Seize the initiative

Lawmakers who vote in favor of SB 1027 are sending a message of willful disregard for the constitutional rights of Oklahomans.

April 25, 2025

Senate Bill 1027 would fundamentally diminish the constitutionally guaranteed right of Oklahomans to propose initiatives and referenda by making it nearly impossible for measures to qualify for the ballot. As SB 1027's primary bill authors - Senate Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, and Senator David Bullard - have ignored the multitude of pleas from voters from across the state demanding this harmful legislation be withdrawn, the only possible conclusion we can draw is that Oklahoma's legislative leaders do not care about the constitutional rights of Oklahomans.

Moreover, they resent your right to propose and enact legislation outside of their control. They want to take your power away to consolidate their own.

The per-county signature gathering caps outlined in SB 1027 would potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of registered voters. Parts of SB 1027 have been ruled unconstitutional in the courts. The narrative that petition circulators don’t seek out rural voters is false. In the past, conservatives used the initiative petition to bypass a Democrat-controlled Legislature, enacting legislative term limits, supermajority votes for tax increases, and the creation of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, to name a few. The initiative petition process is for all Oklahomans. However, SB 1027 would silence Oklahoma voters and destroy a necessary check on government power.

‍Kirkpatrick Policy Group urges the Oklahoma Legislature to reject this harmful legislation, and we offer the following reasons why we oppose SB 1027.

How SB 1027 would harm Oklahoma’s initiative petition process

1. Speaker Hilbert’s committee substitute (adopted on April 7, 2025, in House Elections and Ethics) changes how petition signatures may be collected. Currently, proponents may collect signatures from anywhere in Oklahoma. Under the latest version of SB 1027, for statutory initiatives, each county may contribute signatures totaling 11.5 percent of the total number of votes cast in that county in the last governor’s race. For constitutional initiatives, it’s 20.8 percent of the same number.

Our response: Under SB 1027, if a proponent collected the maximum legal number of signatures from all seventy-seven counties, the total would equal 143 percent of the required number for a statutory initiative. For a constitutional initiative, the legal maximum number of signatures allowed under SB 1027 is 139 percent of the required number. The net effect of the geographic signature gathering requirement in SB 1027 is that many voters (especially those living in urban and suburban counties) will be disenfranchised because their signatures won’t count toward the required number if their county’s legal maximum has already been reached. Additionally, since signatures are not validated until after the signature collection period is over, proponents have no way of knowing exactly how many signatures have been collected from each county. SB 1027 seems intentionally convoluted and confusing to make it even more difficult to for an initiative to qualify for the ballot.

Oklahoma’s per capita signature requirements are among the highest in the nation. For a statutory initiative, proponents must collect signatures totaling 8 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election (currently 92,263). A constitutional initiative is 15 percent (172,993), and a statutory referendum is 5 percent (57,664). To revive a rejected initiative or referendum is 25 percent (288,321). Due to Oklahoma’s strict signature validation laws, on average about 30 percent of the signatures submitted are invalidated. A signature may be thrown out if not enough data points on the signature line match a signee’s voter registration information, such as their legal name, street address, birth month and day, and ZIP code. Sometimes, a voter may sign their nickname instead of their legal name, transpose two digits in their ZIP code, or simply have illegible handwriting. Invalid signatures are not necessarily voter fraud. Rather, they’re often clerical errors.

Besides, the narrative that petition circulators don’t seek out signatures from rural voters is false. We received digital copies of the only two petitions the Secretary of State’s office still has records of (by law they must destroy petition records two years after the question is settled) – SQ 832 (minimum wage increase) and SQ 820 (recreational marijuana). The signatures for SQ 820 are contained in 116 volumes. We analyzed the first volume (totaling 436 pages) and found signatures from voters living in forty-four of the state’s seventy-seven counties. The proponents of SQ 832 said they canvassed the entire state looking for signatures.

2. Under SB 1027, any person who circulates a petition must be a “qualified elector” of Oklahoma (current law states only that signature gatherers be eighteen years old).

Our response: Did you know that Oklahoma used to have a similar requirement that circulators be state residents? The law was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, in a 2008 case titled Yes on Term Limits v. Savage. Former Attorney General Drew Edmondson defended the law in court. The law was challenged by a group that wanted to pass a ballot initiative to enact term limits for certain statewide officeholders. It was the third federal circuit court decision in one year that invalidated a state residency requirement. The Sixth Circuit said that Michigan’s residency requirement was unconstitutional in Bogaert v. Land in August 2008, and the Ninth Circuit said that Arizona’s residency requirement was unconstitutional in Nader v. Brewer in July 2008. Requiring circulators to be registered Oklahoma voters, as SB 1027 does, is proven to be unconstitutional.

3. Under SB 1027, no person or entity who does not reside or do business in Oklahoma shall contribute to or compensate a person for circulation of a petition. Any person or entity that employs a petition circulator shall follow federal labor standards.

Our response: Banning out-of-state political contributions goes against the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Some have argued that applying this ban only to signature gathering is legal, but that’s a flimsy argument, in our opinion. Besides, political candidates and lobbyists often receive money from out-of-state special interests. Are we saying it’s okay for those inside the building to take out-of-state money but not grassroots proponents?

4. Under SB 1027, any person or entity expending funds on the circulation of a petition shall submit a report to the Secretary of State that details such expenditures and that attests that all donated funds were received from sources in Oklahoma. The Secretary of State shall publish such reports on its website until the ballot measure is resolved.

Our response: Proponents are already required to form a state unlimited political action committee and report contributions and expenditures to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. Requiring additional reporting to the Secretary of State seems like unnecessary bureaucracy designed to ensnare initiative petition proponents in red tape.

5. Under SB 1027, signature gatherers shall display a conspicuous notice in any location where the person is collecting signatures, “whether the person is being paid to circulate the petition and if so, by what person or entity.”

Our response: Transparency is a good thing, but it should go both ways. Shouldn’t elected officials also be required to “display a conspicuous notice” of any PAC contributions they have received?

6. Under SB 1027, an elector’s signature shall serve as an attestation that the elector read the gist in full or that the gist was read to them.

Our response: We like this provision, but it’s a higher standard than is required to vote for a ballot measure. Do all lawmakers read every bill they vote on?

7. Under SB 1027, the gist (a summary printed at the top of each petition page) must explain in basic words the effect of the proposition; must not contain industry jargon; must not contain euphemisms or code words in an apparent attempt to deceive voters; must not reflect partiality; and must indicate fiscal impact and potential funding sources. (Currently, the only requirement of the gist is that it be “simple statement” of the proposition). The Secretary of State shall affirm that any gist conforms with the requirements of these requirements and may remove any gist that violates the requirements.

Our response: We don’t object to the gist being simple and impartial, but we do object to giving an unelected bureaucrat like the secretary of state unilateral power over a petition’s gist. Under current law, the ballot title is subject to approval by the attorney general, but proponents can appeal the AG’s decision to the state supreme court. Approving the gist should follow the same framework.

8. Under SB 1027, a statement shall be printed under the gist that provides notice that a copy of the petition and all signatures are public records subject to the Oklahoma Open Records Act.

Our response: We take no issue with this provision.

9. Under SB 1027, the Secretary of State shall establish procedures by which a petition signee can request to have their signature removed from a petition.

Our response: We take no issue with this provision.

Conclusion

The Oklahoma Constitution, Article V, Section 1, reserves to the people the power “to propose laws and amendments to the constitution” and to “reject at the polls any act of the Legislature.”  While the Legislature does have authority to enact laws regulating the process, the extent to which SB 1027 would limit the people’s power to propose initiatives and referenda is undemocratic and contrary to Oklahoma’s populist roots.

SB 1027 would disenfranchise urban and rural voters alike who sign a petition only to see their signatures invalidated because their county already contributed the maximum number of legal signatures. The arbitrary cap placed on the number of signatures each county may contribute confounds the problem, requiring proponents to collect nearly the maximum number of signatures allowed in all seventy-seven counties in the hope that their petition will survive the strict signature validation process that throws out about 30 percent of the signatures, on average.

Many provisions of SB 1027 have been ruled unconstitutional when challenged in other states. The provision that petition circulators must be state residents used to be a law in Oklahoma until it was ruled a violation of the First Amendment in 2008. Throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks is a poor way to legislate, in our opinion.

  Requiring transparency in the initiative petition process is fine, but lawmakers should require the same of those who work inside the Oklahoma State Capitol. Hypocrisy of this kind is unbecoming of elected officials who purport to serve the public.

This legislation is exemplary of political gamesmanship, power consolidation, and the muzzling of Oklahoma voters. We encourage all Oklahoma legislators to vote NO on SB 1027.

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