Oklahomans vote to retain justices and pass or fail state questions.
Three justices on the Oklahoma Supreme Court are up for retention and two state questions will be approved or denied by the people of Oklahoma on Nov. 5. These are both significant parts of the election that will reshape Oklahoma as Oklahoma’s highest court is responsible for determining whether actions of Oklahoma’s governor and the legislature are constitutional.
Earlier this year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the state should rescind its contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Charter School. This was a school that would teach Catholicism and require students to attend mass. The issue was that it would be publicly funded, leading the Court to declare granting a contract with the school unconstitutional under both the United States and Oklahoma constitutions as it would be a “slippery slope” to government interference with how Oklahomans practice religion. The three justices who are up for retention, James Edmondson, Noma Gurich and Yvonne Kauger, ruled with the majority.
These three were all appointed by Democratic governors. If they are not retained, they will be removed from the bench and Governor Kevin Stitt will be able to appoint three new justices to the Court. This would bring the total number of appointments made by him to six out of nine and would allow the Court to have a more conservative majority on the Court. If a case such as that of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Charter School appears again after this happens, the majority’s decision may be overturned as the three Stitt appointees either took no part in discussing the case or opposed the majority.
The opportunity for Stitt to appoint another three justices could explain why some political action committees have run ads against these justices and have urged Oklahomans to vote no on their retention. One of these is 46 Action, which has ties to Governor Stitt. As per the news station KFOR, 46 Action was founded by a group of former staffers and donors of Governor Stitt. Over the past few weeks, 46 Action has been running an ad that called for Oklahomans to “remove these liberals from our state supreme court.” They explicitly brought partisanship, or biased party affiliation, into a race that is not at all concerned with partisanship.
In addition to justice retention, there are two state questions on the ballot. State Question 833 would allow property owners to create institutions called public infrastructure districts “to provide support, organization, operation, and maintenance of services,” according to Oklahoma.gov. The issue is that these PIDs would place the burden of maintaining the infrastructure on property owners of the city with the PID but do not guarantee sizable funds for operating the programs.
State Question 834 is less convoluted. It would amend the Oklahoma Constitution to read that “only citizens of the United States…who are bona fide residents of this state, are qualified electors of this state.” This is already the case. Amending the constitution to read this way is not only redundant but it appears to attack immigrants as there is nothing this amendment truly does except make it more clear that they cannot vote in the election, which is already obvious. Only American citizens can register to vote in the state. If someone who is not an American citizen attempts to register, they get charged with a felony.
