10-05-2025
Remembrance walk held after veto of crucial bill for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People
SHAWNEE, Okla. (KFOR) – The Citizen Potawatomie Nation held a Remembrance Walk Friday in Shawnee to honor the many Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
This comes the same week Gov. Stitt vetoed a crucial bill that would've helped fund an investigative unit to help solve cases surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
'The veto, I can honestly say I didn't understand,' said Lorenda Morgan.
Morgan led the way for Ida's Law after her cousin, Ida Beard, disappeared from El Reno in 2015. She stood by Gov. Stitt as he signed it into law.
That law essentially created an investigative unit within the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that would help try to solve cases surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
The money for the unit has to come from the federal government, but officials said the process is hard, so getting money for the unit is hard too.
Tribes upset over a bill vetoed by Gov. Stitt
The veto came this week from Gov. Stitt, and it applied to House Bill 1137.
One of Stitt's reasons for the veto was that agencies shouldn't prioritize justice 'because of race.'
'OSBI is tasked with prosecuting all kinds of crime, including anyone who is murdered in Oklahoma, regardless of race,' said Gov. Stitt in a video on social media.
'Everyone is equally protected under the law, but Native Americans didn't have that protection under the law like everyone else,' said Morgan.
The peacewalk was hosted for a second year in a row and was also held through the House of Hope, the tribe's domestic violence intervention program. The goal was to raise awareness for the disproportionate violence against indigenous peoples with a walk during National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Week.
There were talks this week from lawmakers about a possible override.
Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton was asked specifically about overrides, and he said that there were 'several of Rep. Weaver's bills that were vetoed that we're going to talk about.'
Rep. Weaver was the Senator co-author on HB 1137, he was also a part of a bipartisan-supported bill that would have required insurance companies to cover certain screenings that can catch breast cancer early, a decision that has left the bill's author, who is battling breast cancer herself, heartbroken.
'It seems like the governor has his legislation a little bit wrong in terms of what his bill was trying to do. Again, we have efforts that we're working on to hopefully see an override,' said Rep. Cindy Munson on Thursday.
The way for an override to work, there would have to be a two-thirds vote to approve in both the House and the Senate.
Both of those bills had overwhelming support.
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