Protecting people’s right

The First Amendment guarantees every citizen the right to petition our government for redress of grievances. Oklahoma has some of the most onerous legislative rules in the nation when it comes to petitioning state government. Senate Bill 852 and Senate Joint Resolution 13 address these concerns and attempt to tear down many of the roadblocks.

SJR 13 is a constitutional amendment designed to lower the number of required signatures to present an initiative petition to the people. Current law requires that "15 per centum of the legal voters from the last general election shall have the right to propose amendments to the Constitution by petition.” There are two problems in the current law; 15 percent is too high of a threshold, and tying the signatures to the last general election is inconsistent and unfair.

For example, the amount of signatures required for one petition would be based on the governor’s race and the other petition on the presidential race. Two different standards would require a different number of signatures. The one tied to the presidential race may require 300,000 signatures and the one tied to the governor’s race may only require 150,000, since far less people vote in the latter. SJR 13 seeks to correct both problems by lowering the amount of required signatures from 15 percent to 10 percent and tying all petitions to the governor’s race.

SB 852 contains several needed changes statutorily. The first one deals with the "gist” or the explanation of the bill. Current law allows for the gist to be challenged after signatures have been collected. If the attorney general or the court decides the gist is too complicated, then the entire petition can be disqualified. The new law would require the gist to be submitted to the secretary of state at the time the petition language is presented. After all challenges and court proceedings are complete, the gist is either approved or changed to meet the intended requirements and no further gist challenges are allowed.

Another change requires protests dealing with the constitutionality of the language in the petition to be dealt with before signatures are collected rather than after. Once all challenges are complete, the petitioners would have one year to collect the required amount of signatures instead of the current 90 days. Any protest to the number of signatures would have to be filed with the secretary of state within 10 days. If in the opinion of the state Supreme Court any objection to the count or protest to the petition is frivolous, the court may impose appropriate sanctions.

Finally, it would be unlawful for anyone to engage in "petition blocking,” which would include harassment or intimidation of persons circulating or signing petitions.

Legislative action is needed in Oklahoma in order to protect the right of the people, which is guaranteed in the Constitution. 2009 could be the year for reform. Brogdon