Oklahoma Watch
Oklahoma Watch is a non-profit organization that produces in-depth and investigative journalism on important public-policy issues facing the state. Oklahoma Watch is non-partisan and strives to be balanced, fair, accurate and comprehensive. The reporting project collaborates on occasion with other news outlets. Topics of particular interest include poverty, education, health care, the young and the old, and the disadvantaged.
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Opportunities for A.P. classes, which give students a leg up in college admissions, are lacking in rural high schools. A new law aims to address the divide. -
Conditions are improving at a state prison where staff locked inmates in two-by-two-foot shower stalls for days in mid-August, but one lawmaker who specializes in criminal justice issues said the incident warrants further accountability efforts.
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After a summer pause to expand outreach efforts to SoonerCare members, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority has resumed an unwinding process to pare an estimated 270,000 low-income Oklahomans who kept Medicaid coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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With less than five months until Oklahoma’s presidential primary elections, former President Donald Trump has built a significant fundraising advantage among Republican candidates.
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State personnel at Great Plains confined several prisoners in two-by-two-foot shower stalls for days with limited access to basic necessities, two correctional officers allege in an incident report obtained by Oklahoma Watch. An internal agency investigation confirmed that prisoners were in fact held in the shower stalls for several hours but ruled some of the officers’ claims as inclusive.
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Prisoner advocates argue the deaths highlight a need for universal air conditioning within Oklahoma’s correctional system.
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Arguing that urban voters and wealthy out-of-state groups have too much power over initiative petitions, several Republican lawmakers have filed bills seeking to add new signature collection requirements or increase the vote threshold needed for an initiative to pass.
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Oklahoma Watch used data from the secretary of state’s office, which keeps track of statewide meeting notices, to determine the agencies, boards and commissions with the most canceled meetings in the past five years.
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Advocates for ranked-choice voting say the system makes elections less negative and more issue-based. But questions linger over the logistics of adopting the system in Oklahoma’s municipal and statewide elections.
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Oklahoma Watch, Sept. 13, 2023
