In my previous post there was a sample ballot, but when you look at the election results you really need a side by side of the proposition with the results. So I am going to attempt to do that for you here with a little bit of commentary.
My deep gratitude to all those who worked diligently to defeat the worst of these propositions. Please continue to pray for repentance in our city and in our land.
My thoughts: Proposition 1 was one of the most egregious items on the ballot and it was soundly defeated! Voting should be in November when more people vote. Increasing terms was totally uncalled for and had the appearance of a pure power grab attempt.
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My thoughts: Proposition 2 makes very little difference either way.
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My thoughts: Proposition 3 was an unnecessary constraint on the people and was narrowly defeated.
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My thoughts: Proposition 4 was further constraints on the people and was soundly defeated.
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My thoughts: Proposition 5 was a huge blank check! We don’t need any streamlining for giving away our tax dollars or additional authority for an unelected City Manager – for his own protection! We need more citizen input on all these matters! Very glad it was defeated!!!
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My thoughts: I was a no on Proposition 6, because we can replace them at the next election. This may cause interim special elections. I am not sure of all the ramifications of this and hopefully the situation does not arise often.
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My thoughts: Proposition 7 is already required by state law and is redundant in city charter. Passing it is ok but not necessary.
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My thoughts: Proposition 8 would have eliminated things that should stay in place and the people said no overwhelmingly.
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My thoughts: Proposition 9 looks to me like it was hoping for staggered terms and makes very little difference since that did not pass. Not a big difference either way.
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My thoughts: Proposition 10 was deeply disturbing to me. A Code of Ethics should rarely change! Glad it failed.
Recently I got an email with a video link that I knew must be shared with all my friends. It doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know (most of you anyway). What it does do is explain it for all the world to see. As most of you know court cases are ongoing in many states. The questions before us ripple around understanding what happened, correcting the injustice, and making sure it never happens again. It will be an ongoing battle and require people to stand up for truth at every level of government. Here is the email my good friend Gayle Johnson sent to me just the other day (and graciously gave me permission to share). Please watch the video link at the end and share this information with others since we know the main stream media will be the last to wake up and actually share truth. Doesn’t change the facts though! Here’s the email from Gayle:
“In 2020, when the virus took over the world, and things did not seem to make sense, friends began to invite me to the page of a guy named Douglas Frank. He had decided to forecast where the numbers would take us, based on the data that was being reported. His work on the statistics was impressive. His facebook sites have been shut down a few times, as you may imagine. I am in other social media groups of his, and his quality of information is consistently accurate.
Dr. Frank is a PhD scientist, a teacher of gifted math students, an inventor, a musician, and an entrepreneur. His predictions of election outcomes in the past couple of decades, has only been wrong once. But, in November 2020, things were really haywire, so he decided to dig in and discover what happened. Even though he’s been teaching his methods online to show those in the group how it was done, I haven’t had time to keep up with it recently.
Today, I was able to see Mike Lindell interview him to explain how our election was manipulated. I was really relieved to be able to understand what he explained, and I know you will also. I hope everyone watches this, downloads it, and shares it. We cannot ever let this happen to our country again. Please take an hour to see this. “
http://lindelltv.com see Scientific Proof video which is currently at the top of the website.
If you want to pull your own sample ballot go to http://ok.gov/elections and type in your name and birthdate as prompted.
Friends have been asking me for an election analysis this cycle and what to my wondering eyes did appear but an email from Gary Kilpatrick covering it all in detail. So reviewing it and agreeing on nearly everything, I called and asked his permission to publish for your review. He graciously gave me permission and updated his email to say he was now voting no on the judicial retentions he had previously said ‘your pick’ because of additional information he has found since the email.
That email from Gary is below with my comments in [brackets]:
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Many have asked me for my analysis of the upcoming ballot. So here goes. For candidates for office I look at three things, in order: (1) what have they done?; (2) what do they propose to do, often reflected in the party platforms?; and (3) what is their character and their worldview?
The result is for me quite clear [me too!/sc]:
President/Vice President – Donald Trump and Mike Pence
Corporation Commissioner – Todd Hiett
Senator – Jim Inhoff
Representative – Kevin Hern
State Representative – Wendi Stearman
Judicial Retention
JUSTICES OF THE OKLAHOMA SUPREME COURT
District 1 – Matthew John Kane, IV – VOTE YES
District 1 is our district, and Judge Kane served as a district judge for the 10th Judicial District in Osage County since 2005. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Stitt in September 2019.
District 6 – Tom Colbert – VOTE NO
[updated from email to recommend a NO Vote by Gary and by me/sc]
Judge Colbert was appointed to the court in 2004 by Gov. Brad Henry. He is the first black justice to sit on the supreme court. Between 1999 and 2004 he was a judge for the Oklahoma Court of Appeals and was appointed by Governor Keating.
District 9 – Richard B. Darby – VOTE NO
[updated from email to recommend a NO Vote by Gary and by me/sc]
Judge Darby was appointed to the court in 2018 by Gov. Mary Fallin. He previously served as a district court judge in the 3rd Judicial District for 24 years.
* I often hear that Oklahoma has a very liberal Supreme Court, and that may well be true since many, if not most, of the justices were appointed by liberal Democrat governors. I often hear they are pro-abortion. So I read the 2015 case regarding Senate Bill 642 – a law that proponents argue “increased protections of women’s reproductive health.” It was a pro-life/anti-abortion bill that addressed consents for minors seeking abortions, provided revised protocols for rape investigations, added requirements for inspections of abortion facilities, and introduced new penalties for violation of existing abortion statutes. The sticking point in SB 642 is that in our Oklahoma Constitution we have a provision that requires that “every act of the Legislature shall embrace but one subject.” The Supreme Court has argued that the purpose of the “single subject rule” is to prevent the Legislature from making a bill “veto proof” by appending unpopular legislation within popular bills. Unfortunately, when I read SB 642 I fail to see that simply calling the four provisions of the bill related since they address “women’s reproductive health” as not a very robust argument. If I were a judge I might have agreed with the current justices that SB 642 did not pass the “single subject” smell test. I’m not a lawyer but if I were, my judicial philosophy would be that my job is to interpret the law as written and not insert my worldview into how I view the law. I believe that is the legal philosophy of Judge Barrett, who is up for confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States.
JUDGES OF THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
District 2 – Robert L. Hudson – VOTE YES
Hudson was appointed by Gov. Mary Fallin in 2015. Before that he served as a special district judge for Logan County. He was the chief law enforcement officer for Payne and Logan counties previously. Judge Hudson wrote the opinion reversing the Court’s finding of 31 years ago (see comments on Judge Lumpkin). I like it when people are willing to admit they are wrong (of course he was not on the Court 31 years ago).
District 3 – Gary L. Lumpkin – VOTE YES
Judge Lumpkin has served on the Court of Criminal Appeals since 1989, when he was appointed by Gov. Henry Bellmon. He previously served as an Oklahoma district court judge.
In 1989, when he was first appointed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Lumpkin dissented on a finding of the Court. Just a couple of weeks ago the Court agreed with Judge Lumpkin’s dissent of 31 years ago and reversed itself. I read the opinion and quite frankly I don’t understand how the court got it wrong in 1989. I like it when the truth finally wins out!
JUDGES OF THE OKLAHOMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
District 1 – Office 2 – Jane P. Wiseman – VOTE NO!!
Judge Wiseman was appointed Gov. Brad Henry in 2005. Before that she was a special judge of Tulsa County and a district judge in District 14. She is definitely very liberal.
District 2 – Office 1 – Deborah B. Barnes – VOTE NO!!
Barnes was appointed by Gov. Henry in 2008. Prior to her appointment she was the vice president and associate general counsel for Oneok, Inc. She is definitely very liberal.
District 2 – Office 2 – Keith Rapp – VOTE NO
Gov. George Nigh appointed Judge Rapp to the court in 1984. Before that he was a judge on the 14th District Court.
—- JUST A REMINDER. YOUR VOTE ON THE JUSTICES IS NOT WORTH A PLUG NICKEL. THEY WILL ALL BE RETAINED. THE ONLY WAY YOUR VOTE WOULD COUNT WOULD BE IF THERE WERE A WELL-FUNDED RECALL INITIATIVE. FOR THAT REASON, SOME PEOPLE VOTE NO ON EVERY JUDGE. I DON’T SUBSCRIBE TO THAT PHILOSOPHY (ALTHOUGH I HAVE VOTED THAT WAY). I WANT JUDGES WITH A CONSERVATIVE LEGAL PHILOSOPHY, AND WE HAVE A FEW OF THEM ON OUR COURTS NOW. I TRY TO GUESS WHO IS CONSERVATIVE AND WHO IS LIBERAL, AND VOTE NO ON THOSE I THINK LEAN TO THE LIBERAL VIEWPOINT, EITHER IN THEIR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OR THEIR WORLDVIEW ——-
State Questions:
STATE QUESTION 805 – Criminal History in Sentencing – VOTE NO
This is an initiative petition which amends the Oklahoma Constitution. Ballotpedia states:
A “yes” vote supports:prohibiting using a person’s past non-violent felony convictions to impose a greater (enhanced) sentence when sentencing a person convicted of a non-violent felony; andproviding for sentence modifications for eligible individuals serving or set to serve sentences that were enhanced based on past felony convictions.
A “no” vote opposes the amendment, thereby maintaining that a person convicted of a non-violent felony can receive greater (enhanced) sentences based on past felony convictions.
Those supporting SQ 805 include the ACLU of Oklahoma and Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform. They argue that our high incarceration rate is fueled in large part by harsh, extreme sentences that punish Oklahomans for previous mistakes. Another supporter of SQ 805 is the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. They have posted on their website several informative articles about this state question which I suggest you peruse.
Opponents of SQ 805 include Governor Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma district attorneys, Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and Help in Crisis. Governor Stitt argued, “Trying to put this into our state’s constitution, it peels back enhancements for DUIs, human trafficking, domestic violence — some of the things I don’t think we need to put into our constitution.” Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating stated: “This constitutional amendment is the ultimate gift to the career criminal and the insect crime wave of the lifetime repeat offender. … A person’s selfish and destructive long life of crime will be handled as one first offense after another. The fifteenth offense is the first offense as far as punishment goes.” Keating recently resigned from the board of OCPA, in part over his difference of opinion regarding SQ 805.It is important to note that the measure would not apply to those who have ever been convicted of a violent felony. The measure defines violent felony as any felony offense listed in Oklahoma Statutes Title 57 Section 571, which is available here. Such offenses include assault, battery, murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, human trafficking, burglary, robbery, child abuse, rape, rioting, arson, terrorism, and more.
Where I stand.
If you have ever read any of my musings over past state questions then you know that I do not like amending our Constitution to insert details that should be handled by our legislature. This is another case in point. Simply for this one reason, I should be voting No on SQ 805.
However, now that I have studied the issue, if I were a legislator, I would have been pushing reform in exactly this area. It would have been high on my list of priorities for three reasons – (1) as a society we must find the right balance between punishment and prevention/restoration, both in terms of the sentencing discretion we give our district attorneys and the courts, but also the amount of money we allocate to prevention of crime and restoration from criminal conviction; (2) as the OCPA study suggests this proposal would save money in the penal system and hopefully if we get #1 right it will save more money in less repeat occurrences; and (3) it is moral to forgive past offenses duly paid for rather than using past offenses as an excuse to tack on more time for current crimes. It is important to remember that district attorneys/judges already have discretion to “enhance” a sentence via their authority to use the range of sentences prescribed by law for each crime rather than just imposing the maximum sentence from the get-go. Thus, I am in favor of the purpose of SQ 805, and I can make a good argument to vote Yes on SQ 805
Which way will I vote? Bottom line, this is a complex issue for which I doubt there is one right answer. I have to say right up front – I do not agree with the arguments made by the district attorney association. We elect legislators to resolve issues like this – to study an issue, to debate it and then to act. It is wrong that they have not already acted in this area of the law. But two wrongs do not make a right, and I definitely do not believe that details like SQ 805 should be enshrined in our state Constitution. Therefore, I will vote NO on SQ 805, and I will encourage my legislators to improve our incarceration sentencing guidelines.
* There are a lot more facts about this issue than I have included in the above discussion. (You can find some of those facts in the OCPA blogs). The related issues of prevention and restoration are deeply complex. They involve, for instance, related issues like education. What are we teaching in school about law and order, about crime, about moral law, about civics, about American History, etc. We cannot expect to have a moral society if we teach immoral ideas in our schools. There is no quick fix for this issue – no state question that will resolve the incarceration problems we face as a society. And I do not believe the answer is just to throw up our arms and say “I give up.” We must continue to elect moral, hardworking, intelligent legislators to work through these issues and move us forward as a society, and that means moving us closer to God. And we must support them, encourage them, provide them with information and ideas, and confront them when we honestly disagree. Romans 13 requires believers to submit to the civil magistrate; but we must remember that in America “We the people” are, in essence, the civil magistrate. We cannot simply argue Romans 13 requires us to do nothing but submit to unjust laws. We must work for justice as defined by God, not by man.
STATE QUESTION 814 – Fund Medicaid Program with Tobacco Settlement Endowment – VOTE YES
This change to the Oklahoma Constitution came from the Legislature. Ballotpedia states:
A “yes” vote supports decreasing the percentage of money (from 75% to 25%) that is deposited to the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) Fund from funds the state receives from tobacco settlements and directing the state legislature to appropriate funds to secure federal matching funds for the state’s Medicaid program.
A “no” vote opposes decreasing appropriations made to the state’s Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) Fund, thereby maintaining that 75% of the money the state receives from tobacco settlements will be deposited into the TSET Fund.
As of 2020, the average annual payment received by Oklahoma under the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was around $75 million, of which, about $56.25 million was deposited into the TSET fund. Under State Question 814, the amount deposited into the TSET fund would be $18.75 million. The remaining $56.25 million would be deposited into the Tobacco Settlement Fund. Of that amount, 8.33% ($4.68 million) would be directed to the Attorney General’s office and the remaining 91.67% ($51.57 million) would be used to secure federal matching funds for the Medicaid program.
TSET is a wealthy endowment (~ $1.3 billion) which has been continually growing. It will not be hurt by approval of SQ 814.
I will be voting YES for SQ 814.
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Above is the email received from Gary Kilpatrick on 9/29/20. I am in general agreement with this analysis and my special thanks to Gary for doing the research on this one!
Summary:
President/Vice President – Donald Trump and Mike Pence
Corporation Commissioner – Todd Hiett
Senator – Jim Inhoff
Representative – Kevin Hern
State Representative – Wendi Stearman
Oklahoma Supreme Court:
District 1 – Matthew John Kane, IV – VOTE YES
District 6 – Tom Colbert – VOTE NO
District 9 – Richard B. Darby – VOTE NO
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals:
District 2 – Robert L. Hudson – VOTE YES
District 3 – Gary L. Lumpkin – VOTE YES
Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals:
District 1 – Office 2 – Jane P. Wiseman – VOTE NO!!
District 2 – Office 1 – Deborah B. Barnes – VOTE NO!!
District 2 – Office 2 – Keith Rapp – VOTE NO
State Questions:
STATE QUESTION 805 – Criminal History in Sentencing – VOTE NO
STATE QUESTION 814 – Fund Medicaid Program with Tobacco Settlement Endowment – VOTE YES
Many people know that there is a run-off election for the sheriff’s race in Washington County on August 25th. But did you know for the city of Bartlesville there is also a bunch of bonded indebtedness on the ballot? Do you know how much money a handful of people will be deciding on? Well let’s take a look at the sample ballots and then talk about that.
Here’s a summary of ballot items in Washington County. If you want to pull your own sample ballot go to http://ok.gov/elections and type in your name and birthdate as prompted:
Sample ballot for the run-off in the sheriff’s race:
So that’s it folks hidden in plain sight on the run-off election day is bonded indebtedness of $16,400,000 (that is over 16 million dollars) and an extension of 1/2% sales tax to June 30, 2026. IF you said NO we could get a reduction in sales tax burden. If you said NO we could keep our property taxes more stable. But the thing that makes me the maddest is that a handful of people will decide this for everyone. This should have been on the general election voting day – NOT the primary run-off election day!
Well I am just one vote but I’ll be saying NO five times!
Do you know how to find yours? Here’s the link to the ok.gov portal to find your sample ballot OK Voter Portal (OVP) Access. You will have to give your name and birthdate and viola — sample ballots in pdf or html formats.
Here is the State Question No. 802 wording (I recommend a NO vote):
Finding Gems and Sharing Them 