Legislative session mixed bag for Oklahoma governor who ‘got everything he wanted’ until very end

OKLAHOMA CITY – The legislative session, which ended Friday, was a mixed bag for Gov. Kevin Stitt.

He got his income tax cut, business courts and ban on cellphones in schools, prompting him to say Wednesday it was probably the best session in his seven years in office.

“Look. The governor should be very happy,” House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said early Friday. “He got everything he wanted this session.”

But then came Thursday, effectively the final day of the legislative session.

Lawmakers removed his embattled mental health commissioner and spent hours overriding dozens of his vetoes, including House Bill 1389, which expands insurance coverage for diagnostic mammograms.

Stitt panned both the veto overrides and Friesen’s firing.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters didn’t fare well, watching lawmakers and Stitt halt his efforts to require citizenship status checks for students and the completion of the  naturalization test for teachers. They also balked at his $3 million request to purchase Bibles for public school classrooms.

But lawmakers stopped short of putting the kibosh on his controversial social studies standards, dictating what must be taught in school, and which have already drawn a court challenge.

The standards include language requiring students be taught about unfounded 2020 election “discrepancies,” the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and Bible stories.

Democrats said they were largely left out of the budget process.

While Stitt championed it, Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, said the .25% income tax reduction was the worst bill of the session. It cuts the top bracket from 4.75% to 4.5% and contains a pathway toward eliminating the tax entirely.

“It is going to undermine our options as a state,” Kirt said.

Stitt let the general appropriations bill, outlining the state’s nearly $12.6 billion budget, take effect without his signature.

The budget gives most agencies a flat budget, but provides $250 million for the Oklahoma State University veterinary school and $200 million for a University of Oklahoma pediatric heart hospital.

Perhaps one of the most controversial measures passed and signed into law was a bill putting more restrictions on the process voters use to get things on the ballot.

Senate Bill 1027, which among other things implements restrictions on the number of people who can sign initiative petitions, is expected to draw a legal challenge.

Sports betting failed to get across the finish line for yet another year.

A bill that would have barred synthetic dyes and over a dozen other ingredients from food got left on the cutting room floor, as did a measure requiring a Ten Commandments display at the Capitol.

A bill that would add items to Oklahoma’s back-to-school sales tax holiday didn’t muster the support needed for passage nor did a measure that would have made Nov. 5 President Donald J. Trump Day in Oklahoma.

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