I’ve been at this TLO thing for so long that you’d think, by now, I’d have a boilerplate template ready and on standby to cover the latest efforts of conniving rural Oklahoma conservative lawmakers to consolidate their power, chip away at democracy, and act as petulant dicks by making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Oklahoma citizens to place a state question on the ballot.
You know, articles like this and this and this and this and this.
But, alas, I’m a bit lazy and disorganized and have never gotten around to making one, which means every time our lawmakers attempt to subvert and silence the will of the people—like they are with SB 1027—I have to write it from scratch.
In case you weren’t aware, last week an Oklahoma Senate committee advanced SB 1027 to the Senate floor.
Titled the “Fuck the People: We Want All the Power” Derplahoman Government Consolidation Act, if it becomes law, the bill will dramatically alter the way citizen petitions are organized, funded, and approved, making it all but impossible to overcome our right-wing lawmakers' inaction and ineptitude.
For example:
If SB 1027 was signed into law, the Secretary of State would have the power to remove petitions, people signing a petition would have to attest that they have read the entire ballot title before signing the petition, and how many signatures can be collected in certain counties would also change. The bill states that no more than 10% of the total signatures required could be from a county with a population of 400,000 or more, and no more than 4% of the required signatures collected could be from counties with a population of less than 400,000.
State Sen. David Bullard (R-Durant) is the author of the bill.
"We've run this bill to try and put reasonable guidelines, reasonable suggestions, on how we can make sure that there is transparency and force these signatures out to get to more Oklahomans geographically. That's all that it is," he said.
Yep, nothing to be alarmed about here. Everything is fine.
We just have our always well-intentioned lawmakers – with the support of the OCPA – making reasonable changes to a system that's worked well and as it should by giving a partisan, unelected bureaucrat with no legal training the power to reject petitions at will, all while imposing arbitrary limits on where signatures can be collected—effectively silencing those in high-population areas and stripping them of an equal voice.
You know, totally reasonable stuff.
It makes you wonder if, while they're at it, they will introduce other reasonable things like requiring that all petition signers be registered Republicans, or requiring signature gatherers to sing the text of the petition to the tune of a country music song to make it more understandable to rural Oklahomans?
Obviously, if you’re not a power-hungry Oklahoma lawmaker, this bill is a terrible idea for various reasons.
First of all, giving the Secretary of State the power to effectively veto state questions for political reasons defeats the main point of citizen petitions—giving people the power to create and pass laws that lawmakers won’t address for political reasons!
Second, the argument that rural voters are somehow being excluded from the current process is flawed.
Oklahoma's initiative petition system has always relied on signature collection in population centers because—newsflash—that's where most of the people live! By requiring an artificially broad geographic distribution of signatures, all these freedom-loving lawmakers are doing is thwarting the democratic process by making it easier for sparsely populated areas to block initiatives that have widespread support.
Third, the whole bill is completely hypocritical and represents a double standard.
One of the reasonable arguments in support of the legislation is that it will increase transparency and drive out-of-state money and influence from citizen petitions.
That’s swell and everything, but if that's a problem, why aren’t lawmakers equally focused on rooting out the influence that wealthy out-of-state special interest groups have on our legislative process? Instead of limiting the power of the people, maybe lawmakers should be passing laws that limit the influence of groups like ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, or Americans for Prosperity.
Where’s the effort to fix that?
As opposed to other efforts to authoritarianly alter the citizen petition process, the scariest thing about SB 1027 is that it has a really good chance of advancing through the legislature and becoming law.
This is because…
- The bill is apparently co-authored by Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton and Speaker of the House Kyle Hilbert. Sure, the voice and chief campaigner of the bill is State Senator David Bullard, but when the Speaker and Pro Tem put their names on something, it usually happens.
- There’s urgency to block a citizen petition that could bring open primaries to Oklahoma.
That petition is being organized by a group called Oklahomans United.
If their proposed state question on open primaries somehow clears all the hurdles and gets on the ballot, it could dramatically shift election dynamics in Oklahoma.
Open primaries would allow independent and unaffiliated voters to participate in primaries, weakening the grip of hardline partisans and making it easier for moderates—especially those with financial backing—to compete and win. That’s a direct threat to the Republican establishment, which relies on closed primaries to keep extreme candidates in power.
That threat—along with the looming possibility of an expensive campaign to legalize abortion in the Oklahoma Constitution—seems to be all the excuse lawmakers need to consolidate power and stick it to their own citizens.
If all this sounds depressing—and it kind of does—there is one glimmer of hope.
This legislation—like a good chunk of Oklahoma bills that become law—may be unconstitutional!
Via The Oklahoman:
At least one nationally recognized expert on the U.S. Constitution said the bill's restrictions on the initiative process are unconstitutional. Robert McCampbell, an Oklahoma City attorney who specializes in constitutional law, wrote that the bill was unconstitutional.
"The bill includes provisions that restrict petition circulators, prohibit out-of-state contributions, grant broad discretionary power to the secretary of state over citizen-initiated petitions, and retroactively change the procedure for initiative petitions. Each of these provisions conflicts with well-established legal precedent," McCampbell wrote in a four-page memo analyzing the measure.
The government, McCampbell said, is not free to "impose burdensome roadblocks to the citizen initiative process."
"The courts are unanimous that circulating a petition is 'core political speech' where First Amendment protection is at its 'zenith,'" he wrote. "The restrictions on core political speech embodied in SB 1027 cannot survive scrutiny under the First Amendment."
That’s pretty cool! If what that McCampbell dude says is true, I guess the only way Oklahoma conservatives will be able to block petitions is to start changing how we select judges! Haha! Good thing we don't have to worry about that, right?!
Wait.
Yep. Not only do they want to make it virtually impossible to get state questions on the ballot, but they’re also toying with how we select our judges.
Call me crazy, but it’s almost like the fledgling democracy we live in is under attack by a bunch of right-wing morons or something. When they start doing things like claiming elections were stolen or storming the Capitol, we’ll know to be very concerned.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
