State Rep. Glen "Bud" Smithson (D-Sallisaw) said Friday morning that Senate Bill 748, which has language in it about speed traps, passed the Senate floor Thursday night. The vote was 44 to 2.
Smithson reported Friday afternoon that the bill also passed the House, with a vote of 81 to 13. It was the second to last bill that was heard Friday, which was the House's last day in session.
Essentially the 40-page bill, which deals with a variety of other issues, gives power back to the Attorney General and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS) commissioner to allow the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to conduct special enforcement on state and federal highways.
In December and January, Moffett Police were ordered to cease enforcing traffic and ordinances along U.S. Highway 64 and State Highway 64D because the town received more than 50 percent of its revenue from traffic tickets. At that time, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) was designated as the authority for special traffic-related enforcement on those highways, all in accordance with state statute.
But on April 30, another bill, HB 1616, became law and amended those provisions of the statute, allowing Moffett Police and police in four other towns in the state back on highways, even after previously being banned for conducting alleged speed traps.
HB 1616 distressed Smithson, a retired OHP trooper, who said the change in the statute's wording was slipped into the bill by the bill's author, State Rep. Paul D. Roan (D-Tishomingo). Roan allegedly wanted to help towns in his district that were also ordered off highways.
As a result, Smithson immediately started working with other legislators to get Moffett Police back off the highways. He said SB 748 was the only bill in the House or Senate left alive that they could find to insert the speed trap language.
"I visited with a ton of senators and had them to reinsert this language," Smithson said. He said that he was on the floor until 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, trying to get the language back in.
The bill, which was authored by Randy Terrill (D-Moore), has an emergency clause on it that means it will go into effect as soon as the governor signs it.
Smithson said he has notified the DPS commissioner about the bill.
Moffett was ordered to stop traffic enforcement after the OHP's investigative division audited the town's revenue from speed enforcement after the department received a number of complaints about the town being a speed trap, officials said last year.
Officials explained that Moffett violated a law, enforced by DPS, that states that the revenue a town or city gets from traffic fines can't exceed more than 50 percent of the town's operating budget.
The audit of the town's 2003 and 2004 budgets revealed that 78 percent of Moffett's operating budget was from traffic tickets in 2003, and 84 percent of its operating budget came from traffic tickets in 2004.
