OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma House and Senate leaders on Friday announced COVID-19 safety protocols for the upcoming legislative session that include encouraging, but not requiring, lawmakers to wear masks when at the state Capitol.
The precautions announced jointly by House Speaker Charles McCall and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat include requiring staff and visitors to wear masks and livestreaming of all proceedings. There will also be limits on capacity of committee rooms and legislative chambers, remote voting on bills in committee and proxy voting in the Senate and remote voting in the House on bills on the floor of the bodies.
Additionally, the House is making changes to its page program, which offers high school students a look at the legislative process.
The program will be limited to high school seniors with a maximum of 12 pages per week. Pages will eat in an assigned room in order to social distance and will be assigned separate hotel rooms. Multiple drivers and vans will be used to allow for social distancing. Any participants whose school went to distance learning due to a COVID-19 outbreak will be required to submit a negative COVID-19 test no more than one week prior to the program’s start.
At least seven of the state’s 149 lawmakers and Gov. Kevin Stitt have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The session begins Monday.
Oklahoma ranked sixth in the nation in the number of new cases per capita with 936.43 per 100,000 population, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The data shows a decline in the seven-day rolling average of cases from 4,164.57 per day to 2,626.29 while the rolling average of deaths increased from 30 to 40.43 per day.
