Gov. Fallin criticizes Biggs for holding up justice reform bills
Gov. Mary Fallin called out a House committee chairman for bottling up criminal justice reform bills Thursday as time ticked down on efforts to enact meaningful reforms. The plea accomplished little. Chairman Scott Biggs called a brief meeting of his House conference committee Thursday evening where House authors of four key reform measures announced they would be signing the bills out as “committee conferees cannot agree.”
That designation would make the bills dead for this session, but available for consideration next year.
State Rep. Cory Williams, D-Stillwater, tried to quiz committee members about what they could not agree on, but was cut short by Biggs.
“You’re witnessing a dog and pony show, nothing more,” Williams said, noting that House leaders could have reassigned the bills to another committee to get them heard.
“At the end of the day, you have one person that is holding up criminal justice reform in the state of Oklahoma despite the will of the people and you have leadership that either
agree with him or are failing to lead, one way or the other,” Williams said.
“I think the people of Oklahoma deserve to know, specifically, which representatives and which senators don’t agree and refuse to let this stuff move forward,” Williams said. “Let’s just put it on the (House) floor and we’ll find out exactly who agrees and who doesn’t agree.”
The four bills that are to be laid over until next year are:
• Senate Bill 649, which sought to limit how much time could be tacked on to a nonviolent offender’s sentence due to prior convictions for nonviolent crimes.
• Senate Bill 689, which would allow judges and prosecutors more options in diverting people from prison to treatment and supervision programs. The bill also sought to decrease financial barriers for convicted individuals seeking to re-enter society and expand the use of graduated sanctions and incentives.
• Senate Bill 650, which sought to make it easier for offenders to obtain expungements in order to remove one of the barriers that inhibits people with prison records from obtaining jobs after they are released.
• Senate Bill 786, which sought to reduce prison sentences for low-value property crimes.
Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber, expressed disappointment in Thursday evening’s actions.
“The failure of Oklahoma’s House of Representatives to pass the most impactful of Gov. Fallin’s Oklahoma Justice Reform bills represents an incredible missed opportunity to reduce recidivism and improve public safety,” Neal said.
“Despite a clear mandate from voters last fall and support from the business community, correctional system leaders and legislators on both sides of the aisle, a single legislator — Rep. Scott Biggs — was allowed to circumvent due legislative process and condemn future taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars in new correctional costs. This outcome keeps Oklahoma on a financially unsustainable path to becoming the most incarcerated state in America.”
Earlier in the day, Fallin had listed three of the bills that will be laid over as being among five reform measures that were critical for the Legislature to pass to reduce prison overcrowding and save the state money.
“There are lives at stake. There are future generations of Oklahomans at stake,” the governor said.
Fallin said failure to enact reforms would have major financial consequences. The state is on pace to have to add two or three new prisons, which would cost the state an additional $2 billion over 10 years, she said. Oklahoma already has the highest incarceration rate in the nation for women and the secondhighest incarceration rate overall.
At the committee meeting Thursday, Biggs argued the state was trying to do too much, too fast.
“It took Texas six years to do what we tried to do in one session,” Biggs said. “We simply could not accomplish it, especially given the fact we have zero funding opportunities for these programs . ... We have to fund these program if we want to put them in place. An unfunded mandate on DOC (Department of Corrections) on public safety is simply inappropriate at this time.”
The House did pass at least one criminal justice reform bill Thursday.
House members voted 69-26 in favor of Senate Bill 603, which requires the Department of Corrections to implement a risk and needs assessment system to evaluate inmates and develop individual case plans designed to decrease recidivism. The bill previously passed the Senate and will now go to the governor.
Biggs argued against the measure on the House floor, contending it was an “unfunded mandate” on the Department of Corrections.
In urging the Legislature to approve more criminal justice reform bills, Fallin said reform is what the people want.
“We are down to the final day and a half ... and there are a lot of bills that are still yet to be heard,” Fallin said at her Thursday afternoon news conference. “It is no secret that the public gave a pretty clear mandate this past summer on State Questions 780 and 781 that the public supports ... criminal justice reform in our state.”
“I’m pleading to the chairman of the committee, Scott Biggs, ... to please let the criminal justice bills go,” Fallin said. “Let them go . ... Let the committee members vote on the bills. Let the committee members send them to the House or Senate floor ... and let’s have a vote. Let’s let the legislators voice the opinions of their constituents.”
Pressure to act mounted from other sources, as well.
Norman Police Chief Keith Humphrey announced that he sent letters to Biggs and House Speaker Charles McCall urging them to take action on the reform measures.
“The common sense reforms contained in this legislation will strengthen Oklahoma’s justice system and improve public safety,” Humphrey wrote. “I know from experience as a leader in the law enforcement community that effective crime control policy is not about locking everyone up — rather we must target our law enforcement and punishment resources to the most serious and violent offenders.”
Fallin said she believed there was enough bipartisan support to get more bills passed if they had reached the House floor. She argued against just carrying the bills over to next year, saying it will be a gubernatorial election year and the political climate for juvenile justice reform is likely to be even more difficult.
Fallin said she had suggested to House leaders that they reassign the bills to another committee.