As legislators return to work following spring break, the stage is set for budget talks to gain momentum.
TRANSCRIPT
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. The last several days at the Capitol have been slow because of spring break, and lawmakers met only a couple of days. Shawn, something that did happen was the Senate voted to approve a budget resolution proposing a $10.1 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins in July. Why is that significant?
Shawn Ashley: This is the first time we have watched one of the legislative chambers put together its position for the start of budget negotiations with the governor and the opposite chamber. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, who announced this process in December, said more than 30 public Senate Appropriations subcommittee and committee hearings were held to arrive at the recommendations that were in Senate Resolution 31, which passed the full Senate, 41 to 3. Now, these meetings went beyond the usual budget hearings. We saw, for example, the Commissioners of the Land Office reverse course and withdraw its request for additional funding and request a flat budget. And we saw executive directors such as the head of the Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics questioned, first at the subcommittee level and then by the full Senate Appropriations Committee, about multi-million-dollar funding proposals before those proposals were ultimately approved. It really was access the media, the public, and for that matter, a lot of senators had never had before.
Dick Pryor: So we now know what the Senate wants in the budget talks and Governor Stitt told us in his State of the State address what his priorities are. Where does the House stand on the next fiscal year's budget?
Shawn Ashley: That picture is not as clear. According to Treat, the House sent more than $3 billion of new tax credits and spending proposals to the Senate, and bills that were approved before the March 14th deadline for measures to be heard in their chamber of origin. The House also sent three new tax cut proposals, one for the corporate income tax and two for the individual income tax that do not reduce fiscal 2025 revenues but would start the state down the path of eliminating those taxes, something Treat and other Senate leaders have expressed opposition to but that Governor Stitt has expressed support for.
Dick Pryor: Speaker of the House Charles McCall says he's going to file a bill that he says will protect Oklahoma's border. He wants to address immigration, but do we know how?
Shawn Ashley: McCall cites Texas’s Senate Bill 4 as a potential model. That law allows police to question and arrest anyone they believe entered Texas through Mexico illegally and is currently without legal immigration status. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Texas could enforce that law, but a separate case working its way through the federal courts has the bill's implementation on hold.
Dick Pryor: The bill filing period ended in January, so how is it that the Speaker of the House can file a new bill now?
Shawn Ashley: The House speaker, as well as the Senate President Pro Tem, are permitted under House, Senate and joint rules to file new bills at any time. That's not done often, but it has happened in the past. McCall also could shuck a bill in committee, that is, remove all the language from a Senate bill in this case and replace it with his own new language. The House in recent years has shown a bit of an affinity for doing just that.
Dick Pryor: Yeah, and that's another way that those particular positions are especially powerful.
Shawn Ashley: That's right.
Dick Pryor: The State Board of Education meets on Thursday. We usually don't see agendas until the day before meetings, but at the last meeting the board voted to hold a hearing to decide whether to revoke the teaching certificate for a former Norman teacher who's received national attention.
Shawn Ashley: Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters accuses Summer Boismier of attempting to indoctrinate students in August of 2022 after she made available a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library, which gives high school students electronic access to books, including so-called banned books. An assistant attorney general ruled in June that the State Department of Education failed to prove she had violated any state law. It will be up to the board, which is yet to vote against anything proposed by Walters, to decide whether she gets to retain her teaching certificate.
Dick Pryor: Thank you. Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org. And look for Capitol Insider where you get podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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