Oklahoma’s legislature has advanced two bills that make it easier to get initiatives on the ballot. On March 10, the House passed HB 2246 by 90-4. It increases the petitioning period for an initiative from 90 days to one year.
SJR 13 passed the State Senate unanimously on March 4. It lowers the number of signatures for an initiative in midterm years, by changing the base for calculating the number of signatures from the last vote cast, to the last gubernatorial vote cast.
IN 1920 the Oklahoma population was 1,490,266 and the petition signature requirement was 5,000 or about 3 tenths of one percent of the population. In 2008 the estimated Oklahoma population was 3,642,361. If one takes inter-generational proportionality as a standard of fairness, then the petition signature requirement should be about 11,000. Of course, the Democratic and Republican parties did not have a monopoly grip on ballot access in 1920 and today they do.
I will be very short on gratitude for any smidgen of relief from the present oppression. Five thousand in 1920 was indefensible and even 11,000 is more indefensible, but forty or fifty thousand is an atrocity. These ballot access protection are nothing but AIG-like bonuses for entrenched politicians.