Oklahoma House Republicans are removing Oklahoma City Democrat Mauree Turner from all committee assignments. GOP lawmakers allege Turner “harbored a fugitive” in their office last week.
Republicans voted Tuesday morning to formally censure Turner — the body’s only openly nonbinary representative.
GOP lawmakers allege after last week’s House vote to restrict gender affirming medical care for minors, a transgender person assaulted a Highway Patrol trooper. They say that individual then took refuge in Turner’s office, and Turner refused to hand that person over to authorities.
"I know that I represent a culmination of things that you all deeply hate. People do not feel represented or protected by the people in this body. They come to find refuge in my office, they come to decompress from some of the most stressful times. And I understand them because I do it too," said Turner.
House Democrats issued a press release condemning the move, stating Turner did not impede law enforcement from their duties.
After a private management company shuttered their hospital, Clinton residents approved an $11 million effort to re-open it.
Clinton is about 85 miles west of Oklahoma City. It created its public hospital in 1973 with local funding, according to reporting by nonprofit news outlet NonDoc. That fund has been locked and accruing interest and other revenue since, now totalling about $11 million. But voters have to sign off on any spending. They did just that in an election this week.
Management company AllianceHealth had been running the facility, but announced last year it was closing. And instead of transferring the hospital’s state and federal licenses back to the local government, which had been the precedent, AllianceHealth canceled them. The city wants to re-open the hospital, and it will have to spend millions in maintenance to meet standards for new licenses.
Local officials told NonDoc they weren’t sure how long improvements would take or how much they would cost.
A train derailed in Verdigris, just northeast of Tulsa Tuesday night. That the minor derailment didn’t result in any injuries or harmful spills.
[Train derailment sounds from Jake Powell’s video.]
This is sound from a video Verdigris resident Jake Powell took of the train derailment.
The video shows a tanker car separating from the car in front of it. The car’s wheels appear to catch as the train reaches a street crossing. The tanker car runs off the tracks and comes to a stop
Powell says he started recording because he could tell something was off.
"The cars started bouncing and you could hear it and it was sparking," said Powell.
BNSF, which operates the railroad, says the derailed cars were empty and no hazardous materials were involved. The company reopened the crossing later Tuesday night and says it’s investigating what caused the incident.
The State Senate passes a bill making it harder to get initiative petitions on the ballot.
Senate Bill 518 increases the cost for publication and protest period as well as adding date of birth to what registered voters need to fill out on the petition.
The bill’s author, Bartlesville Republican Senator Julie Daniels, says it makes sure the process is reliable and secure, but critics call it an attack on citizen-led legislation.
The measure passed the GOP-majority Senate, 38 to eight, and now heads to the House for consideration.
Legislation to protect children who are victims of sexual abuse from lengthy prison sentences is advancing through the state legislature.
Republican Representative Kevin West’s House Bill 2210 was voted through the House unanimously on Tuesday and was heard in the Senate for the first time on Wednesday.
The bill would give courts the option to depart from mandatory minimum sentencing if a minor is convicted as an adult for committing a crime against a person who trafficked, sexually abused or assaulted them within one year of the crime.
The court could also transfer the minor to the juvenile division for further proceedings.
The bill also says children who are victims of sexual assault are four times more likely to become addicted to drugs or experience PTSD than children who are not.
This Sunday, March 12, people across the country will lose an hour of sleep due to Daylight Saving Time.
Daylight savings time is upon us - but it may not be for long
There’s renewed support in Congress for the Sunshine Protection Act, which was reintroduced by Marco Rubio of Florida in the Senate. Last session, the The Senate passed the measure unanimously, but it wasn’t voted on in the House.
Here’s Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Lankford, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, in a video he posted on Twitter.
"It has been an issue that I’ve heard over and over again from moms of young kids at how much they hate all the time change stuff because it’s so hard on their kids…We need to actually lock the clock and be able to keep us at one time period on it," said Lankford.
With bipartisan support and several states who have already adopted their own statewide version of this sort of measure - it remains to be seen if the bill passes during this session.
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