As Oklahoma's legislature starts its final week of lawmaking, Gov. Kevin Stitt has already signed more than 100 measures into law and vetoed roughly 50.
This week will be packed with long committee meetings, final floor votes, Senate executive confirmations and potential veto overrides.
The state budget for Fiscal Year 2026 is $12.6 billion, as shown on the Senate and House public portals. That includes an income tax cut, with a path to an eventual zero percent rate, and enough money to keep a struggling state mental health department afloat until the next time lawmakers meet.
The proposed income tax cut, filed as House Bill 2764 by Republican fiscal chairs Rep. Trey Caldwell, R-Faxon, and Sen. Chuck Hall, R-Perry, was still awaiting Stitt's judgment as of Tuesday night. That means a slew of other budget-related measures, like final appropriations to the state education, health, commerce and other main departments, are also waiting for the top executive's signature.
As are hundreds of other measures sent to Stitt last week.
Key measures already signed into law include the party-line supported House Bill 1001, titled 'Lauria and Ashley's Law.' It effectively lengthens prison sentences for people charged with accessory to first or second-degree murder.
Other approved criminal justice measures include efforts to prohibit bail on appeal for people found guilty of child or intimate partner abuse, allow justices, elected officials and other 'designated employees' to carry concealed firearms and require evidence-based competency hearings before someone is executed by the state.
On the education front, Senate Bill 139 by Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, and Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, implements a 'bell-to-bell' cellphone ban in all Oklahoma classrooms for at least one year starting next fall.
A bill prohibiting discrimination in schools based on 'any identifying qualities' and specifying the parameters of what's considered 'antisemitism' to follow the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition, was also signed into law. So was a bill designating school resource officers and security guards as the determiners of sex crimes against students in Oklahoma's schools.
And while Stitt has signed a measure absolving him of the responsibility to approve proposed administrative rules for state agencies, he's still sitting on the resolution that would strike the mandated counting of immigrant children and parents enrolling in the state's public schools.
When it comes to vetoes, the governor had a party shortly after the first measures landed on his desk. Among the first two measures to die before soaking up the lifeblood of the Stitt's choice pen were those continuing the Oklahoma Funeral and Cosmetology and Barbering Boards.
In other words, Stitt ended the continued quality control surrounding burying dead Oklahomans and cutting the hair of living ones, all in the name of spurring more 'responsiveness to oversight' according to his veto message.
Stitt has also vetoed Senate Bill 128 by Senate Majority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, which aimed to extend the time period between when someone gets evicted and when they have to appear in court to defend themselves for being behind on payments.
A majority vote of the legislature can override vetoed bills. Leadership has hinted at some action, but it's still unclear which measures will become law despite being vetoed by the governor.
One vetoed bill with bipartisan support for an override is House Bill 1389 by Rep. Melissa Provenzano, D-Tulsa, aimed at ensuring that early breast cancer screenings are covered by health insurance companies in Oklahoma.
Last week, Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton said he, House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, and Stitt were planning to have a veto-related discussion to plan for what may come.
Any list of possible vetoes and veto overrides is still pending as of Tuesday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for the pro tem.
