finding an end of the madness that has hardly unfolded yet. Stay strong, soldiers.
— Tres Savage,
Editor in chief
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Start your week with C&A Day
Although a court denied the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes' appeal seeking reservation affirmation, a number of relevant and important efforts are underway in the administration of Gov. Reggie Wassana.
This afternoon, Cheyenne and Arapaho citizens will gather at the Oklahoma State Capitol to meet with lawmakers and educate others about various tribal efforts, potentially including the successful petition to put 79 acres of land in Woodward into trust status and the ongoing push to reclaim Fort Reno lands currently occupied by a U.S. Department of Agriculture research facility.
In 2021, the tribes' voters lowered the blood quantum requirement for citizenship, a topic Gov. Reggie Wassana discussed in a NonDoc Q&A in early 2022. Last month, other proposed constitutional amendments failed when a minimum voter-turnout threshold was not met.
On Friday, rumor spread that Gov. Kevin Stitt might be issuing an executive order regarding the Department of Commerce, Oklahoma's economic development agency that has faced criticism amid failed efforts to land mega-manufacturing investments and has found itself proposed for a pairing down of duties under a Senate bill touted by the State Chamber of Commerce.
While no executive order has dropped — as of Sunday night — word has spread that multiple staff members of the Department of Commerce will be seeing the door later this spring.
The agency has been operating under interim executive director Hopper Smith for months, so it's possible Stitt has selected someone permanent for the post, which was vacated by Brent Kisling near the end of the last legislative session.
Meanwhile, SB 1447 by Sen. Kristen Thompson (R-OKC) has advanced 12-1 through the Senate Business and Commerce Committee with its title struck and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Appropriations and Budget Committee. The bill proposes separating the Department of Commerce's Business Development Division into a new agency — the Office of Economic Development, Growth and Expansion — with a new CEO and a conjoined office with the existing department. The bill would create a new governing board and a new bicameral legislative oversight committee to consider economic development investment proposals soon after they are pitched to the state for support.
"This is going to be an entity that is very well equipped. I view them as a scalpel versus a shotgun approach, so small but mighty," Thompson said in a Jan. 29 interview. "That's the goal there. Commerce is going to stay more of your traditional incentive-delivery agency, so they are going to be really focused on PREP funds, Quality Jobs (Act), our community support — our Main Street programs that are already there. So really what we're doing is cleaning up things that shouldn't be in Commerce and making sure that they also can be laser-focused on their goals and their tasks."
To launch the proposed OKEDGE agency, Thompson has requested a $698 million one-time appropriation of state funds, which would be invested in a manner aimed at ensuring long-term funding for economic development projects. But in a year defined so far by talk of tax cuts and other items with significant price tags, that level of funding for a new agency could be tricky to trim from the budget spreadsheets.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt convenes a meeting of the Board of Equalization on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (Tres Savage)
Despite hopes that Thursday's Oklahoma Board of Equalization meeting would put state leaders on the same page about revenue estimates and appropriation possibilities, not even a dozen pages of financial figures in 10-point font could form a clear fiscal picture in what could become another tumultuous legislative session.
While the final revenue projections yielded a roughly $83 million higher appropriation authority than was estimated in December, legislative negotiations about Oklahoma’s FY 2025 budget remain in the starting blocks, with House and Senate leaders having different interpretations of how much new recurring revenue could be used for state investments and possible tax cuts.
“Isn’t it funny we can’t even agree on math in this building?” Gov. Kevin Stitt asked.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is set to meet at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 20, in the Concourse Theatre (Suite C-50) of the Will Rogers Building, 2401 N. Lincoln Boulevard, in Oklahoma City. (Screenshot)
What else is on tap this week? You guessed it: Committee meetings in the House and Senate!
As you peruse the meeting notices linked above, keep in mind that a few bills filed this session propose changes to how public bodies can operate under the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act.
Perhaps most notably, Rep. Tammy Townley (R-Ardmore) has proposed HB 2367, which seeks to address communication limitations between members of the three-person Oklahoma Corporation Commission by allowing for certain forms of conversations. The adjustment would require public notice after some of those conversations occur. For years, agency staff, commissioners and others have worried that the two-person quorum quality of a three-member body impedes what could be productive discussion about agency issues.
At the same time, HB 2367 raises significant concerns about the extent to which members of the Corporation Commission would be able to communicate outside of public view about matters that require only two votes for approval. Section C of the bill would allow commissioners to discuss "legislative proceedings" of the agency, which is the term used for most OCC actions, including gas and electric utility rate cases. That provision of the bill has raised eyebrows among some observers.
Underscoring the nature of notice requirements for Corporation Commission members to have any discussion currently is a 1:30 p.m. Tuesday meeting that includes discussion of HB 2367 as an agenda item.
Meanwhile, Rep. Melissa Provenzano (D-Tulsa) has proposed HB 3937, which would require public bodies to post their meeting notices and agendas online, a novel concept for 2005 that Oklahoma could adopt nearly two decades later in the internet era. A bevy of government entities — from school boards to municipalities to state agencies — are surely brainstorming a list of excuses as to why that would be such an onerous transparency requirement.
If you're interested in Oklahoma's transparency laws, you can follow the corresponding links to review other proposals regarding the Open Meetings Act and the Open Records Act.
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BONUS: The courts are courtin'
It's hard to keep up with all the legal machinations of Oklahoma's court system, so NonDoc hired a courts-focused journalist to drink from the proverbial firehose and illuminate issues of note.
While Tristan Loveless has given in-depth examination to several cases in his two months on the team, he is also chronicling court developments in "legal roundup" pieces, such as the one that published today.
Click to catch up on ClassWallet consternation, Richard Glossip's pending SCOTUS review and a settlement involving an oil spill in the Sac and Fox Nation.
