Don't urinate on my leg and tell me it's raining. I like Mike Mazzei. He seems to have the best platform and the most credible conservative credentials of the four candidates actually working* to win the governorship. He seems to be the only one of the four who won't roll over for tribal apartheid and who will fight for one system of justice for all Oklahomans. But there's a problem with what he's saying about his vote for the National Popular Vote Compact in 2014. He really did vote for SB 906, and SB 906 was a law that would commit Oklahoma to the National Popular Vote Compact, giving Oklahoma's electoral votes to whomever was deemed the presidential candidate with a plurality of popular votes nationwide. It wasn't a vote to conduct a study. It was signing Oklahoma up to be the first Red State to join a long list of liberal states to be an NPV state. NPV would go into effect as soon as states with at least 270 electoral votes had agreed to the compact, and while Oklahoma's 7 votes wouldn't have been the tipping point, the precedent would have helped NPV lobbyists convince other conservative states to follow suit. That's why John Koza, Saul Anuzis, and their allies targeted Oklahoma. The bill Mike Mazzei voted for would have gone into effect in November 2014. It would have been in effect in 2016. Oklahoma would have given its electoral votes to Hillary Clinton even though Donald Trump won every county. 18 Republicans had the good sense to vote against SB 906. 16 Republicans, including Mazzei, made the wrong vote, along with all the Democrats. (That should have been a clue.) After the outcry following the vote, some conservative State Senators, including Gary Stanislawski, Josh Brecheen, and Mark Allen, publicly recanted their vote for NPV and apologized to their constituents, although some conservative activists said that these senators had been warned and should have known better. The general tone of the excuses from Republicans who voted for the NPV Compact is that lobbyists made legislators angry thinking about how presidential candidates take solid-red states Oklahoma for granted while wooing swing states. Some of them got so angry that they'd pledged to vote for the bill and did out of a sense of moral obligation, even after they realized it was a bad idea. This is what Mike Mazzei is saying online about his vote for SB 906, with my comments in brackets:

Let's put this issue to rest once and for all. [Being straightforward and honest about voting the wrong way is the only way that will happen.] I do not support the national popular vote and I never have. [You voted for Oklahoma to participate in it, to allocate our electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.] I will always back the electoral college because the Founding Fathers had it right. [In 2014, you voted to bypass the electoral college.] The electoral college gives smaller, less populated states - like Oklahoma - a more balanced representation in the federal government. [This is true, one of many important reasons not to vote to join the NPV Compact.] As far as that bill from 15 years ago that went nowhere, it's a silly non-issue. [The bill was only 12 years ago, and it passed the Senate.] They tried pulling this stunt against Congressman Josh Brecheen a few years ago. Voters saw through it then, and they see through it now. [Brecheen had the good sense to recant and apologize shortly after the vote. He seems to have learned his lesson.] First of all, there was nothing in the bill about abolishing the electoral college. [Technically true -- that would require a constitutional amendment -- but misleading. The bill was about working around the electoral college to elect presidents by popular vote without technically abolishing the electoral college.] Second, our understanding of the bill at the time was that it was a study to determine the best ways to drive out the Christian conservative vote. [This makes no sense. Here is the text of the bill, the "Engrossed" version as approved by the State Senate. The word "study" occurs nowhere. The full text of the bill, only six pages of double-spaced type, is appended at the end of this entry. It's like he didn't even read it before agreeing to vote for it.] Once we realized it was a bit more than that, we quickly and effectively quashed it before it even got to the House. [It was grassroots conservatives who raised a stink and convinced the House not to touch SB 906. I don't recall Mike Mazzei speaking out, and I can't find any record that he did.] If this non-issue is the best attack my opponents can come up with, good luck to them. [Voting for NPV is an issue. They don't need luck with this kind of own-goal.] Oklahomans want the income tax eliminated, no property taxes for seniors and veterans, and students reading at grade level. [We also want the electoral vote system protected, not bypassed.] We all want a prosperous future for our kids and grandkids. [Electing Hillary Clinton in 2016 would not have helped.]

NOTE: *If Jake Merrick were actually working to win the governorship, instead of being on a lark, he'd have been able to build a big enough number of grassroots supporters who would give him enough in small donations to reach potential primary voters.
- May 28, 2026 at 12:23AM
Mike Mazzei voted for the National Popular Vote Compact
Click the headline to read the full story.

Former State Sen. Mike Mazzei narrowly leads the race for the Republican nomination for Governor of Oklahoma in a new poll commissioned by NonDoc. The top three candidates, Mike Mazzei, Gentner Drummond, and Chip Keating, are within one percentage point of each other. Charles McCall in 4th place is less than 3 points behind 1st place.

1. Mike Mazzei, 22.10%
2. Gentner Drummond, 21.66%
3. Chip Keating, 21.44%
4. Charles McCall, 18.38%
5. Jake Merrick, 7.21%
6. Kenneth Sturgell, 3.06%
7. Jennifer Domenico, 2.63%
8. Leisa Mitchell Haynes, 2.41%
9. Callup Anthony Taylor, 1.09%

The last previous public poll of the GOP Governor primary was released by CHS in early February, and it showed Drummond with more than double the support of his nearest challenger at 35% and McCall at 14%, Mazzei at 13%, and Keating at 13%, within a percentage point of each other. Merrick had 5% in that poll. The poll will be used to determine who will qualify to participate in NonDoc's gubernatorial debate on Thursday, May 28, 2026. A 12% threshold is required to participate. NonDoc wrote that they spent their own money on the poll in order to give them a fair basis to decide who made the cut, rather than basing the decision of four-month old polling numbers. "With no public gubernatorial polling since January, how would we know whether Merrick, Leisa Mitchell Haynes, Kenneth Sturgell, Jennifer Domenico or Callup Anthony Taylor had closed their gap with the top four candidates?" Merrick has intense and vocal support online, but that hasn't translated to a realistic chance of advancing to the runoff. The debate will be held at Cameron University in Lawton and will be broadcast live on KSWO and C-SPAN and will be streamed on KSWO.com and CSPAN.org, starting at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 28, 2026. The poll also asked about the Republican primary for State Superintendent. Nearly half of those polled were undecided, but John Cox leads with 12.25%, followed by State Sen. Adam Pugh with 7.66%, but other candidates are not far behind. CHS also recently polled this race and found 61% undecided and all candidates in single digits, with John Cox at 9% and Adam Pugh at 8%. Six of the seven candidates will participate in the June 2 NonDoc debate.
- May 26, 2026 at 09:33AM
Mazzei leads tight Governor poll
Click the headline to read the full story.

This is a year of open seats in Oklahoma. Statewide incumbents are either term-limited or seeking higher offices. Some races have drawn nearly a dozen candidates. The likelihood is that most of these races will result in a two-candidate runoff. The question is whether conservatives will have someone worth voting for in that runoff. I've written before about the hazards of a two-candidate runoff. In the 1991 Louisiana governor's race, several reasonable candidates split the reasonable vote, and the runoff was between corrupt former Governor Edwin Edwards and former KKK leader David Duke -- crook vs. klansman. A candidate receiving 5.3% of the vote drew well enough to keep incumbent Buddy Roemer from making the runoff. There was a popular bumper sticker that said, "Vote for the Crook. It's important." If reasonable voters had rallied behind Roemer, Louisiana could have avoided that dilemma. We had the same problem in the Tulsa Mayor's race in 2024: There were several Republican candidates, plus a Democrat with a moderate image who downplayed her party affiliation. With no party labels on the ballot to provide a frame of reference, Republican voters were split, and two Democrats advanced to the runoff, leaving Republicans with no good option. There are also no labels next to candidate names on the Republican primary ballot, nothing to separate real conservatives from phony conservatives, real Republicans from RINOs. Without guidance, without some sort of conservative "primary" before the primary, it's likely that conservative voters will vote for phonies or split their votes between real conservatives, allowing the phonies to advance to the runoff, leaving conservatives with no good option. Out of the nine Republican candidates for Governor of Oklahoma, the two that got the earliest start and have been at or near the top of the fundraising race are the two I'd least want to see win the office. I was asked a couple of months ago by a phone pollster what I'd do if there were a runoff between Attorney General Gentner Drummond and former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall. My response was one of despair. Before we get to the question of which candidate conservatives should unite behind, I need to explain why a Drummond/McCall runoff would be such a tragic result, why we need to unite behind one conservative candidate, why we can't just vote for our favorite in the primary and hope for good choices in the runoff. There is a bad outcome for the Governor's primary, and right now it looks like the most likely outcome. So to begin, here's an attempt to gather into one place some of the many reasons why conservatives don't want Gentner Drummond to be Governor. Drummond has been trying to pose as a conservative for years, and with the help of massive dark money spending aimed to help him, he succeeded in fooling just enough 2022 Republican primary voters to defeat incumbent Attorney General John O'Connor (an actual conservative). Gentner Drummond has repeatedly displayed his true colors in his political contributions to support liberal Democrats and Democrat control of Congress, in his support for the dual system of justice and legal confusion created by the McGirt ruling, in his antagonism toward religious liberty and religious expression, and in his frequent hostile actions toward Gov. Stitt and other conservative elected officials. I have to start by giving a tip of the hat and the strongest possible recommendation to read the work of Jamison Faught, the Muskogee Politico, who has been keeping a consistent eye on Drummond since his first statewide campaign. Last summer, as the Governor's race started heating up, he recapped his coverage in "Who is the real Gentner Drummond?" Gentner Drummond has a long history of giving to Democrats, even in crucial elections when one seat could determine control of the U. S. Senate and the U. S. House. Drummond was a major contributor ($1,000) to Democrat Brad Carson's 2004 run for U. S. Senate (he lost to Tom Coburn) and Democrat Dan Boren's campaigns ($2,500) for U. S. House. However "moderate" those two candidates may have been, Drummond's support for their candidacies was support for Democrat majorities in Washington and for leftist Democrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to run the committees and set the legislative agenda. On August 31, 2020, Gentner Drummond gave $1,000 to Joe Biden's general election campaign for President against Donald Trump. During the 2022 AG race, Drummond claimed that his wife Wendy "got mad" and used a joint credit card to give the $1,000 to Biden, but that she "immediately asked for a refund and got the money back."
- May 24, 2026 at 09:32PM
The case against Gentner Drummond
Click the headline to read the full story.

Steve Kunzweiler, the incumbent Tulsa County District Attorney, has been recognized as a Certified Republican by the Oklahoma Republican Party. This means he's been a registered Republican voter for at least five years, has not contributed to a Democrat candidate within five years, and is in agreement with at least 80% of the Oklahoma Republican platform, does not support abortion, and is pro-Second Amendment. The designation is offered by the state party to help voters discern between candidates who genuinely share their values and politicians who have opportunistically adopted the GOP label in order to get elected in this very Republican state. His opponent, the newly registered Republican Colleen McCarty, has said that the five-year voter registration requirement is the only one keeping her for being a certified Republican (despite her history of participating in a pro-abortion rally). She says that she'll meet that required if she's elected DA by the time she runs for re-election in 2030. She's even claimed that by that time she'll have been a Republican for as long as she was ever a Democrat. That's not true, Colleen. According to official information from the Tulsa County Election Board, here are Colleen Lilah McCarty's party affiliations over time:

• February 4, 2004: registered as an independent (1,343 days)
• October 9, 2007: changed to Democrat (6,192 days)
• September 21, 2024: changed to Republican (609 days)

So as of today, Colleen McCarty has been a Democrat 10 times longer than she's been a Republican. She was a Democrat for 16.964 years; she's been a Republican for 20 months. If she stays Republican, it won't be until September 4, 2041, that she'll have been a Republican as long as she was a Democrat. That's 15 years from now. Maybe Colleen McCarty forgot. Or maybe she just thought that no one would be able to fact-check her on something that happened so long ago.
- May 23, 2026 at 02:43PM
Colleen McCarty: Democrat for nearly 17 years, Republican for 1.7 years
Click the headline to read the full story.

Colleen McCarty, the Democrat-turned-Republican candidate for Tulsa County District Attorney, was a prominent participant in a 2012 rally organized by pro-abortion forces. McCarty appears front-and-center wearing a pink T-shirt with the words "A CHOICE" printed in large letters across her belly. McCarty is holding a sign that reads "WHAT'S BEST FOR ME IS WHAT'S BEST FOR MY BABY. NO TO PERSONHOOD!" The Daily Oklahoman covered the rally with a news story (current link here) and a video story. The Oklahoman's news story featured a grinning Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre carrying a sign reading "IF I WANTED THE GOVERNMENT IN MY WOMB I'D F[***] A SENATOR." Other signs at the rally: "Keep abortion safe and legal." "Keep your laws out of my womb." "If the fetus you safe is gay will you still fight for its rights?" "Forcing your agenda between my legs." "My body my choice." McCarty appears in an Associated Press photograph, available on the Deseret News website, with the caption: "Colleen McCarty, Tulsa, Okla., cheers at an anti-personhood rally at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012. The rally is in opposition to the state Senate's passage of a bill that grants the rights of personhood to fertilized human [eggs]. Susan Ogrocki, [Associated Press]." She is quoted in the AP story:

Colleen McCarty, 26, a consultant and restaurant owner from Tulsa, said she would strongly consider taking her two businesses out of the state if the bill moves forward. Six months pregnant and wearing a T-shirt with the words "a choice" printed over her belly, McCarty said she would not raise her daughter in a state where she would not have control over her medical decisions.

Some context: This was before the Dobbs decision. Roe v. Wade had not yet been overturned, but in the Casey decision the U. S. Supreme Court gave states leeway to place some restrictions on abortion, and pro-life legislators worked around the margins, short of a direct challenge to Roe, to gain ground for unborn children. The Personhood bill was one such effort. SB 1433, authored by Sen. Brian Crain, made the following legislative findings: "1. The life of each human being begins at conception; 2. Unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being; and 3. The natural parents of unborn children have protectable interests in the life, health, and well-being of their unborn child." The bill would have "The laws of this state shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state." The bill passed the State Senate by a wide margin, was favorably voted out of the House Committee, but it did not get a floor vote in the House. (Kris Steele, who later led the anti-prison group Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, was Speaker of the House at that time. McCarty was later Deputy Director of OCJR, working for Steele.) Pro-abortion forces rightly saw this as a threat to their ability to kill unborn children and rallied to stop it. If an unborn child has the same rights as any other human, is considered a person under law, then it's as illegal to kill that child as it is to kill a toddler or a teenager. They attempted to get support from people outside the pro-abortion movement by claiming the bill was a threat to women who miscarried and a threat to in-vitro fertilization, but the bill had language addressing those concerns. McCarty is now claiming, through her social media apologists, like Broken Arrow Mayor Debra Wimpee and State Sen. Dana Prieto, that the bill was only about IVF or that IVF was why she was at the protest. (How McCarty has managed to hoodwink a number of conservatives is a subject for a later article.) But note that Colleen McCarty's signs say nothing about IVF. They exalt her desires above the interests of her unborn child: "WHAT'S BEST FOR ME IS WHAT'S BEST FOR MY BABY." Her T-shirt declares that she should have life-and-death authority over her unborn child, who is merely "A CHOICE": If McCarty chooses one way, that belly bump is a baby, but if McCarty chooses the other way, her unborn child is just biohazard waste to be dismembered, extracted, and either incinerated or sold for parts. PREVIOUS ARTICLES on Colleen McCarty: Colleen McCarty's short, progressive, soft-on-crime resume Colleen McCarty's kind of justice: Putting the criminal first Colleen McCarty: Multiple thefts shouldn't be a felony
- May 23, 2026 at 12:04PM
Colleen McCarty protests personhood of the unborn
Click the headline to read the full story.

This is an update of an entry from 16 years ago. The structure and offices are the same, but the names are different for 2026. It took me a while to puzzle all this out, and I thought others might be interested as well. Oklahoma has 26 District Courts. Tulsa County and Pawnee County constitute Judicial District No. 14. State law says that District 14 has 14 district judge offices. (Why are Tulsa County and Pawnee County coupled together? Why not Pawnee with, say, Osage, and Tulsa on its own, as Oklahoma County is? Why doesn't the Judicial District line up with the District Attorney District?) One judge must reside in and be nominated from Pawnee County, eight must reside in and be nominated from Tulsa County. If there are more than two candidates for any of those nine offices, there is a non-partisan nominating primary in the appropriate county, and the top two vote-getters are on the general election ballot. (Even if one gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two still advance.) In the general election, all voters in Pawnee and Tulsa Counties vote on those nine seats. The remaining five district judges are selected by electoral division in Tulsa County. In order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, Tulsa County is divided into five electoral divisions, one of which (Electoral Division 3) has a "minority-majority" population. (The minority-majority district is much smaller than the other four, as it must be in order to guarantee that the electorate is majority African-American.) For each of these five offices, if there are three or more candidates, there is a non-partisan nominating primary. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, he is elected; otherwise, the top two advance to the general election. For each of these five offices, the candidates must reside in the corresponding electoral division, and only voters in that electoral division will vote for that office in the primary and general election. (Oklahoma County, Judicial District No. 7, is the only other county with judges elected by division.) Despite the three different paths one can take to be elected, a Judge in Judicial District No. 14 can be assigned to try any case within the two counties. Each county in the state also elects an Associate District Judge, nominated and elected countywide. Incumbent Tulsa County Associate District Judge Todd Chesbro has been re-elected without opposition. Pawnee County Associate District Judge Patrick Pickerill was re-elected without opposition. In addition to the elected judges, the District has a certain number of Special Judges, who are appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the District Judges. All this I was able to puzzle out from prior knowledge and browsing through the relevant sections of the Oklahoma Statutes. What I still couldn't quite figure out is which of the 14 offices corresponded with the five electoral divisions, and which one was nominated from Pawnee County. Although electoral division 4 votes for office 4, I was pretty sure the pattern did not apply to the other offices. Back in 2006, after a few phone calls, someone from the Tulsa County Election Board found the relevant info in the League of Women Voters handbook. So here it is, for your reference and mine, with the party registration of each judge noted in parentheses. (Yes, I know Oklahoma judicial races are non-partisan and judicial candidates are supposed to refrain from mentioning party affiliation, but I'm not subject to that restriction, and party registration is a matter of public record. Party affiliation may be some indication of a candidate's judicial philosophy. Judges now have the option to have their voter registration "unlisted" for their personal security, and many have availed themselves of that option; I have question marks for those judges, which I will replace with better information if it becomes available.)

Office	Incumbent	Nominated by	Primary 2026	Elected by	General 2026
1	Wall (R)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.	Yes
2	Holmes (D)	Tulsa Co. ED 3		Tulsa Co. ED 3
3	Priddy (R)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
4	Cantrell1 (I)	Tulsa Co. ED 4	Yes	Tulsa Co. ED 4	Possibly
5	Keely (R)	Pawnee Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
6	Greenough (R)	Tulsa Co. ED 2		Tulsa Co. ED 2
7	LaFortune (R)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
8	Drummond (R)	Tulsa Co. ED 5		Tulsa Co. ED 5
9	Hathcoat2 (I)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
10	Moody (?)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
11	Nightingale1 (?)	Tulsa Co. ED 1		Tulsa Co. ED 1
12	Gray (R)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.	Yes
13	Guten (?)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.
14	Glassco (D)	Tulsa Co.		Tulsa and Pawnee Cos.

Offices elected by Tulsa County Electoral Divisions in red. Offices nominated by Pawnee County in blue. ¹ Not seeking re-election. ² Appointed by Gov. Stitt to fill unexpired term of Jim Huber, who was appointed to the Court of Civil Appeals. Although all 14 offices are up for election this year, only three offices are contested, and only one of those will be on the primary ballot. Two incumbent judges have drawn opponents: Caroline Wall in Office 1 and Kevin Gray in Office 12. Wall is a registered Republican, being challenged by Tom Sawyer, a rematch of their 2018 contest. Gray is being challenged by Christopher Camp, also a registered Republican. One of the two open seats, Office 4, currently held by Daman Cantrell (I), has drawn three candidates, Special Judge Loretta Radford, former prosecutor Dustin Allen, and Rogers County Assistant District Attorney Phillip Peak. This is the only one of the five offices elected by electoral division that is being contested this year. If any one candidate gets 50% or more of the primary vote, that candidate is elected, and there will not be a runoff in November. The other open seat, Office 11, is currently held by Rebecca Brett Nightingale. Special Judge April Siebert was the only candidate to file for the seat, so she has been elected. Judicial Election District 4 voters will be the only ones to have a judicial race on the ballot on June 16, 2026. In rough terms, the district includes all of Tulsa County north of 66th Street North (including Sperry, Skiatook, Collinsville, Owasso), nearly all of the the City of Tulsa in Tulsa County east of Memorial Drive and north of 61st Street. The best way to know which electoral division you live in is to consult the Tulsa County judicial electoral division map. Click here for the full collection of Tulsa County district and precinct maps.
- May 22, 2026 at 11:05PM
A guide to Tulsa & Pawnee County Judicial Elections, 2026
Click the headline to read the full story.

Once again, a small Oklahoma city has approved an ordinance enabling a large data center to move forward, over the objections of local residents. On May 18, 2026, Claremore City Council approved three measures in support of the Project Mustang data center: a tax-incentive district (TID), a development agreement with Mustang Tulsa Holdings LLC, and an ordinance creating a new electric rate schedule for mega-users. Here is the May 18, 2026, agenda and the backup packet containing all the ordinances and contracts approved. The Claremore Progress published a press-release from the City of Claremore. KOTV had a story about the meeting. In Sand Springs, after a similar vote, residents began circulating recall petitions against the city councilors who voted in favor. The same approach is being discussed in Claremore. Some cities in Oklahoma have the power to recall elected officials written into its city charter, and the circumstances and valid reasons for recall will vary from one city to another, but there is no general right in Oklahoma to recall an elected official and remove him from office. (Claremore's recall process is found in Section 6.09 of the City Charter.) There is a remedy that is universally available in Oklahoma: Initiative and referendum. Oklahoma's state constitution grants citizens the right at every level of government, in every political subdivision, to circulate a petition to enact legislation and to repeal legislation. Here's the language from Article 5:

Section 1: The Legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a Legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives; but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the Legislature. Section 2: The first power reserved by the people is the initiative, and eight per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose any legislative measure, and fifteen per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose amendments to the Constitution by petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. The second power is the referendum, and it may be ordered (except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety), either by petition signed by five per centum of the legal voters or by the Legislature as other bills are enacted. The ratio and per centum of legal voters hereinbefore stated shall be based upon the total number of votes cast at the last general election for the Office of Governor.

Section 5 is where the same power is applied at the local level:

§ 5. Reservation of powers to voters of counties and districts - Manner of exercising. The powers of the initiative and referendum reserved to the people by this Constitution for the State at large, are hereby further reserved to the legal voters of every county and district therein, as to all local legislation, or action, in the administration of county and district government in and for their respective counties and districts. The manner of exercising said powers shall be prescribed by general laws, except that Boards of County Commissioners may provide for the time of exercising the initiative and referendum powers as to local legislation in their respective counties and districts. The requisite number of petitioners for the invocation of the initiative and referendum in counties and districts shall bear twice, or double, the ratio to the whole number of legal voters in such county or district, as herein provided therefor in the State at large.

Specifics about the municipal initiative and referendum process are set out in Article XV of Title XI. If a city or town doesn't have ordinances or charter provisions governing initiative and referendum, the laws in this section will apply, with mayor, municipal clerk, and municipal attorney performing the roles played in statewide petitions by the Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General, respectively. Section 6.08 of the Claremore City Charter explicitly defers to the State Constitution and State Statute. The form of a municipal referendum petition is found in 34 O.S. 1. The petition must include the full title and text of the measure to be placed before the voters. The number of signatures required is at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the total number of votes cast at the most recent preceding general municipal election (11 O.S. 15-103). A referendum petition must be submitted within 60 days of the passage of the ordinance for which the referendum is sought. At the last election for Mayor of Claremore, on April 4, 2023, 1,482 votes were cast, so 371 signatures would be needed to get a referendum on the ballot. There was a more recent general election on April 1, 2025, where 1,231 votes were the most cast for any one at-large council seat, but 1,425 votes for a 1% city sales tax. Depending on how the law is read, you might only need 357 signatures, but probably safer to get the extra 14 signatures. You can browse the citations at the bottom of each section of law on OSCN to see how the law has been applied in practice, and how some attempts at petitioning for a referendum have fallen short of the legal standard. For example, a 2007 petition to repeal a City of Norman zoning change failed to qualify for the ballot because proponents failed to include the text of the ordinance they wanted to repeal. A case involving a 1976 City of Tulsa petition notes that the City Auditor, as Chief Clerk of the City under the City Commission form of government in place at the time, acted as the equivalent of the Secretary of State for the purpose of receiving and certifying petitions affecting the city's ordinances and charter. The use of the much-abused emergency clause may also impede the successful use of a referendum to repeal a city ordinance. City councils routinely vote by supermajority to declare that the ordinance is "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety," even if it is not, so that the ordinance can go immediately into effect. This is a way to bypass any waiting period mandated by the city charter or other law. Article 5, Section 2, of the Constitution cites the typical emergency clause language as an exception to the citizens' power to petition for a referendum. It might be possible to challenge the validity of an emergency clause, but courts have generally deferred to legislative findings of that sort. A municipal referendum seems to be very rare in Oklahoma. If you're aware of any successful attempts in recent years, please email me at blog at batesline dot com. I hope this overview is helpful to citizens trying to keep their city councilors in check.
- May 20, 2026 at 10:57PM
Municipal initiative and referendum in Oklahoma: A primer
Click the headline to read the full story.

Kevin Dahlgren documents the world of the homeless in the Pacific Northwest. He regularly interviews people on the streets, posting to Truth on the Streets on Substack and on his X account. Dahlgren often works with photographer Tara Faul. Over time, they've built a rapport with many of the street people they've met, who have allowed them to tell their stories. Their work is compelling. Recently, he wrote that, as he was spending time with some of the street people he knew, a worker from a homeless nonprofit assaulted him.

I was having a good day. I had just finished an interview and was talking with people I know when two nonprofit workers rode up hostile and began yelling that I was "exploiting" homeless people by interviewing them and offering five dollars for their time. Then a woman who calls herself Squire struck me in the head. Several homeless people, the very people these workers claim to serve, immediately stepped in to defend me. The young man with her called a homeless woman a "bitch." Then he called me one. As they rode off, Nene [a homeless woman] warned them that if they came back, there would be consequences.... This was not an isolated incident. I have other videos of them acting unprofessionally. Since I posted the video, I have received dozens of private messages from the homeless and even the ex-friends of these workers who shared that they have become radicalized and forgotten about the mission. People have different politics, different ideologies, and different views about homelessness. That is normal. But there is a line between disagreement and violence. They crossed it immediately. Progressives have dominated the homeless response on the West Coast for years. In most major cities, the mayors, county commissioners, city councils, nonprofit leaders, and social service bureaucracies often operate from the same ideological worldview. That worldview has shaped policy: Housing First, harm reduction, drug decriminalization, soft-on-crime approaches, and a social service culture that too often treats homeless people less like adults with agency and more like political symbols to be managed, protected, and spoken for.... Some workers act as if their moral superiority gives them permission to say or do whatever they want in front of vulnerable people. They talk down to them. They shame them. They try to control who they speak to, what they say, and what they believe. They confuse service with authority. That is not trauma-informed care. That is power. And when power is mixed with ideology, it can become abusive very quickly. The worst version of this dynamic is the overbearing social worker with a savior complex. This person does not always see the homeless individual as a full human being with agency. They see them as a project, a symbol, or proof of their own compassion.... There is something deeply wrong with a social service system that fills its mission statements with words like dignity, respect, inclusion, and trauma-informed care, then demands ideological obedience from vulnerable adults desperate for help. These are people seeking shelter, food, safety, treatment, and stability. They are not there to be converted. The people who claim to speak for the homeless often do not seem to understand them at all. And more and more, the homeless are saying it out loud. Homeless people do not need nonprofit workers to become their parents. They do not need ideological handlers. They do not need to be managed like children. They need honest help. They need consistent outreach. They need clear options. They need boundaries, dignity, accountability, and real pathways off the street.

This is ironic: Christians who minister to the homeless, like John 3:16 Mission, have often been falsely accused of forcing people to convert in order to receive help. It appears that that is exactly what the leftists "serving" Portland's homeless are doing: Making conformity a condition of help. Classic leftist projection. Tulsans, this kind of "care" is what you voted for when you voted to give the City of Tulsa $75 million to help the homeless and then elected Monroe Nichols to manage it. If you actually want to help, City of Hope Outreach and John 3:16 Mission are a couple of ministries that deal with homeless people as fellow image-bearers of God whose needs are greater than the next meal and the next fix.
- May 19, 2026 at 01:40PM
Homeless Industrial Complex
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Jan Wilson Bost, an early-day Oklahoma City-based blogger known as the Happy Homemaker, died on May 11, 2026, at the age of 62. She was the recent recipient of a long-awaited heart transplant; a post-transplant infection took her life. A celebration of Jan's life will take place on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at 6:30 pm at Memorial Road Church of Christ, 2221 E. Memorial Road, Edmond, OK. The service will be livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel. Jan is survived by James, her husband of nearly 31 years, her sons Colin and Spencer, and her first grandchild. Jan had begun writing the Happy Homemaker in February 2004, introducing her subject matter this way:

Welcome to The Happy Homemaker! We'll be learning about all kinds of things on this blog, including music, law, cooking, cleaning, children and God. Woo Hoo! Let's go!

It was an accurate introduction. Jan wrote often of her faith in Christ and how it shaped her day-to-day life. She was often profound but also whimsical: Vintage Valentine cards and old motel postcards were frequent features on her blog. In 2005, she answered a question implicit in a search query that referred someone to her blog:

Yesterday this blog had a visitor who came from the Google search: "how to be happy as a homemaker." I don't know if she'll be back, but I've been thinking about her and decided to address her question. The question could have many reasons. Perhaps she had career goals and now finds herself at home, at a loss for what to do with her new role. Maybe she always wanted to be a homemaker, but finds it is not all she hoped for. Maybe she's just doing research, with no emotional ties to the question. Whatever the reason, the answer is the same: you decide to be happy. (Really, "happy" is not the correct word for the situation. I'd rather use "joyful.") No matter your situation in life, it is a temporary season. Why not make the best of it? Homemaking (and motherhood) are really fleeting, but they are important. It is as if each task you undertake is a stitch in the great quilt of comfort that covers our nation. Your family may not realize all that you do, but they benefit nonetheless....just as you benefit from the works of countless others whose work goes unnoticed by you. Take pride in your own work, not seeking praise from others.

In January 2005, Jan asked her readers what makes for good parenting:

There are a lot of good parents out there and if you ask them what it is they do to have such lovely children, they will usually just shrink back and say they got lucky. But my theory is that the parents are doing some things right and they just think everyone does those things. They don't realize that their own parents were special or that they are special. They just take some things for granted. You've seen these families. They enjoy each other, they touch each other gently, they make each other laugh. Your mission is to find out what they are doing. "They" may be you. Dig down deep to find out what it is. It is probably something woven into your daily routines. Maybe its the way you talk to your children, maybe its how you teach, maybe its what you expect from them..... But, please be practical in your advice. "Just love them" is not enough. HOW do you put loving them into practice.

With that post, Jan shared daily checklist for parents that she'd received at Bible Study Fellowship, each item with a related Bible verse. It's worth revisiting. I first met Jan in Oklahoma City in January 2005, at the first ever Okie Blogger Bash, a gathering of faith-friendly, generally right-of-center bloggers. Here's her account of the event. She was as delightful in person as she was in her writing. Jan, Dawn Eden, and I had sushi together after the bash, then Jan invited us to her lovely 1920s home, where we met her husband James and her two sons. One fun memory of my blog interactions with Jan: When my wife and I were expecting our third child, I asked for reader suggestions for baby names. I ruled out "Norman," but Jan found a way around that and suggested "Moe Telle," then later added, "For some strange reason I fell asleep last night thinking, 'I should have said Jay L. Bates.'" Jan was an attorney, but she found ways to practice her profession that allowed her to be home with her two sons as much as possible as they were growing up. She was active in her church, Memorial Road Church of Christ. Jan played French horn for a number of ensembles, including the Oklahoma Community Orchestra, Oklahoma Composers Orchestra, Oklahoma City Symphonic Band, and the Oklahoma Haydn Festival. Jan continued to blog regularly through the end of 2008. Happily, because she used the Blogger platform (blogspot.com), because Google acquired Blogger and hasn't shut it down (yet), and because she never took her blog offline, it's all still there. (The infrastructure of the Internet, with expiring domain names and pay-by-the-month web hosting, works against permanence.) As Facebook took off, and perhaps as life became busier, her writing about life, faith, and family moved to social media. In March 2025, Jan shared that she had been suffering from heart failure since 2010, that her condition had reached end-stage in the spring of 2024, and that she had been put on the waiting list for a transplant. In late 2025, Jan began a CaringBridge site and began blogging once again. While most of her writing recorded her medical journey, she wrote about her faith, her family, and daily life, she answered questions, and she shared funny little observations. One of her entries was an article she had written for the Gatewood neighborhood newsletter about the history of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Parish and the significance of its bells. This past February, Jan posted the text of Psalm 46 and the lyrics of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," introducing them with these words:

We should have no expectation that God grant us every wish we bring before him. His ways are higher. But one petition I'm sure He will always answer is to tell Satan to flee from us. If you wish to pray anything for me, please pray for that.

She followed up in the next post:

Several of you have reached out to me personally concerned about my current state of mind because of my last post. I can see why it appeared that that was a problem. The point I was actually trying to make, however, is that I am concerned for you. I know most of you are praying for me to be healed. For a new heart. We all want that, but that doesn't mean it will happen. We can only hope. And while it is OK to share these wishes in prayer, we should always remember that it is God's will not ours. If I should not live to get a new heart, or even not live through surgery for a new heart, I do not want you to lose faith. I am at peace, knowing it is a possible outcome. It does not mean that our prayers are not answered, it means we did not get the answer we hoped for.

May Jan rest in peace, rejoicing in the presence of the Savior she loved and served. IN MEMORIAM: A fund in memory of Jan Bost has been established to benefit the Oklahoma City Symphonic Band:

The Bost family has requested that donations be made in memory of Jan to the Oklahoma City Symphonic Band. Jan played in the band for many years and was a beloved member of the band in the french horn section. She was a wonderful musician and friend to all who knew her. Jan would love to see this type of support for the band she enjoyed so much. We plan to offer a tribute to Jan at our November 2026 concert and will list donors to Jan's Memorial in our program. The Oklahoma City Symphonic Band is a 501c3 organization under the Oklahoma Concert Band Foundation. Upcoming concerts can be found at www.okcband.org.

- May 19, 2026 at 12:54AM
Remembering Jan Bost
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This past Saturday I was on Tulsa Beacon Weekend on KCFO AM 970 with Jeff Brucculeri mainly to talk about the upcoming June 16, 2026, primary election. We took a couple of digressions to talk about air travel (particularly the demise of Spirit Air) and AM radio's importance to the traveler. The Tulsa County DA's race was the main focus of the conversation. Next week, Jeff's guest is incumbent DA Steve Kunzweiler; Kunzweiler makes a couple of appearances on the show each year, and this appearance was scheduled months ago. The hour-long interview show, sponsored by the weekly Tulsa Beacon newspaper, airs live each week at noon Saturday. You can always find the latest episode of Tulsa Beacon Weekend at this link. I've made a Wayback Machine capture of last Saturday's episode at this permalink.
- May 17, 2026 at 11:21PM
Tulsa Beacon Weekend: Primary election, SQ 832, travel, etc.
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