Senate overrides Stitt's veto of domestic violence bill Wednesday
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The Oklahoma Senate handed Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt his first veto of the 2024 legislative session Wednesday, easily overriding Stitt's veto Senate Bill 1470.
The measure, known as the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, was written to help survivors of domestic violence, its author Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat said.
The governor’s veto was overridden by a vote of 46-1. Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, was the lone vote against the override.
Under the bill, a defendant must provide to the court evidence corroborating that the defendant was, at the time of the offense, a victim of domestic violence and at least one piece of documentary evidence that is a court record, presentence report, social services record, hospital record, sworn statement from a witness to the domestic violence, law enforcement record, domestic incident report or protective order.
If the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was a survivor of domestic abuse, the court is to depart from the applicable sentence.
Treat said the bill directs a court to consider as a mitigating factor that the person has been abused physically, sexually, or psychologically by the person’s sexual partner, family member or member of the household, the trafficker of the person or other individual who used the person for financial gain when being sentenced.
The Senate's override came just one day after Stitt's veto. The measure was one of 11 bills Stitt vetoed Tuesday.
In his veto message Stitt said he "remained committed to criminal justice reform and modernization but Senate Bill 1470 — which has been championed by some criminal justice advocates ― is bad policy."
"Although sold as a shield to protect victims, this bill would create a sword by which criminal defendants will fight the imposition of justice based on prior abuse. Said differently, untold numbers of violent individuals who are incarcerated or should be incarcerated in the future will have great opportunity to present a threat to society to to this bill's impact," the governor's veto message said.
'The Legislature understood the policy'
Supporters of the measure, including the Oklahoma Survivors Justice Coalition said Stitt's analysis of the measure was incorrect.
"This bill is the product of two years of sustained advocacy by domestic violence victims, domestic violence service providers, human trafficking shelters, lawyers for survivors of abuse, directly-impacted survivors, conservative think tanks and advocates across the state," a statement by the group said. "The bill has been lauded locally and nationally, by conservatives and liberals, as commonsense sentencing reform."
The group pointed to the governor's veto message which said, in part: “Let me give you a hypothetical that captures the essence of this bill. Y abuses X. Years later, X is convicted of committing crimes against A, B, and C. This bill would allow X to present evidence of Y’s abuse as mitigation in sentencing for crimes A, B, and C.That’s a bridge too far.”
"This is a factually incorrect statement about what this bill does," the group said. "If SB 1470 did what the governor claimed in his veto message, it would not have passed the Oklahoma Senate 45-0 or the Oklahoma House 84-3. The Legislature understood the policy."
Colleen McCarty, co-founder of the coalition and executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed said Oklahoma cannot afford to leave behind survivors of domestic abuse "in a state that ranks first in the country in the perpetration of domestic violence and third in domestic homicides.
"The Oklahoma Survivors Act enjoys widespread, bipartisan support throughout the state and throughout the country, and it’s long past time to begin implementing this critical legislation,” she said.
On Wednesday, Treat said it was appalling the governor wouldn’t stand up for the victims of domestic violence.
"The governor is playing politics in the worst way possible, and this stands to negatively impact the lives of victims of horrific crimes, further traumatizing them," Treat said. "There was zero communication from the governor or his team before vetoing this legislation. He either has no grasp of this policy or doesn’t care enough to get involved to inform himself. Whichever it is, it’s embarrassing, especially for our state that has such a high rate of domestic violence.”
Senate Bill 1470 passed the Senate 45-0 in March and 84-3 in the House last Wednesday. The House of Representatives must also override the governor's veto before SB 1470 can become law.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma Senate overrides governor's veto of Survivors' Act bill
