State Senate Stretches Bill Deadline Due To Filibustering On Thursday

State Senators had a late night at the Capitol working to meet deadline on Thursday due to disruptions in the session.

Sen. Nathan Dahm was filibustering, reading hundreds of pages of legislation, so other bills couldn't be heard by the deadline.

Senators had 75 bills on Thursday's agenda, needing to get through all of them before midnight to meet that second legislative deadline.

Gov. Kevin Stitt said senators should have never had that many pieces of legislation to discuss in one day.

"Passing 62 bills vs 75, I think there's way too much government I don't think we need all this extra government, said Stitt. “Every year we come in, and there's 4,000 bills filed; I think that's weird."

Lawmakers started the session in February with a few thousand and are now down to about 400 House bills and 200 Senate bills...

Due to Dahm's filibustering, at least ten Senate bills that were up for consideration will not be moving forward, which did not break any Senate rules.

The senator from Broken Arrow was upset that his colleagues were not hearing a list of his and Sen. Dusty Deever's bills, which resulted in that filibuster.

Deevers had written the bills to criminalize abortion and eliminate no-fault divorce, neither of which were even heard in a committee. 

One of the main bills skipped over was a bill to reduce cell phone usage in Oklahoma schools, which was one of the main Senate education priorities going into this session.

Senate leaders told News 9 there were several ways they could have stopped or limited Dahm's discussion, but they ultimately decided to let him continue.