It’s the most wonderful time of year: crazy bill filing season! As another legislative session approaches, many of Oklahoma’s nuttiest lawmakers will start filing bills with no chance of passage in the hopes of drumming up headlines, which many news outlets will happily oblige.
These crazy bills give some lawmakers a chance to go back to their home districts and claim to Republican primary voters that they tried to stop gay kissing within 1,000 miles of a school or they worked to make MAGA hats part of the state trooper uniform.
Some of these bills are especially maddening because the state has real problems to address. If Oklahoma’s experiment in culture war-driven politics has taught us anything, it’s that trying to force school prayer or stop transgender health access doesn’t do much for poverty, literacy or public safety, which Gov. Top Ten has still failed to realize.
This article appears in New Year’s Eve Guide.