A frustrating hearing, we know. Especially with no on the record questions or answers about the retroactive language in the bill. We'll keep folks updated on next steps.
05.03.2026 19:23
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A frustrating hearing, we know. Especially with no on the record questions or answers about the retroactive language in the bill. We'll keep folks updated on next steps.
Photo of the 8-2 vote on HB 1225 in House Rules Committee
HB 1225 will now advance to the House floor.
With no more questions or debate, the bill advances on party lines.
Hefner asks if this will lead to a ban on changes in death certificates. Kevin West says he can't speak to what could happen in the future in the legislature because he won't be there.
Hefner asks about why the state needs to spend time on this when it is regarding a document that's about someone's personal life. Kevin West says that state records need to be "factual."
Kevin West says that the health department doesn't currently have the authority to process gender marker corrections and he sees this as aligning statute and administrative rules.
Kevin West says no, but that birth certificates can impact driver's licenses which people do carry and he wants those to only mark sex assigned at birth.
He's now also saying that this is necessary because in an emergency medical situation medical providers would need to know someone's sex assigned at birth. Fugate asks if folks would have their birth certificate on them in emergency medical situations.
Kevin West says this bill fixes an "oversight" in 2022 legislation that first targeted gender marker corrections on birth certificates in Oklahoma.
HB 1225 has an amendment that would change the effective date in the bill from November 1, 2025 to November 1, 2026. That's adopted.
And that spoke HB 1225 into being.
Also, the Chair has reduced debate allowed to 30 seconds per member. How much conversation do we think will even be allowed by the time we get to HB 1225? This committee process isn't good government.
But that "fix" to the bill won't come on the record. So it just passed on party lines with most folks unclear as to what the bill does or how it's going to be fixed.
Like, the chair just noted on an ad valorem tax ballot measure that title is off the bill because they're working on the language. So it immediately saw folks move to pass the bill and groan at the one minute of debate against.
And because we don't have a process in which experts give input, where experts can speak on the record, we get a lot of these bills where folks aren't even sure what the bill is doing as they're asking questions. And then they are still expected to vote for it.
We will further note, one of the difficult things about this committee is that because it becomes the clearinghouse for a wide range of bills, folks often are far out of their depth of personal expertise.
Definitely going to have to do some additional reading around it, but at this time...no re: understanding it. And none of that back and forth was particularly clarifying.
We will note that oftentimes bills considered "controversial" are held to the end of the meeting, to encourage limited questions and debate as folks are eager to leave. This is the last meeting standing between legislators and their weekend.
For folks checking in, we have made it through 5 of the 26 bills so far. Currently on the 6th. While HB 1225 is listed first on the agenda, it was obviously not heard first. That's not uncommon. But no clarity is provided by the chair as to when it will be heard in the order of bills.
There are 26 bills on the House Rules agenda today on a variety of topics, so it may be awhile in this room before we hear HB 1225.
Of note, this bill has ex post facto language that could create an issue for trans folks born in OK who received a corrected birth certificate between April 2022 and now.
We're here today to watch Rep Kevin West's HB 1225, a bill authored last year and revived ahead of this deadline targeting birth certificate gender corrections.
And you can follow everything we're following this session, here.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
We're in House Rules on the last day of Committee Deadline. The committee has moved to a larger room, 450, and is still standing room only.
With not a single question and no debate, only Rep Rosecrants votes against the bill, Dems Schreiber and Stewart joining their Republican colleagues to endorse this harm.
We're now to HB 3586 by Rep Erick Harris, language the Heritage Foundation is pushing in states across the country allowing adoptive and foster parents to reject and discriminate against kids in their custody who are trans.
And you can watch the committee hearing online here:
sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00283/Harmon...
We're in House Judiciary and Public Safety Oversight today after waiting a bit to get into a hearing room. With 33 bills on the agenda in a small room, there's quite a crowd trying to listen to legislation.
You can follow along with everything we're following here.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
We're shifting to other meetings, but you can continue to find updates in our tracker and across social media platforms. Take care of yourselves and each other. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...