Today we have Senator Julie Daniels in with this and Senator first of all,
good morning to you. Good morning Tom. Always good to be here at
Bartlesville Radio. Well, it's good to have you here. You're running again
for State Senate, a job you've helped for the past several years and seem
to enjoy it because you're running again. Tell us a little bit about your
first term in office. It truly is the job of a lifetime. It's
a great honor to serve the people of District twenty nine for those of you
listening, that's Washington Nowada and northern Rogers County dipping right down close into Claremore
these days. And I'm fully dedicated to the job. I have had the
opportunity in these past eight years to serve in a variety of roles in the
Senate and pass some significant legislation. But just tell you a quick story.
Yesterday I was out and about in the hallways and I got a text from
Kathy, my executive assistant, who helped with so many constituent things, and
she said, you need to come back to the office right now. The
government relations person from Walmart is here and the constituent issue. We took to
them. The constituent was right, and Walmart's changing all of their store policies
because this constituent brought something to us, and we thought, well, maybe
they're just confused by a state policy. Maybe we changed something in the law
and they're unaware of it. What Walmart is. No, Walmart did a
thorough investigation after we decided to just contact Walmart and say, this issue is
going on and we're trying to figure out it ire and is it government or
is it Walmart? Well lo and behold, he said Walmart was wrong about
the way they were treating this particular it had to do with a veteran sales
tax exemption card. Oh, and he said, and so we're changing the
policies throughout our stores. And he happened to be in the building that day
and he wanted to come and tell us. And I tell you, you
can do major legislation, and I've had the opportunity to do that, but
I went on into public safety to present a second amendment bill for a constituent
and I just sat there thinking, it's really cool. We helped one person,
and in helping one person, we helped a lot of people, and
Walmart never wants to be on the bad side of their customers. So those
are the kinds of things you get to do after several years of learning the
system, learning the politics, making relationships with people both inside and outside the
building, that I find the most satisfactory. That wasn't an instance of your
government doing something wrong. Nobody really did anything wrong. But those are the
kinds of things I like to work on along with the big issues. Now
another big issue. Last year, I carried the bill and literally did write
the bill out of eleven different bills that were submitted to prohibit transgender procedures on
children, not mental health, not antidepressants, not intensive counseling, but the
physical invasion of the child's body until you're eighteen. And I was standing in
my office alone one day and I got a text from the Assistant Attorney General
who was because we got challenged in court, and he said we prevailed,
and just stood and said a little thank you prayer because I think it's an
important policy, and also set a prayer for those families and those kids and
hoping that they will get the intensive mental health treatment that they need, but
that we're going to protect them from making these adult decisions as children, and
I think in the same vein helping their families who are so often caught off
guard, not included, rather surprised when these things happen. So we've yet
to prevail at the circuit court. We're waiting on that decision. But those
are the kinds of things that really give me great satisfaction. And then you
say amen and go on, what's the next thing that you can do to
reign in government? To lower taxes, to protect life, to protect the
First Amendment, freedom of religion, the second? What can I do each
day to make sure that the government is assisting in those areas and not hampering
or trying to take away or invade those rights at all. So it's a
full on job, but those are the days. They're bad days too.
But every time I come in and leave the capital and look up at the
Dome, I just pinch myself that the voters have been so kind to let
me do this job for eight years. And I would love to serve another
foreign check some more goals off the list. Well, you know, you
brought up the thing about the veteran who had the issue with a big company,
and that was resolved. You got kind of your start here with talking
to the everyday folk when you were mayor Barnesvillet. That's very true. I
had a volunteer career in Bartlesville. I'm kind of a non traditional senator in
that regard. When my kids were growing up, I was in the schools
and you know, we did the choir and the orchestra and the parent support
groups and all those sorts of things. And then I had the great honor
of serving on the city council for eight years and being a mayor for one
term. And I happened to have the honor of serving in leadership in the
Senate and have done for the past six years. And two of my closest
colleagues or classmates and they are both former mayors. And when we sit together
and go through bills, that municipal government experience, that appreciation for cities and
towns really shows itself. They go, this is a preemption bill. This
is a preemption bill. Is this a preemption that we should do or should
not do. But in terms of talking to people and working with people,
yes, if you have municipal government experience, that's the best training ground to
go to. The legislature. You mentioned being a parent and being very much
involved with your children when they are in school, but schools is something that
you often have to work with when it comes to legislation too, being in
state government. That's right. Public education continues to be the largest part of
the budget pie and we are talking about education all the time. This last
two years, I've been on the Education Committee. It's the first time that
I have served on that, and we went through last year with a teacher
pay raise. We're doing lots of teacher pipeline legislation, stipends, signing bonuses,
paying for tuition, all sorts of things to encourage people to come in
and remain in the system. At the same time increasing the resources to public
education. There was an additional eight hundred thousand dollars that was put into that
budget last year, so we're well over or close to four billion dollars in
public education. I have a fine relationship here with our Bartiswell Public Schools.
Once a month we sit down with Superintendent McCauley and some of the staff and
a couple of school board members. We talk about what's going on in the
capital that might affect them. They bring problems or questions or suggestions to us.
And I really appreciate that because our Barniswell Public School district is very well
run and they're always thinking ahead to how to improve how to engage kids.
We're doing that in the legislature as well, but I would say that this
year Science of Reading is something that the Education Committee has passed forward. We're
doing a lot more with school security. Of course here in Bartlesvielle. We
benefit from a long time, very strong relationship between our police department and the
schools, starting with the resource officers, which for a while were fully funded
through the City of Bartlesville, and now that's a shared financial responsibility. So
we're constantly looking at that any way to improve the system, engage the students
and get really good academic outcomes. And many times people say, well,
what about law and order? What can lawmakers do to make sure that,
you know, people are a little bit safer. You came up with something
that touched on that greatly when we talked about people who would come in and
just do all these quick burglaries and smashing grabs and everything else like that.
And we're finding out that those things have long lines. They kind of connect
with other people tell us a little bit about this. Well, they certainly
do. A couple of years ago we passed the a bill. I had
a bill on retail theft fleecing goods online, and we require now that the
that the server, the you know, the Googles, and the I'm trying
to think of the right words, search engines. Yeah, the search engines.
The people who are selling online have to provide a name and a physic
address. So if you're engaged to criminal activity and you're fleecing goods online,
you're not going to want to comply with that law, so you may not
be selling those goods online anymore. That now has grown this year into four
bills. I had two I think will become law. Two did not get
heard this week, having to do with increasing the penalty for second degree burglary
where it occurs in a c store, increasing the penalty of assault where you
jump over the counter and you assault the clerk or you follow a clerk back
into the storeroom, putting more armph behind those particular criminal activities, and letting
the prosecutors and the investigators aggregate the crimes instead of hitting the reset button on
crimes every ninety days. We will do that every one hundred and eighty days,
which allows law enforcement to build find patterns of activity, geographical patterns,
find more organized crime if that's involved, and it isn't. We have gangs
involved in this, it's tied to the drug trade, it's tied to human
trafficking. So anything we can do to increase public safety is very important.
At the same time, we balance that with criminal justice reform, and I've
carried legislation on both those sides, breaking down barriers for people, giving them
second chances. If they have served their time, paid their debt to society,
where can they go to work where their past criminal activity does not affect
the nature of their work. For instance, if you've served time for embezzling,
we may not want you to be a financial advisor or a CPA or
something like that. But if the criminal history does not impact the actual career
path that you've taken, we need to let these people come back and join
the rest of us and become productive, tax paying citizens and be back with
their families and support their kids. So there's always that balance. Serving on
the Judiciary Committee now for eight years, and the longer you serve on a
committee I think the better you get because you become familiar with the different titles
of law, and you see ideas come through the committee year after year and
you say, we took care of that, or the courts have said we
can't do it that way, but we can do it this way, or
no, no, no, no. You keep coming and trying that,
and I'm going to keep voting no. So anyway, public safety criminal justice
reform really do go hand in hand along the line of justice. We're talking
with this state Senator Julie Daniels, who's running for another term. You've popped
out with our people who take care of the courts. Judges and also prosecutors
are state's attorneys. They have had trouble with funding in the past, and
you work really hard to try to make things so that they can at least
have the materials they can do their job. There's always going to be a
demand for funding, Yeah, there is. I have been a strong proponent
of tax cuts. I have voted for every tax cut. Was the original
author on the quarter sent tax cut that occurred three or four years ago,
and I authored another one this year, but it didn't get hurt. I
filed it in hopes that it might pick up some steam sometime if you do
that, just to be prepared if you get an opportunity to pass another tax
cut. But yes, being involved with the budget for Public Safety and Judiciary
for my entire time in the building, I have an understanding now of what
these different agencies, the das, the courts, the Bureau of Narcotics,
the Bureau of Investigation, cleat those folks, what they want, what they
need, what projects they've accomplished. Okay, now they want to go do
this, that or the other. And of course, with the increase in
the gangs and the foreign gangs and the fentanyl, and the fact that Oklahoma
really is a crossroads for a lot of this activity, we have beefed up
our funding of the Attorney General's office. A lot of this is surrounding the
illegal marijuana grows, trying to shut down more and more of them, beefing
up the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority. So I'm able to help in those situations
because of that experience on that budget committee, and we're doing it a lot
more transparently now in the Senate, which is good for all of us because
it's your tax dollars. Let's put it up in public. Here's why Senator
Daniels believes we need to increase the budget of the District Attorney's Council by this
much. And I can make that argument. Now. I can also make
the argument for another one of my agencies. And then when it says we've
got to choose, well, then you have to you get a percentage of
this, you get a percentage of that. We're going to wait till the
next year for this particular project or program. I think you're more effective and
you get results the more fully engaged you are with the process. And so
I love learning new things. I love getting to know people and working with
people to solve problems. So, yes, we're working on those budgets all
the time, all the time. Senator Daniels is with us. We got
about a minute or so left. Heel folks how they can get a hold
of you and know more about you and if you've got something that you'd like
to offer on the stuff as I often call it, before we close up,
let's go with that too. Well. I want to thank the voters
for this eight years of service. I would truly love to serve you four
more years. It would be my final term. You can get a hold
of me at nine one eight, three, three, one seven, two
sixty seven. My campaign website is danielsokasenate dot com danielsokasenate dot com. You
can write to me through that website. Obviously, with a constituent issue,
you can always call the office four oh five five two one five six three
four. Follow me on Senator Julie daniels Facebook page. I'd really love to
have your comments, and I share every day what I'm doing in the capital
and on the campaign trail, and so to everybody in Senate District twenty nine.
I would truly appreciate your vote. I try to be responsive, I
tackle big problems. I get results, and it's a joy to serve you
and the state of Oklahoma. Senator Daniels, thank you for being our guest.