In addition to their annual bills that fight the culture war battles of the day, one thing our conservative lawmakers love to do more than anything is try to subvert the will and power of the Oklahoma people, and make it harder to get an initiative petition on the ballot.
As this article and this article and this article and this article show, it’s a pretty popular pastime.
In fact, I’d say it stands right up there with introducing an anti-abortion bill, authoring a pro-gun law, or simply hooking up with an L.A. at a Sine Die party as a right of annual legislator passage!
Although past attempts to make the people even more powerless in our alleged democracy didn’t go as planned, the ruling establishment has called upon State Rep. Charles McCall – the influential Oklahoma Speaker of the House who is likely running for Governor in a few years – to hammer through HB 1105.
Dubbed the “Subverting the Will of the Oklahoma People Act,” it’s a bit tamer than other efforts to euthanize the public’s voice.
Instead of drastically altering the Initiative Petition process, it will tack on additional fees and extra-bureaucratic regulations to, which will in turn make it harder and more cumbersome for people to overcome their ultra-biased and partisan representation at the capitol, and push through meaningful change the state actually needs.