By Emma Murphy, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s Democratic lawmakers said they don’t know what legislation will be brought up Thursday or what to expect on what could be the final day of the legislative session.
While lawmakers passed a resolution last week agreeing to sine die by 5 p.m. Thursday, neither the House nor the Senate has yet to post an agenda specifying what legislation they plan to take up.
House and Senate Republican leaders have been at odds since last week when the upper chamber adjourned early on a deadline week without taking up a number of House bills, effectively killing the legislation.
Leaders of the two chambers have publicly jabbed at each about their counterparts’ decision making and leadership amid the growing dysfunction.
The state House’s floor agenda Wednesday noted the chamber would convene at 1:30, but other than the daily prayer, the list of daily activities contained only the word “Waiting…” in large bold underlined font, though it didn’t specify what they were waiting for.
Neither chamber has taken up any legislation since last week, and House leadership has floated the idea of a special session if business isn’t wrapped up by Thursday.
Democrats criticized the inaction and dysfunction between the two chambers.
Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, said minority lawmakers have yet to see an agenda or list of bills that could be brought up Thursday.
Kirt said she expects to work on veto overrides, conference committee reports on final bill language and movement on a Medicaid state question proposal, but the specifics of what legislation will come up are still unclear.
“Since it’s all happening one day, it’ll probably be pretty hectic,” she said.
House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said despite Oklahomans facing real, everyday affordability issues, Republicans have not kept the focus on what the people need and the Legislature has failed to come up with state solutions.
“I think bringing us back into special session, costing taxpayers more dollars, to hash out some things that are probably more controversial than actually solving problems for everyday people is probably not worth our time or our money,” she said. “We have plenty of time to get things done now. And it’s too bad that instead of sitting down and negotiating what that looks like, there’s emails and social media posts being sent out when they could be sitting in a room together and figuring out which bills are going to be heard in both chambers.”
