OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE / From the desk of Sen. Jessica Garvin
Last week, I was in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, for the annual Council of State Governments (CSG) Southern Legislative Conference (SLC), which includes 15 member states that come together to study and discuss the issues of greatest importance to our region of the country.
For the past two years, I’ve served on the CSG Southern Office’s Human Services and Public Safety Committee – I continue to hold a seat on that committee, and I’ve also been appointed to the Government Operations Committee.
At SLC this year, we looked at the usage of infrastructure banks to cover future projects; the challenges faced by nonpartisan staff in a partisan world; juvenile justice and child welfare reforms; creating successful telehealth infrastructure; and efforts to impose restrictions on interest rates and fees charged by credit products to protect from predatory lending.
Other topics included state and federal policies for electric vehicles; successful strategies for rehabilitating formerly incarcerated individuals; energy generation and transmission; and reactions to the 2022 National Achievement in Education Progress (NAEP) reports and how to improve reading and math scores.
I love SLC and conferences like it because they provide an opportunity for us as legislators to learn from our colleagues in other states about what has or hasn’t worked for them and vice versa. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel or utilize a policy that has already proven unsuccessful in other states.
This type of collaboration is critical to moving forward efficient and innovative policies and reforms at the state level.
Speaking of examining policies, more than 70 Senate interim studies were recently approved, including five of mine. I want to take a deeper look into opioid treatment clinics versus pain management clinics in our state; helping families navigate through mental health crises; and available mental health treatment options. These three studies have been assigned to the Health and Human Services Committee.
I also want to study tort reform, which would go before the Judiciary Committee, and finally, pay transparency, which has been assigned to the Business and Commerce Committee. It is now up to the chairs of these committees to decide whether they will be heard or not.
You can find all of the interim study requests at https://oksenate. gov/publications/senate-interim-studies. These public studies will be streamed live on the Senate website, so be watching for the hearing dates. Once the studies are completed, you’ll also be able to review online any PowerPoint presentations or handouts provided during the meetings.
If you have any questions or concerns on legislative matters, please contact me at the Capitol. Please write to Senator Jessica Garvin, State Capitol, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd. Room 237, Oklahoma City, OK, 73105, email me at [email protected] or call 405-521-5522.
