President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan today announced the formation of an official Oklahoma State Senate interim study committee to look into the issues surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month on the use of eminent domain.

The study committee was one of seven formed by the Senate leader Wednesday.

The death of an inmate at the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite should serve as a sobering reminder to lawmakers and the public of the critical staffing needs in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, State Senator Kenneth Corn said Monday.

Corn, D-Poteau, said a fight in the prison exercise yard turned deadly Sunday evening when one inmate was killed and three others were injured.
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“While Speaker Hiett and the Republicants in the House are taking a deep breath, our correctional officers continue to put their lives on the line behind the walls of our state prisons, where the situation appears to be getting more and more dangerous each day.

“It is the Speaker who is acting irresponsibly as he insists on ignoring this growing problem.

“Apparently, the Speaker has adopted a do-nothing policy when it comes to public safety.”

State Sen. Frank Shurden said he will once again attempt to pass a bill into law to allow the surgical castration of convicted rapists.

“I’ve been fighting for this law for 28 years. We’re seeing more and more cases in the news where children are kidnapped from their homes, raped and molested by convicted sex offenders who’ve been released. It is obvious that treatment doesn’t work. Castration is what it takes to protect innocent women and children.
We need to do it,” said Shurden, D-Henryetta.
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Senate leaders Thursday unveiled a bold plan that will eventually put 450 additional corrections officers on the job in Oklahoma prisons and help ensure staffing levels don’t drop to dangerous levels in the future.
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Senate Republican Leader Glenn Coffee said today he doubts Senate Democrats are serious about supporting public safety funding in the state – saying that their proposal for more prison funding seems more like the political equivalent of a “deathbed conversion” than a legitimate change-of-heart.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Senator Kenneth Corn said Friday he agrees with Rep. John Trebilcock that violent offenders shouldn’t be released from prison early and said that’s why the Senate’s comprehensive prison funding plan unveiled Thursday doesn’t include any such provisions.

“Our plan ensures that violent offenders will stay in prison where they belong by making sure there will be enough correctional officers on the job to keep them there and to keep Oklahomans safe,” said Corn, chairman of the Appropriations Sub-Committee on Public Safety and Judiciary in the Senate.

Senator Adelson Comments on the Formation of the House of Representatives Medicaid Reform Task Force

“Today, Speaker Hiett began his-fated hunt to attack Oklahoma’s Medicaid program, which he claims has wasted and/or mismanaged over $100 million in taxpayer money.

“These are odd words to come from the man who led the charge to increase funding for the state Medicaid program by a whopping 33 percent!
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After receiving word that yet another prison brawl erupted in an Oklahoma prison, Sen. Kenneth Corn questioned again today what exactly it was going to take to make Republican Speaker of the House Todd Hiett understand there is a crisis in prisons across Oklahoma.

GOP PLAN INCLUDES LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS FOR PRISONS, PROSECUTORS, LAW ENFORCEMENT

Senate Republicans unveiled their plan today to undo the “years of neglect” by the Democrat-controlled Senate of prisons, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies.

The Senate GOP’s broad-based plan includes some short-term funding fixes – such as $7.1 million in supplemental funding to hire more correctional officers and to fully fund state prosecutors.