The Legislature adjourned its regular session sine die on Friday, May 27, as we are constitutionally required to do. We are, however, still convened in special session.
We called this session so we could maintain oversight of the spending of the state’s $1.8 billion portion of American Rescue Act Plan (ARPA) funds. The Joint Committee on Pandemic Relief Funding will continue to meet over the interim, and when they have firm recommendations in place, we will come back into special session to act on any legislation to expend these funds.
The governor on Thursday announced that he was letting much of the budget become law without his signature. He did veto several measures that are part of the overall budget package. Several of these measures would have granted Oklahomans some tax relief.
Instead of granting those measures, the governor is calling the Legislature back into an additional special session June 13 for the purpose of eliminating the state sales tax on groceries and reducing the personal income tax for all Oklahomans. These are both great ideas, but getting 100 House members and 48 Senators to agree on both did not happen in regular session, so I’m not sure what will happen in special session.
The Legislature is the body closest to the people, and therefore the Oklahomans that wrote our state Constitution determined this should be the body to pass the budget each legislative session. The state’s executive is a part of the process. We receive his budget requests at the beginning of session each year, and we take that into consideration along with requests from all other state agencies. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires the governor to be part of the negotiations. His role is to either sign the budget into law or to veto it, or as happened this year, he can let the budget become law without his signature or line-item veto certain items.
As always, thank You for allowing me to serve you. It is a true pleasure. If there is ever anything I can do for you, I can be reached at (405) 557-7381 or by email at jim.grego@okhouse.gov.
Jim Grego serves District 17 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. His district includes Latimer County and parts of LeFlore and Pittsburg counties.
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