Senate GOP Leader: Now That Dems’ Theatrics Are Over, Real Work Can Begin on Public Safety

Senate Republican Leader Glenn Coffee made the following comments regarding today’s meeting of the Oklahoma State Senate in special session:

PUBLIC SAFETY

“Now that the Senate Democrats’ theatrics are over, the real work can begin on properly funding public safety,” stated Coffee, R-Oklahoma City.

“Instead of putting on a political sideshow by forcing the Senate to meet in a meaningless special session, Senate Democrats would have better served the public by working with Republicans to develop a bipartisan agreement,” he said.

“In today’s session we saw the Senate Democrats’ true feelings about public safety. We heard over and over from Democrats today that Oklahoma puts too many criminals in prison, and we heard that the Democrat preferred solution is putting these criminals back on the street. The public can rest assured that Senate Republicans will never go along plans by Senate Democrats to put Oklahoma families at risk by bringing back their early release program,” Coffee concluded.

CENTENNIAL FUNDING

“The Senate Democrats promised that their bill would provide centennial funding for projects in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and rural Oklahoma. But their bill did not include a list of projects nor did it guarantee that funding would go to the areas they promised in their news release.

“We wish that Senate Democrats had worked with Senate Republicans to delay consideration of this bill until these problems could be worked out. Instead, they tried to ram the bill through and lost on a bipartisan vote against the bill. We hope they will abandon their ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ approach and work with Republicans on this important issue,” Coffee said.