It’s time to get those reading glasses ready. 

The bill filing deadline for Oklahoma’s 2025 legislative session is Thursday, Jan. 16 at 4:00 p.m. If past sessions are any indication, thousands of bills will be filed in the House and Senate but only a few hundred will cross the finish line. 

There are some exceptions to the deadline. House and Senate leadership can introduce new bills anytime during the session. For instance, former House Speaker Charles McCall and Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat co-authored a bill last April to criminalize illegal immigration at the state level. 

The House also allows shell bills, which contain little substantive language when they’re filed but may be amended later on in the session. These bills, often used as placeholders for appropriations measures, can’t be scheduled for a committee hearing until they’re fleshed out. 

The bill filing period can help illuminate issues lawmakers hope to tackle in the coming months. If multiple lawmakers in both chambers introduce similar bills, that’s usually an indication that an issue will receive serious consideration. Legislators in leadership positions, such as committee chairs and floor leaders, also have unique sway. 

Most bills will be dormant by March 6, the deadline for House and Senate bills to pass out of their committee of origin. The legislative session officially begins on Monday, Feb. 3 at noon. 

In the meantime, House and Senate committees will hear dozens of agency budget requests. The hearings typically last 30 to 45 minutes per agency, with officials outlining how they’ve used recent appropriations and what they hope to accomplish in the next fiscal year.

What bills are you tracking? Let me know at Kross@Oklahomawatch.org.

— Keaton Ross

Recommended Reading

• Oklahoma House lawmakers limit access in women’s restroom to ‘biological females’: The rule drew criticism from Democratic members for being unnecessary, difficult to enforce and harmful to women who might need to accompany a young child of the opposite gender into the restroom. [Oklahoma Voice]
• After Canoo shuttered factories, a bill seeks to keep other EV companies from getting cash from a state incentive program: Sen. Adam Pugh said the state needs to move away from incentivizing companies like Canoo, which have closed factories and laid off workers in recent months. [The Frontier]
• Oklahoma sets date for its first execution of 2025: Wendell Arden Grissom is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on March 20 for the murder of Amber Matthews during a Blaine County home invasion in 2005. His accomplice, Jessie Johns, is serving life in prison without parole. [KGOU]

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