Legislators turn to ‘bill shucking’ to keep dying policy ideas alive

OKLAHOMA CITY (KSWO) - With the next major legislative deadline coming up Thursday, April 11, legislators are turning to a process known as “bill shucking” to keep their dying policy ideas alive. One shucked bill in particular garnered heated debate in a House committee.

Before a Tuesday hearing in the House General Government Committee, Senate Bill 36 was a bill just relating to making certain recordings available to the public. However, during the meeting, the bill was shucked in favor of new language which would allow chaplains to serve as counselors in public schools.

And that is essentially what “shucking a bill” means: getting rid of a bill’s current language in favor of new language.

In the instance of SB36, this meant implanting language of another dying bill onto a current bill. However, the language implanted had nothing to do with the original topic of the bill.

This new language allows for anyone who is a chaplain to be able to be hired by a school district for school counseling purposes. The bill does not provide a definition of a chaplain, nor gives any educational standard the chaplains would have to complete in order to be considered for the position.

House Democrats on the committee opposed the new language within the bill, citing it would go against the Oklahoma Constitution. One of those Democrats was House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson (D-85).

“This bill would use public dollars to fund religious purposes, which is not only unconstitutional, but the majority of Oklahomans have been clear that they want public dollars to stay in public schools,” Munson said. “This legislation does not even define what a chaplain is, but it is clear it is meant to benefit one specific religion. We need to be honest about why this legislation was introduced, which is to push a religious agenda into public schools.”

Rep. Jared Deck (D-44) also debated against the measure, saying he believes this is not the way to address the needs of schools in the state.

“I appreciate efforts to provide more services and resources to our public schools, but this is not the right legislation for that,” Deck said. “We need trained and certified mental health and career counselors in our schools, not just letting in more people off the street. Military chaplains go through extensive training and certification processes, as written, this bill allows anyone with an online certification into our classrooms. Oklahomans and our students deserve better.”

The bill passed by way of a 6-2 vote, Rep. Munson and Rep. Delk were the lone no votes. SB36 will now move to the full House. Since amendments were made to the bill, the Senate chamber will need to vote on the bill once more before it gets sent to the governor’s desk.

SB36 was not the only bill to get shucked this week. Senate Bill 7 and House Bill 3457 were also shucked with outside language.

SB7 originally was about daylight saving time before it was shucked to be about municipal lands, and HB3457 was originally about concurrent enrollment fees before being shucked to now be about the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program.