Last month, Oklahoma State Senator Julia Kirt’s Senate Bill 128 was heard on the Senate Floor.
Currently, Oklahoma law requires a minimum of five days between an eviction trial notice being given to a tenant and the court date. This bill would increase the minimum to 10 days — which is the current maximum — and increase the maximum to 15 days. SB128 passed on the Senate Floor with a vote of 26 to 19. Kirt said extending the timeline could help both tenants and landlords.
“If someone gets noticed five days ahead that they're being evicted, three days ahead of what their actual date is, they can't get legal assistance,” Kirt said.
“What folks have found nationwide is if you give people a few more days to catch up, you are more likely to keep them in the property and they're more likely to pay you the back rent. And that's less time that landlord goes without having someone in that property,” she said.
This isn’t the first time Senator Kirt has attempted to extend the eviction timeline. A bill she filed last legislative session, Senate Bill 1575, proposed extending the timeline to a maximum of 20 days between an eviction trial notice and a court date — twice the current maximum. Kirt said that bill was met with some concern.
"Primarily, people are concerned about property rights and making sure that owners have the right to take their property back," Kirt said.
"Last year, I filed the bill with a longer additional timeline and I really compromised it down. That meant that the apartment association that had opposed the bill went neutral on it, because they felt like it was not going to change the eviction practices of most landlords,” Kirt said.
Senator Kirt is a Democrat, and all 19 of the senators who voted against SB 128 were Republican. Despite this, there has been some bipartisan effort to extend the eviction timeline.
Republican Representative Daniel Pae is the House author for SB 128, and was the House author for SB 1575 as well.
“I'm really glad to have Representative Pae as the House author. He's a Republican, he is in committee leadership. He also represents a community that has a very high eviction rate — Lawton,” Kirt said.
Kirt and Pae represent two of the counties that have some of the highest eviction filing rates in the state—Oklahoma County and Comanche County, respectively.
From March 2024 to February 2025, Oklahoma County had a higher eviction filing rate than any other county in the state at about 13.7%, according to data from the Legal Services Corporation. That means almost 14 out of every 100 renter households in the county were served with an eviction notice within that time frame.
Oklahoma County had 1,200 eviction filings in the month of February alone.
While Comanche County only had 104 filings in February, a seemingly small number considering the number of filings in Oklahoma County, U.S. Census data shows their population at around 121,400 is only about an eighth of Oklahoma County’s 816,490.
Because of this, Comanche County has the fourth highest eviction filing rate in Oklahoma at 10.8%. Tulsa County (12.2%) and Cleveland County (11.4%) hold the second and third spots for highest filing rate.
Representative Pae said the bill has garnered bipartisan support because some Republican lawmakers like himself see housing not just as a social issue, but as an economic issue.
“This issue of housing has broad implications for our overall economy. Anytime there's a prospective employer who's wanting to come to the state of Oklahoma, they ask about the quality of our schools, of our access to health care, and the affordability of our houses,” Pae said.
In terms of housing affordability in Comanche County, where Pae’s constituents live, about 42.6% of renters are considered rent burdened residents—meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.
17.7% of Comanche County residents are also living in poverty, which is above the national poverty rate of 11.1% measured in 2023. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the poverty line as “the minimum level of resources that are adequate to meet basic needs,” which includes food, clothing, shelter, utilities and telecommunications. Those who cannot afford these basic needs are said to be living in poverty.
In Kirt’s district, Oklahoma County has a higher percentage of rent burdened residents than Comanche County at 48.6%, but a slightly lower poverty rate at 15.7%.
Megan Staughn, a tenant organizer in Norman, said while the extension would be a marked improvement, it would only scratch the surface of what tenants facing eviction need.
“Moving the eviction notice from five to 10 days, that's double. That's wonderful. And 10 days is not very long. If you have multiple kids and a job, getting to court is a huge problem. So, I'm ecstatic to get that number of days moved up and we need so much more,” Straughn said.
Beyond extending the eviction timeline, Straughn said one of the best ways Oklahoma lawmakers could help tenants is to protect them from retaliation.
“In Oklahoma, it is legal for a landlord to retaliate against a tenant for voicing their concerns about housing. Any sort of organizing action you take, you have to assess the risks that might occur to tenants. And that risk is homelessness,” she said.
While trying to balance supporting tenants and respecting landlords’ property rights, Senator Kirt said the impact eviction can have on a person — and oftentimes, a whole family — can last a lifetime.
“Eviction is not only because people might be living in poverty, but it also can cause poverty because trying to recover from an eviction is very hard and people miss work,” Kirt said. “So I think we see ripple effects of that, and it's not just a one-time court appearance. We're talking about something that has ongoing economic challenges.”
SB 128 has already passed through two House committees. To have a chance at reaching Governor Kevin Stitt’s desk, it must pass on the House floor by May 8.
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