Skip to main content

Present Reforms to Keep the Ghost of State Questions Past from Creating Future Headaches


Oklahoma, like many western states, allows its citizens to directly participate in the democratic process through citizen initiatives and referendums. In a referendum, the legislature directs a question to the people — usually to modify the state constitution, since the legislature can change statutes itself. An initiative requires no legislative involvement, but is initiated by the people via signature gathering, and can be used to modify statute or amend the constitution.
Collectively, the initiatives and referendums that make it onto the ballot are known as State Questions. 


Recently, there have been calls to make it more difficult to amend the constitution. At least two proposals are being discussed. One would diversify the signature requirement by demanding that a proportional amount of signatures come from each region of the state. The other would require a sixty percent majority to adopt a constitutional amendment rather than the fifty percent plus one currently in place.


Both of these proposals come from a good place. The constitution is inherently higher than statute; that is to say, when a statute and a constitutional provision conflict, the constitution always carries the day. That means legislators cannot simply overrule it like they could an old statute. While this protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, it also limits the options that legislators have when circumstances change. This means the constitution needs to be constructed with precision. It needs to provide protections for precious individual liberties, but it shouldn't be crammed full of specific policy determinations, especially those that may need to adapt to changing political or economic conditions. 


Protecting the minority from a tyrannical majority is a particularly compelling reason to make the constitution harder to amend. The U.S. Constitution is incredibly difficult to change, so very little policymaking happens there. However, most states operate similarly to Oklahoma, and the length and content of their constitutions reflects this low bar for amendment. But in this instance, the federal model gets it closer to right. There may be an argument that amending the U.S. Constitution should be easier, but its stringent procedures ensure that it contains only the elements one would expect in a constitution. So enacting one or both proposals to make our constitution tougher to amend should be an easy call, right? 


Almost. There is one very important caveat that must be considered: what about all those old State Questions? If we used a substandard mechanism to enact them, are we now comfortable locking them in at a new (heightened) standard? If you had a mortgage with a variable rate, would you switch to a fixed rate when interest rates were high? Of course not. 


Six months after SQ802 locked in balloon payments, why should we switch to the fixed rate? The time to do so would have been back when rates were low, and 802 had not yet been the subject of one of the most irregular elections in living memory (at least to that time). If a proper three quarters or even sixty percent majority had been required in June, we would not find ourselves in this mess; 802 fell far short of a supermajority, with a margin of victory of less than one percent. 


Changing the majority requirement now, without added protections, is akin to someone borrowing money to build a safe right after their house was robbed. There's nothing left to protect, and the effort would have been better put into rebuilding the lost wealth. Fortunately, Oklahoma doesn't have to make such a choice. It should be quite simple to grandfather in old state questions. The new amendment should simply add that any state question that was previously passed may be repealed according to the requirements in place at the time it was passed. This lets us safeguard the future while leaving room to undo past mistakes. 


Mike Davis is a Research Fellow at 1889 Institute. He can be reached at mdavis@1889institute.org. 


The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.

Popular posts from this blog

Be Careful What You Wish For

The state of Oklahoma has California in its sight s . People and businesses seeking greater opportunity are fleeing California, and justifiably so. The most humane thing for Oklahoma to do is open our borders and offer economic asylum to the oppressed refugees of the People’s Republic of California. However, I urge caution. In an age dominated by masked faces and super-sensitivity to the spread of viral conditions, I suggest the California Condition (condition) should be met with great trepidation.   What is the condition? It is the virulent spread of tyranny and oppression. Common symptoms include limited freedom and mobility accompanied by exorbitant costs of living, energy, doing business, and pretty much everything else. Those suffering under the condition often experience a diminished capacity for reason. Uncommon symptoms may include fever and fits of rage. The condition is progressive. It tends to worsen as reason diminishes and illogic consumes the mind. Many that experienc...
Read more

1889 Institute's Statement Regarding School Closures

The 1889 Institute, an Oklahoma think tank, has released the following statement regarding Joy Hofmeister’s proposal to keep schools closed for the remainder of the school year. We at the 1889 Institute consider Joy Hofmeister’s proposal to close Oklahoma’s schools for the rest of the school year a gross overreaction to the coronavirus situation. Even in the best of times and circumstances, suddenly shifting every student in the state from traditional classrooms to online distance learning will have negative educational consequences. This in addition to the economic burden on two-earner families forced to completely reorder their lives with schools closed. We believe many of our leaders have overreacted to worst-case scenarios presented by well-intended health experts with no training or sense of proportion in weighing the collateral damage of shutting down our economy versus targeting resources to protect the truly vulnerable. We say reopen the schools and stop the madness. ...
Read more

Think Carefully before Voting on SQ 802

So we vote next week on whether or not to expand Medicaid according to Obamacare’s provisions. A vote “Yes” on State Question 802 would expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults above the poverty line. A vote “No” would keep the status quo, with taxpayers buying health care under Medicaid mainly for poor children and pregnant mothers. But as with just about anything proposed by initiative, State Question 802 is not really that simple. For one thing, it forever entrenches a federal program, which can be changed by Congress at any time, in our state’s constitution, which is not so easily amended. Obviously, the proponents of SQ 802 want to set the terms of the Medicaid expansion permanently, sidestepping our constitutionally instituted legislature, which is supposed to react and adjust to existing circumstances. SQ 802 would take that flexibility away. A consequence of that reduced flexibility will likely be sacrifices in other state-financed programs such as public education, both in the n...
Read more

AG Hunter Lowers Boom on Barrier to Entry; Legislature Should Follow His Lead

Even as the Oklahoma Supreme Court  struck down  a recent alcohol distribution law, the Attorney General paved the way for the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Law Enforcement Commission (ABLE) to remove an obstacle from the expansion of liquor store competition - finding that Oklahoma’s five-year in-state residency requirement before one can own a liquor store likely runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution and recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent.  The AG’s  opinion , issued at the end of December, informs the state’s alcohol commission that portions of the state constitution (Article 28A, Section 4(A) & (B)) are unenforceable. These provisions require that ABLE issue a Retail Spirits License or Wine and Spirits Wholesaler License only to someone who has been a resident of Oklahoma for the previous five years. Presumably ABLE, who requested the opinion, will now begin issuing licenses to otherwise qualified applicants regardless of how long they have lived in Okl...
Read more