The Oklahoma State Capitol is shown in Oklahoma City. Whitney Bryen / Oklahoma Watch
The Oklahoma Legislature took action on a multitude of measures recently, from the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The following is a brief list of some of that legislation:
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House Bill 1246 was signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt last week after it was passed out of the House and the Senate. The bill will allow Oklahomans to obtain prescriptions using Social Security numbers if they have a state-issued ID card that has been expired for no more than one year and if they possess no other form of ID.
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Last week, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals delivered two monumental rulings affirming the tribal sovereignty of the Chickasaw Nation and the Cherokee Nation. The cases are now part of five Oklahoma tribes effort to regain their reservations following a historic win in the U.S. Supreme Court.
In each case, the defendants challenged the state s ability to prosecute them based on the location of the crime and the fact that both involved citizens of tribal nations in Oklahoma. In siding with the defendants, the court found that the reservations for both the Chickasaw Nation and the Cherokee Nation were never disestablished.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider, your weekly look inside Oklahoma politics, policy and government. I m Dick Pryor with eCapitol news director, Shawn Ashley. It s been an eventful last week at the legislature, and we ll get to that in a minute, but first - coronavirus. On Thursday, Governor Stitt followed Texas, Mississippi and some other states in ending coronavirus limitations in the state. Shawn, what exactly did the governor do?
Shawn Ashley: Well, the governor is terminating the provisions of his COVID-19 State of Emergency Executive Order that really are public facing - that affect the public. Those would include the mask mandate in state government buildings for both staff and visitors and also eliminating the limitation on the size of social and public gatherings in attendance limits that youth, sporting events and extracurricular activities.
Credit Oklahoma House of Representatives
The Oklahoma House passed bills on Thursday that would reduce what Oklahoma residents and corporations pay in income taxes starting in 2022.
House Bill 2041 uses a combination of credits to offer the equivalent of a 0.25% rate cut for all individuals. That would mean nearly $178 million going back to taxpayers, an amount House Appropriations Chair Kevin Wallace (R-Wellston) is banking on to give the state economy a boost through additional spending.
A sizeable chunk is going to the state’s highest earners. An analysis found households making $1 million or more would get $1,028 back, a larger amount of money than lower-earning households but a smaller percentage reduction of their tax burden than most. Those earning between $10,000 and $12,000 would get $45, a 389% reduction of their tax burden.