The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Oklahoma
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Laws 2025, SB 672, c. 7, secs. 1-2, eff. July 1, 2025, amending 63 O.S. 2021, secs. 683.8 and 683.9
- Issued
- 2025-04-21 Apr. 21, 2025
- Effective
- 2025-07-01
- End
- standing (post-period; no application to 2020-2021)
- In force
- Standing since July 1, 2025 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Limitation types
- Emergency declarationBusiness closureOther
- Addressees
- the Governor (from July 1, 2025)
- Character
- statutory limitation
- Collection
- Standing duties: Oklahoma DUT-OK
Operative words
during a pandemic under a declared state of emergency by the Governor or the President of the United States, the Governor of this state shall not close or force the closing of any business without documented scientific evidence that the nature of a particular business actually contributes to the direct spreading of disease relating to the pandemic.
Penalty
What it required
Nothing in any claim quarter. From July 1, 2025 the Governor may not close businesses in a pandemic without documented scientific evidence and 'notice and hearing to any business determined to be nonessential', and 'economic stabilization' in 683.9(1) 'specifically excludes the determination of essential or nonessential private business enterprises or the closing of private business enterprises'. The enrolled bill's base text is 63 O.S. 2021, secs. 683.8 and 683.9, the law in force in 2020-2021, and the Legislature's 2025 decision to write these limits into the two sections that EO 2020-07 and its amendments recited is a legislative identification of the power those orders exercised. Character as recorded: statutory_limitation (on emergency powers).
Retrieval noteEvidentiary use only: a post-period enactment. Section 1's new subsection F of 683.8 invokes Okla. Const. art. II, sec. 2. The base text of 683.8(D)(7) in the enrolled bill (unchanged by the bill's title) gives the Governor direction and control of 'the conduct of civilians and the movement of and cessation of movement of pedestrians and vehicular traffic during, prior and subsequent to natural and man-made disasters and emergencies' and of 'public meetings or gatherings'. The memoranda state the 2020-2021 law from DUT-OK-006 and Ho (DUT-OK-019) and cite this exhibit only for what the Legislature did in 2025.