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.