OKLAHOMA CITY — With the clock ticking on the legislative session and no budget agreement in sight, lawmakers are considering their options in response to a federal directive regarding which restrooms transgender individuals can use.
“Senators are hearing from constituents who are registering their complete frustration and disappointment in the federal government,” Aaron Cooper, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman, said Wednesday.
“The Oklahoma Senate is examining its options in responding to what is arguably the most egregious example of executive overreach to occur during the Obama administration,” Cooper said.
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Bingman, R-Sapulpa, did not return a phone call seeking comment, and Cooper had no additional information.
The U.S. Departments of Justice and Education issued a directive last week to help schools ensure the civil rights of transgender students. The directive instructed public schools to treat transgender students consistently with their gender identity, including allowing them to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.
Compliance with Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs and activities, was cited along with civil rights court rulings as the rationale for the policy.
Toby Jenkins, executive director of Tulsa-based Oklahomans for Equality, said President Barack Obama’s statements on the directive last week were not anything new. Obama was reiterating the policies federal agencies have been following for the last several years, Jenkins said.
“It could not have come at a better time for our legislators, who are notorious for not taking care of the real business of government but meddling and messing and wasting time over silly things that do not move this state forward and do not protect working-class families,” he said.
Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, an Oklahoma City-based group, put out an action alert on the issue.
“I honestly think it is a distraction,” he said. “I think the Legislature is not able to balance the budget, can’t right the ship and can’t even pass revenue bills sitting in front of them to fund mental health, yet they want to use little kids using the bathroom as a distraction,” he said.
Lawmakers are expected to come up with a fiscal year 2017 budget by 5 p.m. May 27. The state expects to have $1.3 billion less to spend in crafting the budget than it had this year due to depressed energy prices, tax cuts, and an inability to reign in tax credits and incentives that were promoted to increase economic activity.
Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa, said lawmakers are concerned about federal interference with public schools. “We are looking to provide a response for those students who have objections to sharing bathrooms and shower facilities with a transgender student,” Crain said. “And we are trying to provide instruction and direction to school administrators when they are faced with this situation and doing so in response to the outcry many senators have heard from concerned parents throughout the state.”
North Carolina recently made national headlines for passage of its House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. It bans individuals from using public restrooms that do not correspond with the sex assigned to them at birth.
The Williams Institute, a UCLA School of Law think tank that focuses on sexual-orientation and gender-identity law and public policy, estimates that North Carolina’s HB2 could cost the state $5 billion in lost federal funding and business investment.
Sen. Joseph Silk, R-Broken Bow, was the author of Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 1014, which would make it “unlawful for a person to use a gender-specific restroom when that person’s biological gender is contrary to that of the gender-specific restroom.” That measure failed to secure legislative approval earlier this session.
