gdlewen
EF4
I would say “Don’t wait for an imminent vote.” The bill is unconstitutional and should never have been heard by any House Committee.I watched the floor "debate" prior to the bill passing, and it was a shameful display. I'm quickly becoming disillusioned with almost every aspect of this. The "questions" by the GOP rep from Inola gave me a very sketchy vibe, almost as if he was in on a setup to make those opposing the bill look like drooling simpletons in front of a wider audience. Then there's the inconvenient fact that the author admitted the bill is (ostensibly) still just a "conversation" open to further sweeping changes, yet still pushed hard to have it passed anyway. Finally, the narrow margin of passage can be reason to wonder whether there could possibly have been coordination in advance to give as many politicians as possible plausible deniability with their constituents while still delivering for a special interest donor (this is of course highly speculative and I have no evidence for this bill; but Hill insiders have reported this sometimes happens in the U.S. Congress with Manchin/Sinema/Murkowski types casting the deciding vote, for example).
In summary, it still feels like the "die had been cast" long ago in the state house, as someone put it in this thread. We can only hope that isn't true of both the state senate and governor.
Interestingly, my own state house rep whom I contacted expressing opposition did vote nay, despite being GOP. I will certainly contact my state senator again if/when it appears a vote is imminent there.
We need to make sure the Senate gives this bill a “hard pass” and spends its valuable time on bills that will benefit Oklahomans and not TV stations.