Redistricting petition faces new legal challenges

Two new legal challenges were filed Friday against an initiative petition seeking to overhaul Oklahoma’s redistricting process.

The challenges come after the Oklahoma Supreme Court declined to advance an earlier version of the petition in response to previous legal challenges.

The court tossed the petition, saying the gist, or description voters see when they are asked to sign to put the measure on the ballot, did not make clear the proposed redistricting changes are intended to curtail partisan gerrymandering.

Following the court’s ruling, People Not Politicians rewrote the petition’s gist and almost immediately refiled the measure as proposed State Question 810.

SQ 810 seeks to take redistricting power away from Oklahoma’s Legislature and vest that authority with a nine-member Citizens' Independent Redistricting Commission made up of non-elected officials from different political parties.

The legal challenges, filed Friday by Robert McCampbell of GableGotwals on behalf of four Oklahoma residents, attack the petition’s gist and the constitutionality of the proposed ballot measure.

Andy Moore, executive director of People Not Politicians, called the lawsuits as “meritless.”

“We trust the Supreme Court will see through the petty politics of these challenges and move swiftly to let the people vote on this measure," he said. The lawsuits prevent People Not Politicians from advancing to the signature-gathering phase of the petition process until the Supreme Court takes action.

One lawsuit alleges the rewritten gist is inaccurate.

The other contends the proposal is unconstitutional because it seeks to count prisoners at their home address, instead of at the prison in which they reside. Counting prisoners differently than other group populations, such as college students or those in long-term care facilities, violates the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit alleges.

The second lawsuit also questions the constitutionality of SQ 810 because it limits who can serve on the commission. Under the redistricting petition, those who have recently changed their party affiliation, those who work in politics and those who are related or married to someone who works politics would be ineligible to serve on the commission.

The petition is “unconstitutional because it would discriminate against Oklahomans based on their marital status,” McCampbell said. “An Oklahoman who is married to a former elected official is automatically disqualified from serving on the Redistricting Commission, but a similarly situated person, if they had never gotten married or had gotten divorced, would not be disqualified.”

Oklahoma’s Legislature draws the state's legislative and congressional districts every decade following the U.S. Census. House Speaker Charles McCall and Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, both Republicans, oppose the redistricting petition.

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