INTERIM STUDY: Senate announces topics for interim studies

Dozens of summer studies set up at the state Capitol.The Senate leader approved more than 70, which will help lawmakers figure out what to focus on next year. They range from the controversial to the mundane. The legislature is in session for a little less than one-third of the year. But during this time of the year – called the interim – is when they have more informal meetings that often turn into bills in the spring. The meetings are called interim studies. Lawmakers file their requests and leadership says yes or no.Senate leader Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said today that he had approved all 71 final requests.Issues legislators will look into a range from marijuana to education to criminal justice to COVID-19. In one case, the Senate’s top Democrat wants to look at budget transparency after criticizing the budget bill process this year.“This is not an exaggeration. Sometimes these bills are still warm because they just came off the printers. So we are sitting there with 24, 36 bills that we may or may not have seen a few hours before,” said Sen. Kay Floyd, D-Oklahoma City. Another study, from Sen. Casey Murdock, R-Felt, and the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, will look at how the Department of Corrections decides which prisons to close – a timely issue after Murdock grilled DOC officials this week over the closure of the prison in Fort Supply. “I don’t see this as an opportunity,” he said. “I see this as a death sentence to a community.”You are displacing families,” he said. “Not just the workers, but the ripple effect in the economy up there is going to be dramatic.”Other studies include whether to end daylight savings time, police use of force, the effect of COVID-19 on education and health disparities in Black communities. The studies will be done by November. The House is expected to announce soon which studies it will hear.

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