OKLAHOMA CITY – A legislative panel on Thursday passed a measure asking voters to let lawmakers access $1 billion in public funding that voters have stored in a lockbox out of their reach.
The Senate Rules Committee passed House Joint Resolution 1077 that would ask voters to transfer $1 billion from the $2.2 billion Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Fund corpus to an account that lawmakers could spend down.
Lawmakers said they want to invest the $1 billion independent of TSET’s existing governing board oversight and spend the earnings to improve health and educational outcomes.
The TSET fund contains monies paid to the state following the master settlement agreement with tobacco companies. The earnings from the fund’s investments are used to improve health outcomes, such as reducing smoking, vaping, and obesity and to prevent cancer.
Voters in 2000 created a constitutional lockbox to prevent lawmakers from accessing those dollars. Prior legislative efforts to ask voters to make changes to the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust have failed.
The measure seeks to put the state question on the Aug. 25 primary runoff ballot, which has the lowest voter turnout. All voters would be able to vote on the measure.
“This is simply asking the voters if they would like to split this fund up so some of it can be used by the Legislature to help out in their communities,” said Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton.
Paxton, R-Tuttle, the author, said proceeds from the new fund could be used for things such as providing grants to rural hospitals to pay off debt.
“The population elects us to represent them,” Paxton said. “And sometimes the elected population also has ideas on where this money would be very well spent in our communities.”
Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, said the measure is a fundamental shift from an independent public health model to a legislatively controlled funding stream.
Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, speaks at a news conference Feb. 2, 2026, at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice) Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, said powerful people didn’t like it when TSET recently told lawmakers to go through its grant application process to fund a legislative project.
“And so here we are today to try to create a politically influenced, hyperpartisan, politically divisive pot of money that can be used for deal making at the Capitol,” Boren said.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, said the issue was not about politics, adding that sometimes lawmakers have different priorities and perspectives that could also improve health outcomes.
In the past, lawmakers have asked TSET to partner with them, and TSET declined, Daniels said.
The measure, which passed by a vote of 14-4, heads to the full Senate.
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.