2020 Citizen of the Year: Frank Urbanic

  Civil Rights Attorney, Frank Urbanic, is our 2020 Citizen of the year for his efforts to hold state and local govt to respect and defend the federal & state Constitutions in their official duties.
  In a year like none other, 2020 is a memory we are all destined to never forget(sadly). But in times of trial, peril, and tyranny, those who remind us of our civilization's founding principles are especially to be valued. Those who rise up to champion the cause of individual liberty, societal virtue, and advancement of prosperity; they are to be esteemed.
  When we knew so little about a global virus from a Chinese laboratory, our nation had to revisit our founding principles and put them to the test. 
​When Governor Stitt first ordered a ban on large gatherings of people, Frank Urbanic researched official state documents and discovered some very troubling data. Urbanic published a blog post on his law firm's website, indicating that the governor seemed to have essentially declared that a state of widespread riot is endangering the state.  At least that is the implication of the Attorney general's legal notices.
  SoonerPolitics reposted the article on Thursday, April 2nd, and within hours the governor changed course and properly invoked a "Health Emergency Act" declaration,  & submitting a request of the legislature to grant him 30 days of special powers with legislative oversight.  As those 30 days came to an end, the governor was celebrated nationally as an example of how a state gets back up on it's feet and thriving.

"I became a criminal defense attorney because I’m intimately familiar with how precious our constitutional rights are." - Attorney Frank Urbanic

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    President Trump then chose Tulsa as the cite of his first 'post lockdown' political rally.  At that event, the President once again praises the leadership of Stitt.
  But in the autumn months of 2020, it seems Gov. Stitt went back to his old ways of circumventing the legislature, statutory law, & the very constitution of our state. This time the governor appears to have quietly declared that a "natural or manmade disaster" has severely broken down civic order.  So once again, Frank Urbanic published his 2nd expose on the actions of a governor who seems to want to circumvent the legislature. 
  This time the 57th legislature was expiring and a new legislature was not set to convene until January. How convenient! 
  When the governor unilaterally decided to shut down all restaurants and taverns at 11pm, Urbanic's advocacy took on a litigating form. Several business owners sought Urbanic's legal representation. By mid December Urbanic had filed suit against the governor and the state's liquor regulatory agency ABLE. It seems ABLE had decided to make up laws as they go, and start shutting down violators for 30 days, even though the governor had not properly created special emergency rules nor spelled out the penalties for first violations. 
  The judge assigned to the case immediately ordered a stay of the 'rules' and ordered a Dec. 30th hearing. 
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 The stay only applied to the 6 businesses listed as plaintiffs in the suit, but ABLE announced shortly thereafter that they would not enforce their made up new rules on any businesses until the court deliberates the matter. Urbanic enthusiastically took on the case of defending the cause of the state's restaurants, night clubs, & taverns.
  Restaurants, and especially night clubs, rely heavily on their peak business hours to pay the bills.  This year brought huge extra expenses for operating within a mountain of new Health Dept. mandates. When a business has to drop their occupancy for health code 'social distancing', they hope the patrons will spread out their visits and dine during off-peak hours.  But for taverns, the 11pm-1am peak is crucial to viability on economic terms.   The shutdown

• has no scientific data to back it up.
• Is selectively enforced.
• Ignores any other strategies for desired outcomes.

  Urbanic says that some of his clients are desperate for a financial turnaround.  That's probably true of most dining and entertainment enterprises.  A favorable legal solution may not be enough to keep these 6 establishments afloat, but we hope that the people of Oklahoma who value liberty and capitalism will find ways to show the world how much these venues are valued.

2020 Honorable Mention: Rick Hubbard & Timothy Harper

 Two citizen auditors took the brave task of exercising their 2nd amendment right to keep & bear arms in public places. Hostile law enforcement and opportunistic prosecutors in The Tulsa & OKC metro areas abused the rights of Rick Hubbard & Tim Harper when they peaceable had self defense firearms on a sling.  Both men are now free and state charges have been dropped. Broken Arrow Police are indefinitely keeping the weapons of Rick Hubbard. They say that it's 'until the Muskogee Creek Nation tells them to release the weapons back to their proper owner. 
  For their leadership in securing our constitutional rights, Rick Hubbard & Timothy Harper are Honorable Mention in 2020 Sooner Politics Citizen of the Year.

Previous Honorees:

2019: SoonerPolitics named Don Spencer as our citizen of the year, for the impact of his work to restore state laws to a place of greater consistency with the US Constitution, specifically as pertains to the 2nd Amendment.
2018: SoonerPolitics named Ron Durbin as our citizen of the year for his extensive and effective work to secure the reforms of SQ788 when the Health Dept and other state agencies sought to undermine the ballot initiative which restored medical marijuana as a treatment option for patients whose physicians concurred.