The Red Dirt Report, an on-line Oklahoma newspaper established in 2007, has this story about the Libertarian Party’s attempt to get on the 2016 ballot in Oklahoma, and also mentions the Green Party attempt. The story includes a picture of Andy Jacobs, long-time professional petitioner.
The story does not mention the fact that many public libraries in Oklahoma are currently telling petitioners they can’t be on public sidewalks in front of those libraries. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that public sidewalks (with limited exceptions) must be open for First Amendment activity, including petitioning. The Court has been saying this repeatedly since 1939; the first such decision was Hague v CIO, 307 US 496. Jersey City, New Jersey, had promulgated rules prohibiting leafleting on city sidewalks, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Jersey City rules.
I don’t know if any petition circulator in Oklahoma hav3 been run out of any libraries or not. I have only gathered signatures at one library so far, and I was not run out, but I was only there for 3 or 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon.
It appears to me that the Oklahoma City area has too many libraries, as in they have more libraries than are necessary for the number of people who go to them, which means that most, or maybe even all, of them are slow.
We did get illegally run out of a public arts festival that was held on the campus of a community college last weekend. I have a video recording of somebody from the arts festival and a cop telling me that I could not gather petition signatures there. There ought to be a law suit filed over this.
I also got harassed by a security guard at a street festival in Oklahoma City. The security guard called the police on me, and I was then hassled by the police, up until one of the 3 cops that was harassing me admitted that I had a legal right to be there.
We have been told by the people who run the State Fair that we can’t gather petition signatures there. I know that people have gathered petition signatures at the Oklahoma State Fair in the past, and I gathered signatures at the State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City on some ballot initiatives, about 10 years ago, although it was during other events, not the State Fair itself as I was not in Oklahoma when the State Fair was happening that time. If they continue to deny us access to the State Fair to petition signature gathering this should be grounds for a law suit as well.