Power Play

Oklahoma Senate committee advances measure aiming to take power form voters and give it to lawmakers.

March 7, 2025

A measure that would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma voters by making ballot initiatives and referenda much more difficult to qualify has advanced in the state legislature.

In a blatant power grab by politicians to take away the rights of voters to decide issues for themselves, members of the Oklahoma Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 1027 on Tuesday, March 4. The bill would place extreme restrictions on the state’s constitutionally guaranteed ballot initiative process.

SB 1027 passed along party lines, 7 – 2. The lawmakers who voted to place nearly insurmountable roadblocks before state voters who wish to exercise their right to propose and reject state laws through direct democracy included:

• Senate Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton;

• Senate Judiciary Chair Brent Howard;

• Senate Judiciary Vice-Chair Todd Gollihare;

• Senator Darcy Jech;

• Senator Shane Jett;

• Senator Paul Rosino; and,

• Senator Lisa Standridge.

Senators Michael Brooks and Mary Boren both voted against the measure, which is now eligible to be heard on the Senate floor.

The most impactful change that SB 1027 would make includes geographic restrictions on the number of petition signatures that may be collected from a single county. Under SB 1027, no more than 10 percent of the total number of required signatures may come from counties with a population of 400,000 or more according to the latest federal census, and no more than 4 percent of the total number of required signatures may come from counties with a population of less than 400,000.

When the 2020 federal census was taken, only two of Oklahoma’s seventy-seven counties had a population of 400,000 or more – Oklahoma County (796,292) and Tulsa County (669,279).

What does that mean? To qualify a statutory initiative for the ballot, proponents must collect 92,263 signatures. If SB 1027 became law, only 18,452 of those signatures could come from Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. Additionally, only 3,690 signatures could come from any of Oklahoma’s other seventy-five counties. The net effect of these provisions is that future ballot measure proponents would have to collect signatures from at least twenty-three counties.

“It means that we can completely ignore everybody else in our state and just sit in two counties unless we decide to do something,” bill author Senator David Bullard said.

What Bullard fails to understand is in a democracy, votes - and voters - count, not geographic boundaries. Ever heard of "one person, one vote?" According to those same 2020 census statistics, 37 percent of Oklahoma’s population lives in Tulsa and Oklahoma counties, and 36 percent of state voters live in the two urban counties, totaling 882,972.

If only 18,452 signatures from Oklahoma and Tulsa counties may legally count toward qualifying an initiative petition, that leaves up to 864,520 urban voters who could be shut out of the process.

That’s 864,520 registered voters whose signatures couldn’t toward an initiative’s ballot qualification.

That’s 864,520 registered voters who could be silenced from a populist political process that Oklahoma’s founding fathers wrote into our state constitution as a check against wealthy tycoons who could buy laws favorable to them and unfavorable to the working class.

Now, state lawmakers see the initiative and referendum process as just another obstacle standing between them and unbridled power. SB 1027 is plainly a power grab by politicians to take away the rights of voters to decide issues for themselves.

Bill would radically change how petitions circulate

SB 1027 would also make drastic changes to state law concerning how petitions are circulated, who may collect petition signatures, and how they identify themselves, including:

• The proposition’s gist (a summary placed at the top of the petition) would have to include any fiscal impact and potential funding sources and is subject to approval by the non-elected Secretary of State;

• Petition circulators would have to be registered Oklahoma voters and display a “conspicuous notice” as to whether they are being paid, and if so, by whom;

• By signing a petition, voters would be attesting that they read the ballot title in full or had it read to them;

• Petition circulators would have to disclose to the Secretary of State anyone who is paying them, and compensation based on the number of signatures collected is forbidden;

• Proponents who pay circulators would have to follow federal labor standards; and,

• Any person or entity spending money to circulate petitions would have to submit a report to the Secretary of State detailing expenditures (the Oklahoma Ethics Commission already requires this) and attest that all donated funds were received from in-state sources.

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