OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE / From the desk of Sen. Jessica Garvin
We had a great time in South Carolina at the Southern Legislative Conference (SLC). I gained some great insight and new perspective on many important policies we’ll be tackling in the upcoming session. I’m looking forward to visiting further with my Senate colleagues about these to decide how best to move forward.
That work will have to wait, however, until we complete special session, which reconvened on Monday. We’re scheduled to vote on the governor’s vetoes of the tribal compact extensions for tobacco and motor vehicle licensing or registration. You can watch the Senate live at www.oksenate.gov/liveproceedings. Although it can be expanded with a vote of both chambers, the current special session is set to conclude by July 31.
In other news, I want to tell you about a new opportunity I’m offering this interim. Every year, we have so many applications for high school pages but only a few openings available because of Senate rules. I want to provide an opportunity for more of our local high school juniors and seniors to participate somehow in the legislative process, so I’m creating a new internship program for my office.
As I discussed last week, five of my interim study requests were recently approved by leadership and we’re now waiting for the committee chairmen to let us know which will be heard this fall. However, regardless if these are approved for a public hearing, I still need research conducted and policy recommendations gathered on these important issues. This is where interns will come into play.
If you’re a high school junior or senior, or have a student of this age, who would be interested in helping collect data on my interim study policy areas, please contact my assistant Lauren Sorrell at lauren.sorrell@ oksenate.gov for the application. Although this will be a virtual internship, students are more than welcome to come to the Capitol if they’d like to spend time working together as a group in person. The idea is that this will be an unpaid internship where students will choose the policy area of greatest interest to them and then work with the other interns from across our district in the coming weeks to find speakers to present varying perspectives on each issue, schedule the meetings, work with state agencies to gather additional information and coordinate all the data gathered into a comprehensive list of policy recommendations.
I think this is a creative solution to allow more students to be involved in their state government and the legislative process. We’ll be accepting applications through Friday, July 28 and will contact students the first week of August with a decision.
We’ll create a clearer work timeline once all the interns have been contacted.
If you have any questions or concerns on legislative matters or this new internship program, 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 Jessica.Garvin@oksenate. gov or call 405-521-5522.
