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  • 2009-05-07 (xsd:date)
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  • Oklahoma Did It Anyway (tl)
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  • This Update from Oklahoma list reproduced above hit the Internet in 2009. Our analysis of it from that time is as follows: Oklahoma House Bill 1330 (the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act), passed by the state legislature in April 2009, allowed for a Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on the Capitol grounds (not over the front entrance of the Capitol) in accordance with existing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The monument itself was not installed at the Capitol until November 2012, and in June 2015 the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered its removal. The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 declared that It shall be unlawful for any person to transport, move, or attempt to transport within the United States any alien knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the alien has come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law, in furtherance of the illegal presence of the alien in the United States. (As indicated by the title, this legislation was passed back in 2007, during the Bush administration.) Enforcement of that measure was suspended for four years by court challenges maintaining that it was at odds with federal law, but the measure was finally upheld by the Oklahoma state Supreme Court in June 2011. However, the court struck down a provision of that law that denied bail to illegal immigrants arrested on felony counts or driving under the influence complaints. In April 2009, Oklahoma passed legislation to expand existing law requiring DNA samples to include individuals convicted of certain violent misdemeanor crimes as well as illegal aliens upon arrest for any crime. In May 2010, the Oklahoma House defeated legislation that would have expanded DNA collection to include those accused (but not yet tried or convicted) of such crimes, and in October 2014 the Oklahoman reported that since 2009 law enforcement agencies neglected to perform DNA tests on tens of thousands of people convicted of serious misdemeanors, despite a provision in state law for such testing. In April 2009, Oklahoma passed a resolution demanding the federal government cease and desist mandates beyond its authority as designated by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This declaration was a resolution, not a law, and therefore was a symbolic act with no legal effect. In 2004 and 2005, the Oklahoma legislature passed statutes allowing employees to keep firearms in locked vehicles on company property after Weyerhaeuser reportedly fired eight workers who violated company policy by having guns in their vehicles at a mill in southeastern Oklahoma. Several companies challenged that law in a federal lawsuit which maintained the statutes were unconstitutional and were pre-empted by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, and in 2007 a U.S. District Judge barred enforcement of the statutes. However, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in February 2009, ruling that it interferes with Oklahoma's police powers and essentially promulgates a court-made safety standard ... Such action is beyond the province of federal courts. A subsequent law passed in 2012 also allows employees to store ammunition in their locked vehicles parked at work. (en)
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