Oklahoma Watch (https://oklahomawatch.org/author/trevorbrown/)
Oklahoma lawmakers closed out the 2019 session Thursday after nearly four months of debate on hundreds of bills that could impact the state for years to come. Here’s what the Legislature did, and didn’t do, this year, from the $8.1 billion spending bill to criminal justice reform.
Five former legislators who left office last year are now lobbying their former colleagues. A revived proposal to require a “cooling-off period” before legislators turn lobbyists is still in limbo.
The fight over Oklahoma’s recently changed liquor distribution laws shows how donors get around a partial fundraising blackout during the legislative session. One donor in the fight, and his wife, have given at least $95,000 since Feb. 6.
State election officials removed nearly 90,000 inactive voters from Oklahoma’s voter rolls earlier this month during its biennial purging of the list.
Two Oklahoma health care facilities are among those in 12 states that treated patients with a potentially lethal multidrug-resistant fungus that is emerging as a serious global public health threat.
Attorneys in Oklahoma’s opioid lawsuit have bragged that they slept on cots in their offices and went through millions of pages of evidence. But one private attorney in the case, a former legislative leader, stands to make $5.6 million in the recent settlement against a drugmaker despite having no obvious role documented in court filings.
For more than a decade, state lawmakers have sought various ways to curb contingency fees for private attorneys who contract with the state, as well as make the costs more transparent. But none have passed.
Election officials are gearing up to remove tens of thousands of Oklahomans who haven’t voted in years from the state’s voter rolls – a controversial practice voting-rights advocates say can lead to disenfranchised voters.
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s nominee for secretary of veterans affairs and the military has withdrawn his name from consideration. His consulting company, Check-6, faces lawsuits alleging he underpaid veterans who work for him by misclassifying them as contractors.
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s choice for secretary of veterans affairs and the military has been accused of shortchanging veterans who work for his consulting company, according to a federal lawsuit in Louisiana.