What Is Legislation in Oklahoma?

So in this regard, approximately two weeks ago, the 59th First … well, the 59th session of the Oklahoma legislature was convened. Now, like the federal government, Oklahoma has what is known as a bicameral system or two-chamber system. We have a House of Representatives, which is the largest. And then we have a Senate. So too does the United States government, but we’re a little bit different. Right now, the Senate and the United States government are controlled by the Democratic Party. The presidency is controlled by the Democratic Party, and also the House Republicans have taken over a slim majority of the House of Representatives.

The way things work here legislatively, in the last two weeks, approximately 3,000 bills have been proposed. A bill is a suggestion for the creation, change, or withdrawal of a law. There are quite a few that are going to have significant impacts on many of our clients, potential clients, and the community in general. There seem to be four clear patterns that are emerging in terms of legislation we’re seeing.

One is transgender. That bill is going to be so heavily watched nationwide it’s unreal, and we’re going to do a different cast on that later on in more detail. The other one is guns. That’s always very popular in Oklahoma and always has been, and always will be. The next one is parental rights. There are several bills in both the House and the Senate that are designed to give parents control back over their children’s lives and veto educators who believe that they’re in control.

Now, I’m not going to state my personal opinion or the firm’s personal opinion on any of these bills. We want to keep you advised on what’s happening. So right now, the bills are being drafted. There are no new bills that are not listed on the registry that can be added. What happens is, in that instance, many times they create what’s called a shell bill. A shell bill is a bill where you go through the list of all the bills that have been suggested, and some of them may have just a title. It doesn’t have the mechanism or the bones in it yet, but you had to have it by this weekend or the opportunity or deadline had passed.

So transgender is a biggie. Parental right is a biggie. Guns are a biggie. We’re also seeing one other emerging pattern with numerous bills. These are bills that are designed basically to assure that we are governed by the United States Constitution as a sovereign state and that any attempt by any federal agency or anyone to enact or perform acts that are not lawful under the United States Constitution, that are prohibited and they are now and void. In other words, they have no effect.

Why is this something that’s important? Because in many ways it’s a shot across the battle of the US government. It’s basically a beginning of a pattern to say if there are laws on the books that you’re supposed to be enforcing and you’re not, you’re trying to tell us we have to do this, this, and this, contrary to what the law says, we’re not going to do it. So from this point on about once a week, we’re going to be following these bills, because the session ends in May if it goes as expected.

So these bills are going to be moving at warp speed. So we want to keep you on top of it. We’re staying on top of it for you, and we’re going to keep bringing you the information. Plus we’ll do our traditional broadcasts, where we’re talking about specific types of laws that affect family law, children’s law, criminal law, real estate law, probate and estates, and what I do, personal injury. With that, remember, Wirth Law Firm, we make the law easy and we make it fresh because we watch it as it’s built and we contribute. Give us a call at TulsaPersonalInjuryLawyer.com or at 918-932-2800. This is Tulsa legislation lawyer Mike Ashworth. Thank you.