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Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has made criminal justice reform a centerpiece of her second term. Timothy Clary / AFP/Getty Images file

On the same day that 65 percent of Oklahoma voters cast ballots for President Trump, nearly as many approved a measure that allowed drug possession offenses to be downgraded to misdemeanors. And in the current legislative session, lawmakers are considering an array of bills supported by Republican Gov. Mary Fallin that would take reforms further.

The bills' prospects remain tenuous, mostly because lawmakers are also trying to close a massive budget shortfall. Reformers say that's no coincidence.

"I think people are generally frustrated with the drug war," said Ryan Gentzler, a policy analyst for the Oklahoma Policy Institute. "They understand it's not helping anybody get off drugs or helping crime rates go down. But a big selling point from the state's perspective is we simply don't have the money to keep building more prisons."

Kris Steele, a former Republican speaker of Oklahoma's House of Representatives, now heads Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform. He insists that criminal justice reform is a conservative issue through and through.

In that sense, Trump and Sessions are out of step, Steele said.

"The notion that we can somehow incarcerate our way out of this issue has proven to be inaccurate," Steele said. "It's a fallacy that is not supported by research. The states that have done their research and based their decisions on data and facts have come to a very different conclusion."

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Republican States Make the Case Against Trump's Drug Policy ... - NBCNews.com