Photo by Asja Boroš / CC BY 2.0

Oklahoma voters will decide seven state questions in November on subjects ranging from agriculture to the death penalty to the use of public funds for religious purposes. Of the seven questions, three were placed on the ballot through the initiative petition process, while four were referred to the ballot by the Legislature.

What does history suggest about the likely outcome of this year’s ballot measures? OK Policy looked at the results of all state questions in Oklahoma since 1989 using data collected by Ballotpedia.  The results are rather surprising. Of the 83 state questions submitted to the voters in the past 25 years,  65, or 78 percent, have been approved. Fewer than one in four have been rejected.

continue reading Just Say Yes: Oklahoma voters have a history of affirming most state questions

Last week, Oklahomans went to the polls to decide 13 legislative primaries and one Congressional primary where no candidate received a majority in the initial primary ballot in June. More precisely, a few Oklahomans went to the polls. Less than one in five registered voters – 19.5 percent – voted in the runoff races in their district. In only one district, SD 19, did turnout exceed 26 percent.

As can be seen from the table, overall turnout in the 14 districts fell by 31.6 percent, or nearly one-third, between June and August. In all but one district, turnout for the runoff was lower than in the primary election. The exception was in SD 41, the highly-publicized contest in Edmond where Adam Pugh defeated Paul Blair. Since barely one in five registered Republicans voted in the initial primary in SD 41 in June, the bar for increased turnout in the runoff wasn’t that high. Three other runoff races saw fairly modest drops in participation, including Republican primaries in SD 19 (Enid) and HD 85 (Edmond) and the Democratic primary in HD 97 (Oklahoma City). Meanwhile, in eight races, turnout plunged by over one-third. The biggest drops were mostly in Tulsa-area seats (SD 39, HD 16, HD 67, HD 60, SD 25), where voters turned out in larger numbers in June to vote for Tulsa’s Mayor in an open primary.

continue reading Oklahoma and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Runoffs

Oklahoma Policy Institute is excited to announce that Bailey Perkins is joining the staff as Outreach & Legislative Liaison. The full-time position will be based in Oklahoma City.

Perkins will be assuming primary responsibilities for representing OK Policy at the State Capitol during the legislative session, as well as working closely with advocacy groups and coalitions in the Oklahoma City area to help advance OK Policy’s agenda for broad-based prosperity.  The role of legislative liaison had been carried out for the past three sessions on a part-time contract basis by Damario Solomon Simmons.

continue reading Bailey Perkins joins OK Policy as new Outreach & Legislative Liaison

There was a time when America’s working class was seen as the backbone of the economy with considerable political, economic, and moral authority. In recent decades, the working class has transformed as far more female and racially diverse workers have been employed by the restaurant, retail, health care, and other service industries. At the same time, this new working class has been marginalized, if not ignored, by politicians and pundits.

As Tamara Draut makes clear in an important and timely new book, Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America, this is changing, swiftly and dramatically. As the November election draws near, Tamara Draut will be visiting Oklahoma to discuss her book at a pair of public events in Tulsa and Oklahoma City:

continue reading Upcoming Event: Sleeping Giant author on how the ‘new working class’ is transforming America

Photo by Paresh Gajria / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

This weekend, many Oklahomans will flock to the stores to take advantage of the state’s annual three-day sales tax holiday weekend. Since 2007, shoppers are allowed to buy clothing items under $100 free of state and local sales tax during the first weekend in August. Many retailers report a major boost in business over the weekend that can rival Black Friday. “It will take all of our available staff to handle those three days,” said the President of Drysdale’s Western Wear in a news article last year.

Sales tax holidays are good for consumers, good for businesses, good for the economy, and good for Oklahoma, right?

Actually, no.

continue reading Sales tax holiday is poor policy

Nothing is as critical to a young person’s future prospects as a high school diploma. Decades of research shows that those who drop out of high school are at significantly higher risk of being unemployed, living in poverty, and serving time in prison.

Over the past two decades, Oklahoma has been a national leader for alternative education programs that keep at-risk students in school and help them to graduate. Despite this proven success, education funding cuts have now slashed support for alternative education in half and are leaving our most at-risk students without the support they need for educational success.

continue reading Cuts to alternative education will come back to haunt us

Photo via fightfor15.org.

Every three months, the ADP Research Institute releases its Workforce Vitality Index, a measure of private sector job and wage growth.  For the past two quarters, Washington state has led the nation in growing jobs and boosting wages, far outpacing the national average and such states as Texas, Florida, and California.

Why does this matter?   Because Washington state has one of the highest minimum wages in the nation at $9.47 an hour. And since April 2015, the city of Seattle has been moving towards a $15 minimum wage, with the current minimum ranging from $10.50 to $13 depending on employer size.  As the Workforce Vitality Index shows, businesses in Seattle and Washington state are thriving and generating more employment. Seattle’s restaurant industry — which fought the wage laws fiercely — is continuing to add jobs.

continue reading Confront the ‘parasite economy’ by raising the minimum wage

When August 23rd rolls around next month, you can be sure that lots of things will be on Oklahomans’ minds: kids going back to school, the upcoming Labor Day weekend, and the start of college football season, to name a few. What probably won’t be on the minds of most Oklahomans are the primary runoff elections that will be held in a handful of districts across the state that day. Yet these run-off elections, decided by a shrunken electorate, will have a decisive impact on who ends up representing these districts in the Legislature.

There will be 14 runoff elections this August in races where no candidate won over 50 percent of the vote in the June 28th primary. Eleven of these will be Republican runoffs — seven for the Senate and four for the House — along with two Democratic House runoffs and a Democratic runoff for the Fifth Congressional District. Interestingly, while the number of candidates filing for legislative and Congressional races surged from 311 in 2014 to 388 in 2016, there will be fewer runoffs this year (14) than in 2014 (16). In races that will be decided by a runoff, the vote total of the leading candidate in the initial primary ranged from a low of 33.47 percent for Republican Tom Gann in HD 8 to a high of 49.89 percent for Republican Adam Pugh in SD 41.

continue reading Time for Oklahoma to off the runoff

Each year, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof holds a Win-A-Trip contest for college students to accompany him on a reporting trip to the developing world. Most years, his trip explores  global poverty in far-flung places like Congo or Myanmar. This year, he decided to add a stop in Tulsa to see the impact of the nation’s 20-year experiment with revamping welfare.

His disheartening findings were featured in a recent Sunday’s New York Times column. “The embarrassing truth,” he writes, “is that welfare reform has resulted in a layer of destitution that echoes poverty in countries like Bangladesh.”

In 1996, President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress approved legislation to “end welfare as we know it.” Under the replacement Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, it became harder for single parents to qualify for cash support. Recipients were subject to work requirements, harsh penalties for non-compliance, and strict time limits for receiving assistance.

continue reading Why poverty in Oklahoma is being compared to a Third World nation

The weeks before the Presidential primaries on Super Tuesday back in March were heady times in Oklahoma. The leading candidates for the Republican and Democratic nominations held large, enthusiastic rallies in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Voter registrations surged by nearly 30,000 in the weeks before the primary registration deadline.  Small armies of volunteers knocked doors, organized meetings, and got out the vote.

On Super Tuesday, the nation watched in fascination as Oklahoma bucked national trends to “choose Cruz” and “feel the Bern”. For choosing our parties’ nominees, our votes mattered. Oklahoma mattered.

But with the primaries over,  Oklahomans can put the Presidential election back on their list of events to be treated as pure spectator sport, like the Superbowl and World Series.  Putting aside the possibility that our Governor is selected as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, one prediction seems solid: no Presidential candidate is likely to step foot in Oklahoma again before the November 8 election.

continue reading Adopting the National Popular Vote would make Oklahomans’ votes matter