On Thursday of last week, the State Legislature arrived at a deadline for moving legislation forward -- and thus many bills advanced in the Oklahoma Legislature from one chamber into the other, while many other bills were, in effect, killed. On this edition of ST, we discuss several of the bills now moving forward while also offering a review of several of the troubling issues facing state lawmakers more generally (such as the state budget gap, of course). Our guest is Gene Perry, the Policy Director at the non-profit, non-partisan Oklahoma Policy Institute. Per the OK Policy website, Perry is "a native Oklahoman.... At OK Policy, Gene supervises policy staff, helps to identify policy priorities for the organization, and does research focusing on tax and budget, education, and criminal justice issues. Gene also serves on the board of the Oklahoma Sustainability Network, is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and chairs the communications advisory committee for the State Priorities Partnership, a nationwide network of state fiscal policy think tanks."