The full Senate has given approval to a bill designed to help more Oklahoma students complete high school. Senate Bill 2139 was approved unanimously on Tuesday. Sen. John Ford, author of the measure, said that currently of 100 students beginning as freshmen in Oklahoma, on average only 75 complete high school.

The Senate welcomed Miss Oklahoma 2009 Taylor Treat to the Oklahoma State Senate Tuesday. Sen. Susan Paddack presented the University of Oklahoma senior with Senate Resolution 84 recognizing her many talents and accomplishments.

"This is a special day. The Treat family have been life-long friends. I’ve known the family since before there was a Taylor Treat,” said Paddack, D-Ada. “There are a lot of people who are beauty queens but Taylor Treat is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. She is an amazing young woman who has made us so proud in Ada.”

With as many as 17,000 victims of human trafficking brought into the United States each year, those captives wind up in every state in the nation, including Oklahoma. That’s according to Sen. Clark Jolley who won approval by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday for a measure directed at human trafficking. A second measure, by Sen. Todd Lamb was approved by both chambers last session and is awaiting final consideration in the 2010 session.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary on Wednesday approved legislation that would allow Oklahoma law enforcement officials to monitor the state’s most dangerous sex offenders through electronic monitoring devices.

SB 1862, the charter school expansion bill authored by Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee, passed out of the Appropriations Committee today.

The bill will give the mayors of Oklahoma’s two largest cities chartering authority, while removing the number of caps on allowed charter schools, a major education reform that will increase opportunity for students and parents in the state’s two largest cities.

Key points of SB 1862 include:

· Allow municipalities with a population of 300,000 or more to sponsor/authorize charter schools;

Sen. Constance N. Johnson is encouraging her legislative colleagues to consider legislation that would establish alternative placement programs for non-violent offenders in Oklahoma. Johnson said alternative placement could ultimately reduce some of the state’s funding obligations to the Department of Corrections.

Johnson has filed Senate Bill 2329, making persons convicted of non-violent and drug-related crimes eligible for the Non Violent Offender Alternative Placement program.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved legislation allowing for expungement of a person’s criminal record if the offense was a nonviolent felony, the person has not been convicted of subsequent crimes and ten years have passed since the initial conviction.

Sen. Joe Sweeden said his proposal would empower people to rebuild their lives after they have paid their debt to society.

The state Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution congratulating Rumble the Bison on his first birthday with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and declaring February 17, 2010, “Rumble the Bison Day”.

The Senate Rules Committee unanimously approved two measures Wednesday to help discourage members of the Legislature from voting on bills that could personally or financially benefit them. Sen. Andrew Rice, author of SJR 53 and SB 1671, says his bills are an effort to keep members honest while at the same time helping increase public trust in the legislative process.

The pieces of the puzzle are all there, but in order to create a more successful economic picture, Oklahoma needs to do a better job of putting those pieces together, according to Sen. Jay Paul Gumm.

The senator from Durant has won unanimous Senate Appropriations Committee approval for Senate Bill 1723. The measure, approved Wednesday, would create the Oklahoma Entrepreneurship Network and grant qualifying towns the title of Entrepreneur Ready Community.