What does success look like? JAN’s Legislative Recap + Reflection
Friends,
Every year, after state legislative sessions have adjourned and governors have acted on the bills that have crossed their desks, the JAN team conducts an internal debrief built around one question: Were we successful this year? It’s a straightforward question, but one with a surprisingly complex answer.
No two legislative sessions ever feel the same, each one feels uniquely challenging.
This year, seven JAN-supported bills – three in Oklahoma and four in Arizona – were signed into law. It’s an incredible achievement that our team is deeply proud of. But when we reflect on this question at the end of session, we always realize that not all wins can be measured through the number of bills signed into law, especially when the broader political challenges that have nothing to do with criminal justice policy take center stage.
In Arizona, a months-long budget fight ate up nearly all the oxygen in the building, and of a record 2,116 bills introduced, just over 10% of those became law.
In Oklahoma, budgetary constraints meant any bill with a fiscal impact was DOA.
In Minnesota, lawmakers did their jobs against a backdrop that’s hard to fathom: the targeted assassinations and attempted assassinations of their own colleagues, a deadly school shooting, the deaths of two residents at the hands of federal immigration agents, a daycare fraud scandal that shook public trust in state oversight–all under a legislature split almost exactly down the middle and saddled with a power-sharing agreement that felt designed to prevent anything from moving forward.
And in New Mexico’s 30-day budget session, lawmakers were trying to grapple with multiple urgent, complex policy issues ill-suited to being resolved in such a tight window.
Instead, we are most proud of the legislator who told us three years ago that criminal justice reform wasn’t a priority of theirs, and has since become a steadfast champion; the conversations where indifference yields to curiosity and curiosity fuels a mission; helping legislative colleagues from opposite sides of the aisle go from unlikely allies to dependable bipartisan collaborators; the conversation that seemed to stall out, only to unexpectedly bear fruit a year or two later; and the unprompted email from lawmakers asking for our advice and collaboration.
This year in particular, we found ourselves thinking less about any single policy or bill and more about what actually moves this work forward over the long term. Even when our top priorities for the year don’t make it across the finish line, we can’t overlook the fact that we still moved the needle forward.
Four of our priority bills were signed into law this year: individualized probation conditions (SB 1662), the elimination of three fees tied to a defendant’s constitutional rights (SB 2265), new fines-and-fees data reporting (HB 4158) and a grant program to expand veteran treatment courts (HB 2960). We also had a defensive win when Governor Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have imposed a harsh mandatory minimum sentence for low-level drug possession.
Funding for Arizona’s Independent Correctional Oversight Office did not make the final budget, but do we consider that a loss? To us, the outcome is disappointing, but the movement generated constitutes a significant win. The proposal earned near-unanimous legislative support, generated sustained media attention, and we saw several Republican lawmakers calling for spending an annual $1.5 million to make the office operational – something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Just as importantly, it reflected a growing consensus that independent correctional oversight is necessary. That represents a major shift, and the change in perspective is a victory in its own right. The path forward is a little brighter.
It’s hard to describe how politically difficult this session was in Minnesota, and we attempted to summarize some of the biggest challenges above. We felt the urgency to support an issue that we had not previously engaged on to meet the moment: legislation that would have allowed individuals to sue law enforcement who violated their constitutional rights.
Minnesota passes most legislation in omnibus packages. Due to the unique agreement drafted for the power-sharing agreement in the legislature, many bill packages did not make it to the finish line at all. However, the conversation around the constitutional accountability legislation (HF 3628 / SF 3629 / HF 3477/ HF 3414) made it clear that there is bipartisan support for this issue, even if there wasn’t support for the vehicle it was in.
In a hard-won step forward, HF 3174 secured a hearing this session despite a packed legislative calendar that made it a long shot. The bill addresses a critical gap in Minnesota’s background study process, which can permanently bar people from working in healthcare and social services even after they have demonstrated rehabilitation.
While neither reform made it to the finish line, we are expecting to be more successful on both pieces of legislation following the mid-term elections and projected shifts in party control at the Capitol.
With this session’s narrow scope, much of our work focused on engaging lawmakers on why proposed bills that would have prosecuted more kids as adults, rolled back bail reform, and increased penalties for simple drug possession would produce negative consequences. Fortunately, none of those bills passed, and we consider that a “defensive” win.
At the same time, lawmakers approved three measures to study the state’s justice system, youth violence prevention, and the feasibility of overdose prevention centers. These kinds of efforts to better understand the issues may not attract much attention, but they’re the quiet, necessary groundwork that good policy is built upon.
Governor Stitt signed three of our priorities: full implementation of the state’s Clean Slate law (SB 2030), which will put roughly 354,000 Oklahomans on a path to record sealing; new data collection on cost arrest warrants issued over unpaid fines and fees (HB 3321); and a requirement that courts hold ability-to-pay hearings before piling on financial obligations at sentencing (HB 4237). He also signed an executive order requiring new transparency around civil asset forfeiture (EO 2026-05).
However, several other bills stalled out or never received hearings, mostly due to their projected fiscal notes or concerns about potential costs to be borne by system stakeholders: a bill eliminating more justice system fees, another ending debt-based driver’s license suspensions, and one more requiring judges to waive court debt after consistent payments are made for 24 months.
None of these are losses, especially since the sponsor (Rep. Tammy West, R) is chairing an interim study on the debt-based driver’s license reform this fall, which will lay the groundwork for any potential legislation to be filed on the subject in 2027.
While the cost-warrant bill started out as a sweeping ban on cost arrest warrants and was narrowed under pressure, we’re confident that the data made available through the bill will allow us to make an even more forceful, evidence-backed argument to end the use of incarceration for unpaid court debt next year.
Despite the difficult landscape, we had real, hard-fought and worth-celebrating wins in our states this year, and made progress with the slower, foundational work underneath it.
We deepened relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle built upon years of genuine engagement, had conversations that resulted in the recalcitrant chair of a judiciary committee giving a bill a hearing even though they’re against it and worked with coalition partners inspired and energized to continue supporting an issue years after it first arose.
When we ask ourselves simple questions and allow ourselves time to engage with the complex answers that come as a result, we can appreciate the work in its full context and be realistic about what we can accomplish in the future.
From where we sit, the future is bright, even if the path to success takes on different shapes each year.
Warmly,
The JAN team
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