Oklahoma Gazette talked with House Minority Leader Emily Virgin to get her response to the governor’s State of the State address.
The governor's FY 2021 executive budget is attached below. Gov. Kevin Stitt kicked off the 2020 legislative session last week by delivering his second State of the State address, discussing education, health care, the disagreement with tribes on casino gambling and criminal justice reform.
More than 20 organizations are working on a statewide initiative to increase Oklahoma’s animal shelter save rate significantly over the next five years.
Common Bonds is made up of about 25 organizations with the shared goal of increasing the state’s animal save rate to 90 percent.
Following major moves to reduce the state’s prison population, Oklahomans continue pushing to further reform the state’s criminal justice system.
Oklahomans continue pushing for legislation to lower the state’s prison population and prevent people from entering into the criminal system in the first place.
Signatures are being collected for a ballot initiative that would prohibit sentence enhancements in nonviolent cases.
Criminal justice reform advocates want to amend the Oklahoma Constitution to prohibit sentence enhancements based on previous felonies for nonviolent offenders.
Mosaic United Methodist Church intends to resist punitive rules that target LGBTQ+ individuals.
A local Methodist church is calling 2020 a period of “holy resistance.” New rules that punish clergy for consecrating, ordaining or marrying “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” were adopted in early 2019 and go into effect at the start of the new year.
Attorneys and advocates continue fighting for reproductive rights.
Proposed legislation in 2012 that would have granted a fertilized egg the same rights as a person mobilized Danielle Williams to join the fight for reproductive justice.
A local animal rights activist advocates for better treatment of primates and other wild animals.
Bob Ingersoll has rescued primates from bad conditions and looming executions to place them in sanctuaries, but his dream is for those very sanctuaries to go out of business.
After one of its best years, Freedom Oklahoma readies to ramp up its advocacy for the state’s LGBTQ+ community.
Freedom Oklahoma aims to build off a successful year for Oklahoma’s LGBTQ+ community by focusing more on diverse sects of the community and advocating for more issues.
