Toni Hasenbeck

Toni Hasenbeck (born August 17, 1971) is an American politician who has served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from the 65th district since 2018.

Oklahoma House of Representatives

Hasenbeck ran in the 2014 state house election to succeed Joe Dorman as a member of the Democratic Party. She was defeated by Scooter Park, who she successfully primaried in 2018 as a member of the Republican Party, criticizing Park's vote to raise taxes to fund teacher wages. She served in the 57th Oklahoma Legislature and 58th Oklahoma Legislature.

58th Legislature

In April 2021, Rep. Hasenbeck revived a bill by Justin Humphrey that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women's sports. She justified her support using trans exclusionary feminist language saying "this is not an anti-transgender bill at all... this is an absolutely pro-female-athlete bill." Rep. Mauree Turner criticized the legislation saying "denying the existence of trans children is absolutely absurd."

59th Legislature

After a mid-September 2022 Oklahoma House interim study brought by Hasenbeck, where criminalized survivor April Wilkens's story and others were used to explain the need for new legislation that could give second look resentencing to many currently in Oklahoma prisons, she authored and filed HB 1639 in January 2023—a failed bill that would have allowed "a survivor to enter into a lesser sentencing range when evidence of abuse has been substantiated." Julie Daniels was the Senate author. It offered "nuance in sentencing." and the bill was originally called the Universal Defense Act. The Oklahoma attorney general seems supportive of solutions the bill attempts to address. Hasenbeck has said “For whatever reason women have this problem in the court system that they end up with larger prison sentences then typically the men that were producing the acts to lead to the final act." At least 156 women at Mabel Bassett wrote "letters claiming to have experienced intimate partner violence at the time their crime was committed." Colleen McCarty, who has also worked on the bill, says that legislation is necessary because the parole process has not helped April Wilkens and other women. Wilkens, for example, has never been able to "use the evidence of her domestic abuse in her appeal for early release."

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, the bill passed out of the Oklahoma House Judiciary—Criminal Committee unanimously. The Sentencing Project thanked the members for passing the bill out of committee. The committee members included Rande Worthen (chair), Collin Dule, John George, Jason Lowe, Stan May, Lonnie Sims, and Judd Strom. After the bill passed committee, Wilkens was quoted as saying on a phone interview that “So many women in prison with me here have told me just chilling stories about the abuse they’ve suffered too before coming here." It is estimated that, if retroactivity is left in the bill, it could help 100 to 500 women and that data from the "Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice shows from over 40,000 domestic violence calls in Oklahoma County in 2021, fewer than 1,000 arrests were made. Additionally, a study by FWD.us shows 66% of women in Oklahoma prisons experienced intimate partner violence within a year of their incarceration." Hasenbeck pointed out that women "can face many forms of coercion in a relationship, including everything from the loss of economic security to the threat of dissemination of non-consensual pornography."

Before and after the bill passed committee, advocates for HB 1639 visited the capitol to speak with legislators and conduct art projects. Though the bill passed committee, Hasenbeck did strike the title of the bill, which allows changes to be made to the language still, so who this applies to is not finalized. A similar bill was passed in California.

The bill was voted on in March 22, 2023 and passed the House in a 91-0 vote. However, the retroactivity language of the bill was removed. Hasenbeck "significantly amended the bill ahead of its vote in the Oklahoma House...effectively gutting it." The state's "influential District Attorneys Council pushed for a watered-down version that would not have helped Wilkens or any other survivors currently in prison, simply giving judges discretion to impose lighter sentences for people convicted of crimes against abusive partners in the future." Cyndi Munson questioned why and Hasenbeck replied it was due to needing to make concessions to get it on the floor for a vote. Mother Jones reported that it was to "make the bill more palatable to other Republicans" because the "Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, a powerful lobbying group of local prosecutors, reportedly opposes retroactive relief." The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice released a statement asking the Senate to add retroactivity back in and saying that often the prosecution of current criminalized survivors tried "to keep out the evidence of the abuse because it was prejudicial to their cases." They were "told the Oklahoma House leadership would not hear a bill on the floor that provided 'retroactive relief' to people in prison. They were, however, amenable to prospective relief for survivors who have yet to enter the justice system nd thatthe prosecution and extreme sentencing of survivors is a problem, but klahomawill only commit to fixing that problem going forward." Many other organizations, such as DVIS and SheBrews and persons involved in the OK Survivor Justice Coalition voiced their concern but hope in the bill. Hasenbeck said "she plans to develop future legislation to expand the Act so that Oklahomans such as April Wilkens...can have a chance at freedom." Daniels herself was quoted as implying she didn't think the bill would pass this session, and that she "did suggest that maybe the bill just be laid over and worked on over the interim (session)...”

The associate director and professor at the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. David A. McLeod, encouraged legislators to add retroactivity back in, citing "upward of 65% of incarcerated women in Oklahoma were in abusive relationships at the time of their arrest." Stephanie Henson, Vice President of the Oklahoma chapter of the League of Women Voters said that HB 1639 would "help modernize our justice system and reduce the number of women who are unfairly punished or receive unnecessarily long prison sentences." Hasenbeck has stated that, because of HB 1639, she has had District Attorneys in her office who dislike the bill "because they don't want to have lookbacks" on their past cases if retroactivity is retained in the language.

When the session ended, the retroactive language had not been added back in and the bill did not go to the floor for a vote. The OK Survivor Justice Coalition released a statement saying they will continue to fight for those who are incarcerated for fighting against their abuser. Advocates of the coalition held a "press conference on the steps of the Capitol to plead with legislators to restore retroactivity and allow those domestic violence victims in prison to be included in the law change. The bill was released from conference but never scheduled on the House floor to be heard with the new language." This was despite House Floor leader Jon Echols saying he "supports making the legislation retroactive."

Also in 2023, Hasenbeck and Daniels introduced legislation that would ban trans surgery for children.

2nd session of the 59th Legislature

In 2024, after HB 1639 failed to pass the previous year, Hasenbeck introduced HB 3640, calling it the "Doemstic Abuse Survivorship Act." The bill "requires certain attorneys to complete three hours of education and training annually on domestic abuse survivorship, as well as requires presentence investigations to include whether the offender previously survived abusive relationships, sexual assaults or human trafficking." She said "the biggest change" in this bill "is the option for currently imprisoned people with similar cases to petition for sentencing relief."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasenbeck, Toni
1971 births
Living people
Republican Party members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives
21st-century American legislators
21st-century American women politicians
Women state legislators in Oklahoma
21st-century Oklahoma politicians