K one AM, fourteen hundred FM, ninety three point three FM, ninety
five point one and on KWETV, dot Com, Apple TV, and Roku.
And once again we have Senator Daniels here tonight for our forum. And
first of all, Senator, we're going to start you up with your opening.
Stavid, you have three minutes to adorus the crowd. Thank you Tom,
Thank you kwo N and the city for allowing us to use the City
Council chamber and everyone here in the live audience. My name is Julie Daniels,
and I'm a candidate for State Senate to represent Washington, Nowada and the
northern half of Rogers County. Government of buying for the people is about people.
This entire job is about people. It's the eighty four thousand different residents
who live in this district, many of them Native Oklahomas. Many more I'm
discovering recent transplants to the state of Oklahoma. Just this week, I've met
someone from Missouri and Colorado and a native San Francisco, all of whom have
chosen our state as their residence because we represent the values that they hold.
Dear, we believe in limited government, we believe in attracting business and having
strong jobs. We are a really attractive place for people to want to come.
And part of this was COVID, but many others are coming just because
they've reached a stage in life that they want to go someplace where they feel
that they are unfettered, they can live more freely and express themselves more freely
than where they were before, and for that reason they've come to my state.
I'm a native Oklahoma, born and raised in Oklahoma City. I graduated
from the University of Oklahoma. I attended my first year of law school there
before I married Charlie. Charlie who will be here in a moment. He's
been out all day doing his thing forty six years ago and he was a
lawyer for Phillips Petroleum Company. So I moved up here and commuted to the
University of Tulsa. For the last two years of law school, I interned
with the DA's off I wanted to be an assistant district attorney. That may
be still why I have some feeling for the das and what they do.
But Charlie got transferred to London, so we went there immediately after I took
my last final exam and we came back nine years later with two little boys,
and I decided that, being out of Bartlesville for almost a decade and
wanting to stay home and raise my kids, that I would take advantage of,
as you all know in this audience, the multitude of opportunities in this
community to be of service as a volunteer, whether it was in the school's
parents support group, band orchestra, choir, booster club, many nonprofits,
including my beloved Boys and Girls Club, and then coming here and sitting behind
this table for eight years, a couple of years in tom Seed as mayor
and serving on our city council. And I did that intentionally because I'm a
conservative, a lifelong Republican with very conservative values, and I wanted to apply
my political philosophy to governing and I did that here and it worked out very
well. And so when I had the opportunity in twenty sixteen, I ran
for the state Senate. And I have had the extreme honor of serving you
for eight years. I would like to serve the last four because all the
things I said about volunteering in this community and all the things I bring to
the table, you can add even more to that. After eight years as
your state senator, and I hope to get into more of what I have
been able to do. And I appreciate very much being here, and i'd
appreciate your vote on June eighteen. Thank you. We have our first question.
These were formulated and set in via email to us at the radio station.
We've condensed a few for time, and first one is about water conservation,
water protection and even perhaps finding new sources of water. It's a big
issue in our part of Oklahoma. As we grow and expand, more people
are finding us here. From the position of a state senator, what can
you do to protect our interest in these efforts? And what can be done
in your position pro active? I took some experience with water issues with me
to the Senate. We all know about the drought of two thousand and one
and our twenty plus year effort which is gaining even more steam now to ultimately
resolve our water supply problem up here in Washton County. But I was allowed
to serve on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee the first two years in the
Senate, a natural fit for somebody from Bartlesville, USA, but also because
of the water experience, I was able to engage on the conservation issues and
the great need to expend dollars on water infrastructure issues in our state. Just
this past session. I do not recall if we ended up putting all of
it into the budget, but we were looking to put an initial one hundred
and twenty five million dollars into water infrastructure repairs and construction in our state,
because the best way to conserve water is to make sure you're not losing it
as you treat it and transport it to people's homes. So it's a big
state wide issue, and it's a bipartisan issue, solder treatment plant upgrades.
And I'm also very very proud of the fact that I've now putting in place
the science we're measuring progress of individual students and so in the public education system.
I think that's the best thing we can do for parents, teachers,
and children. And also of course always looking at the overburdened side. So
will you ever support driver's licenses for illegal aliens? Thank you for the question.
It's come up a lot. On May the twenty fourth of this year,
we passed the Anti Illegal Immigration Act in Oklahoma. We're already being sued
by the Department of Justice which is not a surprise to us, but a
bill to allow people who pay income tax with a taxpayer ID number to become
eligible for a driver's license, so that they would buy insurance and cut down
on the problem of uninsured drivers on our roads, which is also a public
safety problem for having people for whom you have no idea when they are stopped
contributing to hit and run accidents. That language was attempted to be put into
our bill on May the twenty fourth, and the entire Senate Republican caucus voted
it down, including me. Now, this is the fourth time that bill
has been introduced. It's had three different numbers. But the same subject matter
was put before us in twenty twenty two, and at the time, the
great concern was making sure if you adopted this policy that those folks would not
have voter registration services, would not be allowed to register or vote. Many
groups were in favor of the policy. Again, looking at the problem of
uninsured drivers in Oklahoma, we have a large percentage of that. It is
a problem which I've just described. So I voted to send it to the
House because I thought if the House addresses it, it means both sides of
the legislature think it's an important issue and perhaps this is a policy that would
help it. The House didn't act. That bill did not pass. There
are people today who think it is in effect, but it did not pass.
And I told the author in March of twenty twenty two, I won't
vote for this again. I gave you a chance to put the policy to
the House. We all agreed it is a problem in Oklahoma, but that's
not the appropriate way to solve it. In twenty three, twenty four,
I helped make sure it didn't get to the floor as an assistant floor leader,
and then on April the twenty fourth, along with my Republican colleagues,
I voted that amendment down. So I'm not in favor of illegal residents having
driver's licenses. Senator, the authored bills regarding gender transitioning and children. Can
you explain them to the audience? Yes. I was put as chairman of
the Rules Committee last year specifically to take up legislation where the Republican caucus wanted
to speak with one voice, and I had the opportunity to direct the drafting
of a bill that would prohibit gender transition procedures in minor children, children under
the age of eighteen, because in Oklahoma, once you're eighteen, you can
make your own medical decisions. And I took great care in crafting it.
My goal was to make sure it could stand up in court, and so
far we have prevailed in federal district court and we're awaiting a decision from the
Tenth Circuit right now. We said that we are not doing anything about behavioral
care, mental health care, anxiety depression. Those were not involved in this
bill. It was simply the physical treatments on minor children that we wanted to
avoid because you're making adult decisions as a child, and I believe that parents
have been put in a very awkward position. Some of my colleagues actually wanted
the bill to write to be written to prosecute the parents, and I said,
no, absolutely not. The parents themselves are at a loss in some
of these situations, so we need to show compassion for both the kids and
the parents. But just make sure that in Oklahoma we don't to perform these
procedures on children. And got that passed fairly handly, and again we have
prevailed thus far, and other states that have done it our way, just
clear and not tried to muddy the waters by putting too many other things in
the bill have also prevailed in the courts, and that is my goal.
Good policy that can stand up in a court of law. Senator, can
you explain Senate Bill eight thirty four and whether it allows more abortions back in
Oklahoma? Thank you. No, it was not intended to do that,
and we did not take up the bill in the end. I regret so
much that there is a division in the pro life community in Oklahoma at the
time that we are facing two very fierce foes. We are facing the Oklahoma
Supreme Court, which declared a right to abortion in the Oklahoma Constitution in March
of last year, at the very same time that I was trying to get
eight thirty four passed. To make all of the language and all of our
statutes having to do with abortion and pro life read the same. Every definition
should be the same, every exception should be the same, so that our
state Supreme Court could not pick the laws apart and find a weak link.
But they found a weeklink because we took no action. And now we are
facing the abortionists themselves who will be coming to Oklahoma for our unborn children,
and we have not done enough to protect the unborn from the ad campaign that
is going to be coming our way that has swept other states, other pro
life states just like ours. Eight thirty four was intended to say, if
the exception exists in this part of the law, it should exist over here.
I was the author, the Senate author of House Bill for three two
seven. That was the Steerman Daniels bill that did shut the abortion clinics down
in Oklahoma. It was because you could sue the abortionist rather than the criminal
law you sue. And that was the bill that had the rape and incest
exception in it for the very first time in our statutes. So I simply
took that and said, along with ectoptic presidency and our definition of contraception and
our definition of save the life of the mother, we're going to make all
of our statutes sound the same so that the abortionists and the pro abortion Supreme
Court cannot pick them apart. We didn't take that action. We've already suffered
in the state Supreme Court, and I fear we will suffer when the initiative
petition for abortion on demand up until the time of birth in our constitution comes
our way and we better be prepared to fight for life at that time.
Senator, do you agree or disagree with using tax payer dollars for economic development
instead of allowing the free market to function. When I served on the city
council, I remember going to our economic development people over the chamber early on
and saying, I don't like incentives. Why can't we get rid of these
incentives, to which he said, that's fine. When everybody else gets rid
of them, we can get rid of them. But to be competitive sometimes
you have to have incentives. Here in Bartlesville, we have what a quarter
cent economic development sales tax that we have renewed every five years for over three
decades, and it has worked exactly as it's supposed to. Jobs, bring
it to the BDA, bring it to the city council, have the format
for the rebate or the incentive baked in before the money goes out the door,
and then if you don't achieve what you said you're going to achieve,
the money comes back into the kitty. It's the same the state level.
It's a little more complicated and the numbers of dollars are larger than they are
for a city. But I believe in certain instances incentives are justified. We
have a Quality Jobs Act in Oklahoma's been here a long long time. That
is all practically on autopilot. Over in the Department of Commerce. I know
Chronicle Phillips benefited from it. ABB's benefited from it. These one off,
one time things do come to us. I much prefer rebates to putting money
out the door and then hoping that you get the return on the investment.
We are looking at how our Department of Commerce is structured to make sure that
we couldn't do it better. It was proposed that we should create an entire
separate Department of Commerce for economic development this last year. I opposed that.
I told the author I wasn't going to do that, and in the end
the bill was simply to set up a committee to study how can we do
economic development better in Oklahoma? So if we do use tax dollars, we
do it in the most sophisticated, well researched way possible. Our next question
came into via email as well. Why is our legislator are allowing a bar
association which is a private organization. Why are they given the right to appoint
members of the important judicial nominating Commission. Gosh, Tom, I didn't send
a question, but it could have been from me. My biggest reform effort
this year, and I've been building on it for several years, is judicial
reform, which is changing the way we appoint our appellate justices in Oklahoma.
I want the people to decide whether or not they'd like to move to the
federal system. The President vets and appoints, the Senate confirms, and then
they get life tenure. We have life tenure now with this retention ballot.
We've never thrown any justice off. But given what I've just said about the
pro life issue, I suggest you vote off Couger and Edmondson when you have
the opportunity in November. They are two of the five pro abortion justices who
found the right to abortion in our constitution. I want to change it so
that we take this unelected commission out of the loop. Right now, people
apply to be a justice, which I've always thought is rather odd. But
you apply to be a justice, you're vetted by this commission that is unduly
influenced by the Bar Association because they're the only law lawyers allowed on the commission.
So when you turn to somebody and say you're a lawyer, you know
more than me. That's been entirely controlled by the Bar Association electing its members
to the Commission. It's been in place for almost fifty years. Before that,
we had partisan elections of justices. And so I'd like to give the
folks the opportunity to say, yes, the governor's elected by all the people.
The Senate is elected by the districts. So you've got the two elected
branches should be the ones making the appointment and the confirmation, and then set
this independent judiciary on its way. I think we would get much better decisions
from our court. They would be much more reflective of the people of the
state of Oklahoma. Sadly, even though the Senate got it, I'm proud
of by Senate colleagues, the House did not. They it failed. The
House didn't want the people to get to vote on this. But I'll be
back to try again because I think it would get a much better result for
us in Oklahoma. Patiently, when they act as legislators in black robes.
I have two more questions for you here before we wrap up. Center.
If a pandemic were to occur again, such as COVID, nineteen, would
you vote to require masks in public building? Thank you. Note I drew
the line on telling private employers what they must do, anything that prohibited government
from demanding a vaccine or a mask. I was absolutely all for that.
I'm very proud of the fact that we already had in place in Oklahoma very
limited emergency powers for our governor what other states were looking at as model language.
We already had a thirty day emergency. It had to be re upped
by the legislature. They could take it away at any time. So we
entered the pandemic with the tools in place to make sure that our freedoms were
not unduly affected by that very tumultuous time. The other thing I was able
to do then, with one of my colleagues in the House, was to
write the bill that gave liability protecttion to business owners. When we were starting
to open up again, people said, what if we're sued? So we
made sure that as long as you were file following one guidance from the Department
of Labor or the Centers for Disease Control or the Oklahoma Department Health, if
you were following one of those guidances, you would not be liable if somebody
claimed they contracted COVID in their place of employment or in the business, and
that was another thing that helped get us open a lot quicker than some of
the other states. Senator, what steps would you take to end the state
income tax? I have tried to do that already, and along with judicial
reform, I will continue to work on it. I'm frustrated that we have
not yet adopted a formula by which we can gradually reduce the income tax depending
on state revenues. We did it before, but did it in such a
way that as soon as revenue went up a little bit, it triggered the
cut, and then we faced the budget shortfall of time twenty seventeen and twenty
eighteen, and people got completely cold feet about the trigger that was in place,
and so they repealed it. I've been on a tax reform task force,
hard to say, for the last two years, where we've studied how
all the other states do it, and we've had the Tax Foundation in here,
We've had ALEC in here, We've had the state and the US Chamber
of Commerce talking about how different states construct their tax code so as to figure
out a way to gradually go to zero. I authored the quarter sent reduction
in twenty three. The ProTem took it away from me, but that's okay.
We got it passed. And this year with the Speaker, I authored
that again without the cut but just the formula. But again there's just too
much disagreement on which is the right way to go for the Republican Party in
both houses to unite. So I will continue to work on that. Senator,
it's down time for your closing statement. Thank you, so. Tax
cuts, judicial reform protecting the Republican reforms were put in place when my party
finally took the majority in both houses after one hundred years of rule by the
now minority party. It's important to protect those reforms, lawsuit reform, workers
comp reform, pension reform, because they impact every decision that we make,
particularly the monetary ones at the state level. And because of term limits,
which I do support and voted for, I am now the institutional knowledge for
those reforms, because when the pro tem turns out this year, there won't
be anybody left except those of us who were working through the Republican Party to
get legislators to put those reforms in place. So I will continue to work
on those. I'm very interested in rolling back regulations. We have far too
many. Even in a state that doesn't overly regulate, we could improve greatly,
and I believe this would be a great help to small business owners in
our state who employ most of the people. Standing up for individual freedom will
continue to be very important to me. Having passed bills on campus free speech,
free exercise of religion, donor privacy, election integrity, I continue to
be asked to run those sorts of bills, and I will continue to work
with all those advocates that want to protect our freedoms and so. In closing,
it's been the honor of a lifetime to serve these last eight years.
I've had some opportunities the last six years to be in leadership which allows me
to have a larger voice and input at the table about what happens in our
state and therefore what happens in Senate District twenty nine. I think those opportunities
are ahead of me for these next four years, and I would appreciate your
vote. On June eighteen, danielsokaysenate dot com Facebook centator to Julie Daniel's message
me, or you can text or call me at nine one eight three three
one seven two sixty seven. Thank you KWN, Thank you Bartlesville. Thank
you Senate District twenty nine. Thank you very much, Senator Julie Daniels.
Once again, folks, that you can catch all of our podcasts from all
of our candidates on our website at Bartlesville Radio dot com. It's called the
campaign Corner. It's enter the demand tab, so if you want to go
there. And also a reminder that we have early voting on Thursday and Friday
upstairs fourth floor. Saturday as well, shortened time. I believe it's eight
to two and that's upstairs two on the fourth floor as well. Again,
thank you Senator Daniels for being our guest here tonight. Folks, you are
watching and listening to our forum for our twenty twenty four primary. It's right
here at City Hall in Bartlesville and it's being brought to you by Phillip sixty
six and Susicq's Village Mall on AM fourteen hundred KWON Bartlesville, FM, ninety
three point three K one Bartlesville and also at ninety five point one kW and
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