Stay in the Know @ the Oklahoma Legislative Session right now!
Sneak peek first but I’ll explain more below on how you can stay in the know about what is going on with this Oklahoma legislative session at the Capitol!
- Keep up with Senate and House committee meeting notices
- Check on the legislative bill information
- Set up alerts through LENS and wait for the updates
I love this time of year! The Oklahoma legislative session starts at the beginning of February and runs through May. I’m a self-proclaimed legislative session junkie. I actually call the Capitol live proceedings my “shows,” and I would rather watch the Legislature than any streaming show. It’s not uncommon for me to talk to the screen – or text my legislator friends with my unsolicited comments and questions.
If you’re not like me making time to watch legislators explain and ask questions about legislative bills, then allow me to give you a short list of 3 ways you can stay up to date on what is going on at the Capitol:
#1 Keep up with Senate and House committee meeting notices
With hundreds of ideas and legislative bills floating around, you can whittle down your focus by following the meeting notices. You can concentrate on what is happening right now and which bills are actually being discussed and considered.
Think of the legislative process as an escape room. The goal is to make it out with your team on time before the experience ends. A legislative bill has to make it through the process with teamwork and collaboration and within the timelines. If you’re wondering why collaboration is important, the answer is that the passage of a bill requires buy-in from others and must be discussed and questioned by all sides. There are deadlines set to keep things progressing, and if a bill doesn’t get heard and voted upon and passed through those deadlines, then it doesn’t get to level up.
So where are we in the process right now?
We are in the policy committee deadline phase now. All proposed bills must be heard and passed out of its assigned committee(s) by March6, 2025. Then the bills must be heard and passed on the floor of its house of origin (which is either the Senate for senate bills or the House for house bills) by March 27.
It’s important to know that the entire state Capitol pretty much shuts down for Spring Break, which is determined by state law (70 O.S. section 24-151) to be in coordination across school systems (including public school districts and colleges). It’s typically the third full week in March.
Back to the committee meetings… Bills that are heard and passed in in committee are eligible to be heard on the floor. Bills that are not heard in committee or do not pass are not eligible to be heard on the floor.
So let’s focus on what the committees are hearing and the bills that are passing out of committee. Everything else is chatter you can ignore – sorta’. More on that later…
How to find House Committee meeting notices
I’ll give you a shortcut, start here. You’ll notice the listing defaults to “Day Only.” I recommend you click “Week Only.” That will show you all of the meeting notices for the week. When you click on the link for each notice, you’ll see the agenda. Within the agenda, you can click on specific bills to see bill information, including the history, any bill summaries, committee substitutes, versions of the bills, votes, etc. (More on this down below)
How to find Senate Committee meeting notices
Here is your shortcut to Senate committee meeting notices. This listing will automatically show you all meeting notices that have been called. Sometimes the full agenda is included and sometimes it’s notyet all there. Check back often. But you can always expect the agenda to be complete the day before – not to say there won’t be some revisions to bills leading up to the committee meeting.
Bonus nerd points! Sign up for the committee notices so they come to your email inbox – like I do.
#2 Check on the legislative bill information
I mentioned earlier to check out the legislative bill information. Let’s say a particular bill has caught your attention. You can find out a lot about it and even where the idea originated.
There is a non-education bill that caught my eye – SB447. This bill proposes a new law to allow any person to forage for nuts and edible plants on state property for personal use. I can’t even imagine what sparked this one, but I hope it’s heard in committee because I really want the background story…
So once you have found your legislative bill of interest, do some digging. Start here and put that bill number into the search box. For this one, I’d put in SB447 and hit enter.
You’ll see several tabs which do the following:
Votes – Committee and floor actions and votes.
History – Legislative actions like committee assignments, readings, votes, etc. Journal Page, so you can see the page number for that day’s journal.
Amendments – Amendments at each stage of the process, if any.
Bill Summaries – Bill Summaries and Fiscal impact reports.
Versions – Subsequent versions of the bill language and committee reports.Authors/Co Authors – self-explanatory
Happy researching!
#3 Set up alerts through LENS and wait for the updates
If you are really obsessed with a particular bill, make it official by clicking on “Receive Email Updates for this Measure (LENS)” and sign up for updates! You do have to register for a free account. You can choose which updates you want. Be a rebel and select them all and see what happens!
You’ll get an email when your bill is scheduled to be heard, when language is changed, when it is up for a vote, etc.
So if you were wondering what I’ve been up to, this is it! I’ve been following the committee agendas, reviewing language to see how it may impact students and schools, and signing up for notices on my favorite committees and bills. And I watch all of the debates and discussions. I’ll explain more about how you can do that next time!
