Election season is over, and now the lawmaking begins.
Despite a contentious presidential election that’s sure to have leftover rancor bleed into its administration, fresh state lawmakers who shared their legislative agendas with KOSU said they’re looking to solve issues faced by Oklahomans, not president-elect Donald Trump, and are ready to work across the aisle to do so.
Still, the partisan line in their stated priorities is stark.
Incoming Democrats and Republicans in both legislative chambers said they want what’s best for Oklahoma. The vision of what that looks like, and the road to get there, however, is where their paths fork.
Of the nearly two dozen new lawmakers KOSU called directly, five called back. They include senators Kendal Sacchieri, Brian Guthrie and Mark Mann in the Senate, and representatives Tim Turner and Ellen Pogemiller in the House.
A few others replied, saying their schedules were full until after the holidays.
Newly elected Sen. Brian Guthrie, R-Bixby, summarized the bipartisan state of play most plainly.
“If it's more of a partisan issue, it's going to be very hard for the Democrats to get anything across the finish line. That’s just the way it is,” Guthrie said. “But I'm not opposed to working with anybody.”
“I'm going there to represent my district, but I have to work with everybody to get legislation passed,” he said. “It doesn't matter what the letter is in front of their name, if it's a good bill and they've got a good idea, then let's work together.”
Priorities for new Senators
The new cast of Senators includes three Democrats and 11 Republicans, hailing mostly from Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the surrounding suburbs.
Guthrie said he ran on three principles: family, faith and freedom.
He said as a freshman, the path to filing legislation and carrying it all the way through to receiving a signature from Gov. Kevin Stitt is murky at best.
“I’m not going to run a lot of legislation,” Guthrie said. “You know, there's going to be 3,000 bills filed, so I'm going to have plenty of time to review those bills. I will run a few things, maybe real estate-related or transportation.”
He said there is a possibility he endorses legislation filed by more established lawmakers that advance the voice of his constituents, which he said is firmly conservative.
Sens. Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, and Mann, D-Oklahoma City, also shared their goals for the legislative session.
Sacchieri joins the Senate after serving as the McClain County Assessor – the person who calculates property taxes, their revenue production and property market value in any given county.
She says there are fairer ways to calculate property value than Oklahoma’s current system that would mean less volatile tax rates, and she plans to propose legislation to get the state up to speed.
Specifics are pending, but she said the potential impact on schools and local communities isn’t something that’s lost on her.
“You want to be careful when you talk about tax cuts,” Sacchieri said. “Because usually that means it creates a vacuum. And that's the last thing I want to see happen to my state. So you’ve got to do it responsibly in the beginning and start small.”
She said property values in Oklahoma are rising, which means the revenue the state collects from them to fund public schools is too.
Sacchieri also expressed an interest in cutting a few other taxes too, like the individual state income tax, which the Senate has already filed legislation to do.
“Gov. Stitt wants to see tax cuts,” Sacchieri said. “We're all on that same page. I think, as a Republican caucus, we're going to try to deliver something to the governor's desk.”
Mann now sits in the seat once occupied by former Democratic Sen. Kay Floyd, a longtime leader of her caucus in the Senate.
He said he thinks Democrats can get some traction in the Republican-dominated legislature if they focus on what he calls “building the middle class.”
“Which will include food, education, infrastructure and workforce development,” Mann said. “And of course the conversation of our natural resources.”
Mann hasn’t finalized any bills, he said, but by the time bill filing closes in January, he said he’s likely to have around a dozen measures ready to be considered by the relevant Senate committees.
He said there are some opportunities he’s identified for bipartisan action, especially when it comes to quality of life in Oklahoma.
“When we're talking about neighborhood revitalization, about workforce development, economic development, about infrastructure, those really aren't partisan and shouldn't be partisan issues,” Mann said.
“People really don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “They just want good roads and good infrastructure.”
Priorities for new House Representatives
Three new Democrats and 14 new Republicans were sworn into the House. Coming from all over the state, new House members’ goals for the next session vary as much as their hometowns.
Among them is Oklahoma City Democrat Ellen Pogemiller, representing House District 88. She says increasing voter access by making it more seamless for eligible Oklahomans to register is a top priority.
“One of the things that was very clear in this election was the incredibly low turnout,” Pogemiller said. “And I just feel very strongly that as a body, our goal should be to say that we've gotten enough votes from the majority of those that are registered.”
53% of eligible Oklahomans voted in the Nov. general election. And that, Pogemiller said, should not be enough for elected officials to “hang their hats on.”
Pogemiller said having an opt-out, rather than opt-in, voter registration system when eligible Oklahomans get their driver’s licenses is an idea she’s been bouncing around.
It might help with low turnout rates by reducing upfront hassle for eligible voters, she said, explaining the idea came to her from a conversation she had with a constituent while knocking on doors on the campaign trail.
“If we really want to engage more people in the voting process, is there a more easy and seamless way that we can allow voters to immediately become a part of the community through registering to vote through the driver's license?”
One other way to do that, Pogemiller said, is to make sure ballot initiatives are voted on promptly after being approved for the ballot, and shifting the responsibility of choosing the election date away from the governor.
“I think, right now, the governor carries too much power with the state questions,” she said. “I think the will of the people would show that state questions should automatically be voted on in the next statewide election.”
That would’ve meant the petition this year to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2029 would have appeared on the ballot in the general election earlier this month. Instead, it’s slated for the 2026.
Turner, a Republican from the small Eastern Oklahoma town of Kinta, said he’s also been thinking about his constituents and feeling thankful and driven by their vote.
That means his priorities include boosting Oklahoma’s appeal to tourists normally focused on traveling through the state and not to it.
“We need to make tourism better in the Southeast Oklahoma area,” Turner said. “We also need to make Oklahoma safer.”
Turner was appointed to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Commission by Stitt, serves as the Drug Task Force Director for his District Attorney’s Office, and formally served as Haskell County’s Sheriff. He said he’s served a total of 22 years in law enforcement in Oklahoma.
“I'm a supporter of criminal justice reform - but reform, not decriminalization,” he said.
His area thrives on tourism, he said, and in his mind tourism and public safety are connected.
Freshly minted as a representative of House District 15, Turner repeated a point all the contacted lawmakers made: neither one chamber, nor party, can govern alone.
“We got to work with the House and Senate. We got to work with the Democrats and Republicans. That's the only way that we make Oklahoma move forward,” Turner said. “Voices have to be heard, ideas have to be shared. The only way is by working together.”
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