Oklahoma legislators file more than 3,000 bills and joint resolutions for coming session

There are exceptions to the prefiling rules. The House speaker and the Senate president pro tem can introduce bills anytime, as can some of their chief lieutenants. Budget and appropriations bills generally are not filed until near the end of the session.

A large share of House bills — more than 400 this year — are shell bills, which means they contain no substantive language. These are essentially spares to address issues that may develop during the session, although in some cases shell bills are placeholders for planned legislation that misses the prefiling deadline.

Shell bills are put into play with committee or floor substitutes that replace pro forma language with the actual legislation.

The Senate does not allow shell bills but has more liberal rules concerning amendments.

Unlike the U.S. Congress — and the Senate — House rules require that amendments be germane to the bill’s original subject. So multiple House shell bills are filed for all 93 titles and subtitles of the Oklahoma Statutes.

Of the near 3,100 bills prefiled, most will be sidelined in less than a month and only about 400 will eventually make it into law.

Because the Legislature operates on a fixed timeline, gaveling in on the first Monday of every February and adjourning no later than the last Friday in May, it sticks to a strict succession of deadlines. This, too, is unlike the U.S. Congress.

The first deadline is March 3, when bills and joint resolutions that have not been passed from committees in their chambers of origin are considered dormant. Because this is the first year of a two-year legislative cycle, those bills can be brought back next year except for those voted down on what is called “final action.”

A negative final action also bars other measures on the same subject from being heard during the two-year legislative cycle, so committee and floor votes are rarely taken unless the author is confident of the outcome.