A bill to make retroactive voters' reclassification of some crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor is still alive in the Oklahoma legislature, but top lawmakers say there are some kinks to work out before they can send it to the governor.
Lawmakers passed House Bill 1269 out of the Senate Thursday to keep it alive but struck its enacting clause so it can’t become law.
It’s partially a numbers issue for Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat. He said in the past year, he’s heard from different sources the change would affect anywhere 800, 1,500 or 1,200 people in prison on drug charges and low-level property crimes.
"Now [the Department of Corrections] is saying 500. So, we’ve got to make sure — we’re dealing with real, human lives, and we’ve got to make sure we have our numbers right," Treat said.
Treat said that shows him the DOC has a record-keeping problem to fix.
"We are going to try to make sure DOC focuses much more on updating IT. That plays into this retroactivity," Treat said.
Treat says he’s going to nominate someone for the corrections board to focus on the IT issue.
Treat says there are still some procedural issues to hash out in the bill, too.
"When you look at retroactivity, there’s a number of ancillary issues that arise on do you have to resentence? Are the courts prepared for that? And then, is there a better way to do it through pardon and parole?" Treat said.
