On May 19, the Oklahoma legislature passed SB 800, which will make it easier to qualify initiatives in the future. The bill provides that when a group decides to start collecting signatures for a proposed initiative, the Secretary of State will notify the public of the proposed initiative, and its proposed ballot title. If anyone challenges either the constitutionality of the initiative, or the title, the State Supreme Court will adjudicate the dispute. All this happens before the initiative starts to circulate.

Assuming the bill is signed into law, this will end the risk (under the current system) that proponents of an initiative do all the work of getting the signatures, and then face the uncertainty that their initiative’s title will be deemed improper, or that the initiative will be held to violate the single subject rule or be otherwise unconstitutional.

Another bill to ease initiative qualification, HB 2246, has passed the conference committee and the House. The Senate will probably vote on it by May 21. It increases the amount of time to collect signatures for an initiative from 90 days to one year.