Weekly wrap-up for legislative session Feb 26-Mar 2, 2018.

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/podcast/

Special Session is Over! but another one is on the way. Both chambers adjourned Sine Die only for the governor to line-item veto their new budget and tell them shes calling for round two. In this podcast we give an overview of the Governor's veto, the bill itself and legislator reactions. We also introduce you to our newest team member.

Stay tuned to the JRLR podcast for more episodes as we learn all about the second special session of the 56th legislature.

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/?p=174936&preview=true

We've had two members announce resignations and not much else. We read you the big headlines for the last few weeks and try to give you a picture of what the legislature has or more accurately has not accomplished in that time,

We will keep following their "Progress" and report back when there is more to report.

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/?p=174807&preview=true

Here we've given a day by day breakdown on what has, or more often, hasn't happened during the first week of Special Session:

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/?p=174529&preview=true

Just one chamber has their Interim Study list posted and approved, at the moment none of these meetings are scheduled. With looming court cases and expected special session around the corner, there's every chance that the already very politicized interim studies will be even less of a focus.

So... we are doing our own.

interim-studies-logo

In our summer podcast series, we will be conducting expert and industry interviews on a variety of topics that we are calling our own JRLR Interim Studies.We've chosen questions and topics that arose over the course of the session and from attending various agency meetings, with a focus on things that might not get talked about at the capitol. We may also be touching on the proposed topics which for whatever reason were not approved. This week we've begun with education, yes there were 19 interim studies on education filed and the majority of them were approved. However, none of them tackled textbook prices and not-surprisingly none of them are poised to tackle the political issues facing our state's education. Being a third party we can ask the questions the legislature isn't always capable of asking about these issues.

We have official House interim studies looking at:

Restraint Standards for Common Education Employees HIS17117

Administrative Inefficiencies HIS17005

Improving Special Education HIS17009

Education program evaluation/costs HIS17035

Higher Education – Concurrent Enrollment HIS17063

All of which are important and will be attended and reported on by Journal Record and JRLR staff, but also all have political bents and highly focused topics that don't answer all of the burning questions we have concerning Oklahoma Education. So this week we talked to Educators, Administrators, School Board Members, Textbook Committee Chairs, and Policy Directors to find out what our current situation is and what the legislature can do about it.

This first one got long so we split it in half, enjoy part 1 of our Education Interim Study.

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/?p=173661&preview=true

The JRLR Team and Catherine Sweeney chat about the legislative session. What stood out? What's been forgotten? Where do we go from here?

We changed up format for this one podcast to do a look back at session now that we are a month out.

Oklahoma has one of the lowest rates of Female representation in the legislature and politics in general. We sat down with several leaders in the political sphere and talked about why that is and what we can do to fix it!

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/2017/05/12/173165/

Downing is the co-author of HB1482 along with Rep. Biggs. Hb1482 reinstates drug free zones for schools in the wake of SQ780’s passage. State Question 780 changed certain non-violent drug- and theft-related crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, which come with a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of $1,000, thereby reducing the number and duration of state prison sentences for those crimes. Previously, possession of illegal drugs was a felony according to state law. State Question 780 made drug possession a misdemeanor. A consequence of the passage of SQ780 was the removal of drug free zones around schools and parks. HB1482 attempts to undo that aforementioned removal.

http://jrlr.net/23rd-and-Lincoln/?p=172585&preview=true