Podcast Ep. 69 | Why "Women's Issues" Matter (with Liz Charles and Bo Broadwater)

Episode Summary

The first month of the 57th legislature has been dominated by guns and abortion, and this week has been no exception. We're joined by the Liz Charles of the Oklahoma Women's Coalition and Bo Broadwater of The Journal Record to discuss permitless carry, "trigger laws," and what issues OWC is following most closely. Along the way we also discuss zoos, horoscopes, and a *very* awkward phrase that was used by a lawmaker this week.

Articles Discussed

• Epic Charter Schools under investigation by state, federal law enforcement (Tulsa World)

• Speaker McCall, others favor county option for taxing aggregates (NonDoc)

• House, Senate committees advance several oil and gas related measures Tuesday (NewsOK)

• Bill proposed to keep politics out of Oklahoma classrooms (KJRH-Tulsa)

Take-Aways From This Episode

• This Thursday (2/28) is the deadline for when bills must be heard in committee in their chamber of origin. Basically, any bills that don’t pass out of committee this week are essentially dead this session.

  • I use the word “essentially” there because, of course, there are always “zombie bills” that pop back up later in session. We didn’t really talk about them during this episode, but it bears mentioning that as as the session progresses, leadership can insert language into some of those shell bills, and that language can pretty much be anything. We don’t anticipate much of those shenanigans this session, but you never know.

  • The next step in the lifecycle of a bill is to pass the floor in the committee of origin. The deadline for that is in two weeks - March 14th.

• Governor Stitt officially signed his first bill into law this week. It was HB2597, aka ““Permitless Carry” or Constitutional Carry,” which will allow pretty much anyone age 21 and older to carry a firearm openly or concealed and to do so without a permit or any type of firearm training. (Some people are still excluded, namely people who have been convicted of a felony and people with documented, serious mental health issues.) The bill has been very controversial, and was opposed by many groups, including law enforcement, Moms Demand Action, and others.

  • It used to be that if you saw someone carrying a gun who wasn’t in a law enforcement uniform, you could probably safely assume they were up to something no good. This bill changes that in a big way. Now if pretty much anyone can carry a gun around in public.

• Another big, controversial bill was passed out of a Senate committee this week. SB 195 is a “trigger bill,” meaning that if the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, then SB 195 would be “triggered” into action and immediately roll back Oklahoma abortion laws to where they were before 1973 (which is when the Roe vs. Wade decision was made).