Friday, May 5th 2023, 6:10 pm
Negotiations continue, and with some education plans in the works, Governor Stitt is renewing his push for tax reform.
“I've been really, really clear that we have to get tax cuts done and we have to get school choice done,” said Governor Stitt.
A tax credit bill is one step away from Stitt's desk, but there hasn’t been much agreement on public school funding plans or a teacher pay raise.
“We're still back at the table kind of discussing those things,” said Stitt.
The Senate hasn’t voted on the governor’s education plan, or the House’s original plan as it was sent over. The House has been calling on the Senate to take a vote on either plan, but Senate leadership continues to say the bills would not get enough votes to pass through their chamber.
The House last week voted to pass tax credit legislation for private and homeschool students, but they also suspended a rule before the vote, that allows Speaker Charles McCall to hold the bill instead of sending it straight to the governor.
McCall says they plan to hold the bill in the House until the Senate makes a move on a public school funding bill that will benefit rural Oklahoma.
While education plans are up in the air, Stitt is shifting the conversation to tax reform.
“The House has passed several different tax cuts over to the Senate, the Senate has been very thoughtful on how they want to do it,” said Stitt. “We literally have $6.2 billion in savings, so we're in a really, really good spot, which is why we can do a quarter of a point, or half a point tax cut, or get rid of the grocery tax.”
Last week, Stitt put pressure on the Senate to pass tax and education reform, vetoing 20 Senate bills and vowing to continue until they passed the legislation he was asking for.
The Senate moved that day on passing a tax credit bill, but the 20 bills that were vetoed still haven’t been picked back up.
“He (Governor Stitt) can right his wrong by asking the House and Senate to override his vetoes,” said Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat.
While Treat says he wants to see these vetoed bills come back, he says they don’t plan to move until they’re on the same page as their partners across the rotunda.
“The House has not shown any proclivity to take up those overrides yet. So, we're not going to waste our time until we see there's a real possibility to override,” said Treat.
Stitt says once tax and education reform are taken care of, he is open to working with legislators on veto overrides.
Stitt has vetoed dozens of bills in the last few weeks, including one that would require schools to allow their students to wear tribal regalia during graduation. The bill had very little pushback as it passed through the House and Senate, but Stitt says he isn’t interested in a law that would compromise local control.
“Very clear- my veto did not stop any student from wearing tribal regalia alright, it just leaves that up to the local district,” said Governor Stitt.
Another bill that wasn’t signed into law would have required sex offenders living on reservation land to register both with the local tribe and state. Stitt vetoed the bill saying it would cause “confusion” and “unnecessary disagreements.”
“What that bill said was we were going to require non-native to register in some kind of tribal jurisdiction; that's what we said we're not going to do, but there's no gaps in our registry system today,” said Stitt.
To override these vetoes the bills would have to pass with ⅔ majority votes in both the House and Senate.
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