On Thursday Governor Stitt invoked the Catastrophic Health Emergency Powers Act (CHEPA), which is a set of emergency powers that was passed after 9/11 to enable the state to respond more quickly to a nuclear or biological attack. 

Needless to say, this has never been used before. 

What we know this means: 

• Well, the Legislature will go back to the Capitol next week for a special session to ratify the Governor’s declaration, and we’ll talk more about the legislative action aspect of this later on in the show.
• More directly, CHEPA gives the Governor VERY broad powers, some might argue that he is now the most powerful Governor in state history. 

But there's a lot more to it than that. Friend of the pod, Brian Ted Jones, is a Oklahoma attorney who has been doing some research into this. Listeners might remember Brian as a  former guest during our criminal justice series last year, and we wanted to have him come back on to share what he’s learned about CHEPA thus far. 

Back to what the legislature is doing next:

• Special session
• And also maybe regular session?
• Budget scenarios: Rep. Wallace says no budget cuts
• But also, a revenue failure has already been declared!