Opinion: A case pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court asks a simple question. Is it legal to require that initiative-petition efforts gather signatures from across Oklahoma? The answer is easy: Yes.
Senate Bill 1027, by state Sen. David Bullard and House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, made several reforms to Oklahoma’s initiative-petition process, but the most notable required the collection of signatures equal to no more than 11.5 percent of the votes cast in any county during the most recent statewide general election (when seeking to change state law) or 20.8 percent (when seeking to amend the Oklahoma Constitution, which requires more signatures to advance to the ballot).
The reform passes the common-sense test. A proposal that will affect all Oklahomans should demonstrate support from Oklahomans across much of the state.
But it also passes the legal test. Nothing in the Oklahoma Constitution or the U.S. Constitution prohibits requiring signature collection from a larger geographic area. Every county is treated the same under SB 1027. On the flip side, the reform does not give outsized power to rural counties, since the raw number of votes gathered in urban counties will still significantly outnumber those collected elsewhere.
In contrast, the pre-SB 1027 process gave outsized influence to a select small geographic share of Oklahoma. Oklahomans living in roughly 90 percent of the state could be (and were) routinely ignored by initiative-petition efforts.
Even under SB 1027, over half of signatures can still come from just two counties – Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. And the six most populous counties can contribute up to 77 percent of the signatures required for a successful petition effort. Requiring that at least 23 percent of signatures come from the remaining 71 counties is not some draconian requirement.
Those challenging SB 1027 have made some notable admissions, including that “out of state funding” is “crucial” to many initiative petitions, as are out-of-state signature-collection firms.
As the state response declared, “Heaven forbid campaigns use Oklahomans to support changes to Oklahoma’s Constitution.”
Other states have similar geographic requirements for signature collection, including Arkansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio and Florida.
SB 1027 opponents have argued that Article V of the Oklahoma Constitution prohibits county caps on signature collections. That is not true. Article V simply spells out the number of signatures required to place a measure on the ballot and outlines some broad procedural rules. It does not prohibit further regulation of the process, and even explicitly states that the Legislature must adopt laws regulating the initiative-petition process.
Put simply, the opponents of SB 1027 are not fighting to maximize Oklahomans’ rights and participation in initiative-petition efforts. They are fighting to actively exclude citizens living across the vast geographic majority of Oklahoma. The law is clearly constitutional and should be upheld.
About the author: Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.