3 candidates advance to fill vacant Oklahoma Supreme Court seat
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Still has until early May to pick a new Oklahoma Supreme Court justice from a list of three nominees.
The Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission has provided Donna L. Dickinson, Travis V. Jett and Jon K. Parsley as potential candidates to fill the vacant Oklahoma Supreme Court seat.
This nomination process comes after long-time justice Yvonne Kauger lost her seat by about 7,000 votes. Kauger, along with justices Noma Gurich and James Edmondson, were targeted by $3.5 million worth of political attack ads run by dark money groups. The latter two won their seats by razor-thin margins.
Dickinson is a district judge for Beckham, Custer, Ellis, Roger Mills and Washita counties. Stitt appointed her in November of last year. She’s a law graduate of Oklahoma City University.
Parsley is a district judge appointee by former Gov. Mary Fallin and currently serves Cimarron Beaver, Harper and Texas counties. Parsley was the 2009 Oklahoma Bar Association President and a University of Oklahoma’s Law College graduate.
Jett works at Hodgen Law Firm as an attorney covering civil law and graduated from Georgetown University Law Center. He has close ties with the state government, representing the Oklahoma Tax, Corporation and Ethics Commissions, the Oklahoma Department of Health and the State Department of Education in various cases. Additionally, he represented the conservative think-tank Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) over an argument regarding a state question for Medicaid expansion.
Two dark money groups that campaigned against Gurich, Edmondson and Kauger have close ties to OCPA and Gov. Stitt. The organization, along with the governor, is currently pushing state lawmakers to change the judicial nomination process and give the governor more power in these selections.
Former Gov. George Nigh appointed Kauger, who is the founder of the Sovereignty Symposium. She was the first justice ever to lose her seat in the state. Oklahoma’s five largest tribes endorsed the justices, as all three supported tribal nations in pivotal cases such as Treat v. Stitt, and expressed concern for the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s future when Kauger lost her seat.
The governor is expected to decide who will take the seat before or at the 60-day deadline of May 11.
Coalition Asks Oklahoma Supreme Court to Pause Walters' Trump Bible Donation Plan
Earlier this week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dealt a temporary victory to petitioners in a lawsuit against State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ classroom Bible mandate.
Now, they’ve asked the court for another pause in a new Bible donation program. The lawsuit’s petitioners have now asked the court to intervene to stop the donation campaign for the God Bless the USA Bibles.
More than 30 parents, teachers and faith leaders filed the lawsuit in the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year over Walters’ directive to require Bibles in every classroom and to use them as an instructional resource.
The suit names Walters, the Oklahoma State Board of Education, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), and the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services. It was filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU and ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.
According to the new filing Wednesday, the petitioners say the campaign falls under the same scope as the lawsuit’s original ask.
“The campaign plainly implements the [Bible] mandate, which requires that physical copies of the Bible be placed in every public school classroom,” the filing said. “The campaign also involves the spending of state funds to further the mandate, including on the shipping expenses and OSDE employee time associated with distribution of Bibles.”
The filing argues that OSDE lacks the statutory authority to distribute Bibles in schools, citing state law prohibiting the department from paying freight or transportation costs of textbooks. Additionally, it claims using public money or property for the support of any system of religion violates the Oklahoma Constitution.
“To be sure, private parties are free to offer donations of items — including Bibles — to school districts, but state officials cross the constitutional line when they organize, promote, and participate in a campaign to distribute donated copies of a particular religious text to schools,” the filing said.
It claims OSDE must also have approval from the State Board of Education to accept donations, and cites a law it said was removed from OSDE’s website on Monday.
The petitioners asked the court to order that until a final decision in the case is made, the respondents refrain from any action implementing the donation campaign and “engaging in, participating in, or facilitating” the distribution of classroom Bibles.
In addition, petitioners asked the court to declare the campaign is unlawful, an injunction that prohibits OSDE from implementing the campaign, and to require OSDE to cancel the campaign.
Walters responded to the new filing in a statement to StateImpact:
“No surprise that the same left-wing groups pushing state-sponsored atheism are attacking our work to get Bibles back in classrooms,” Walters said. “They’ve spent years trying to erase Bibles from our schools, and they can’t stand seeing parents and educators fighting back.”
Demonstrators Express Opposition to Elon Musk at OKC Tesla Dealership
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Oklahoma City’s Tesla store Thursday to express their opposition to Elon Musk’s role in the federal government.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have led an effort to downsize the federal government under the Trump administration. But some Oklahomans are unhappy with Musk’s influence on the White House.
Larry Little is an Air Force veteran. He attended a protest outside the OKC Tesla dealership to show his dissatisfaction with the Trump administration’s choice to cancel certain federal programs that help people in need.
“Everybody agrees that there could be some intelligent, you know, reworking of the government to make it more efficient – intelligent,” said Little. “What Musk is doing is not intelligent. He's a madman on a mission to demolish the federal government, and they're well on the way to getting that done.”
Little says he wishes changes to the federal government were carried out more deliberately.
Tulsa Leaders Look to Raise $78 Million for Housing in North Tulsa with Special Tax District
City officials plan to employ a mechanism they’ve commonly used for commercial development to build more housing.
Tax increment finance districts, or TIF districts, use tax dollars from designated districts to support development in those areas.
Tulsa has established TIF districts to boost Route 66, but now officials are looking to use this mechanism to develop the Crutchfield neighborhood east of Highway 75 and north of Admiral Place.
“TIFs were actually created for housing, and so this is an opportunity to use a TIF in the original way it was designed to be used,” said City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper, whose council district includes the area.
Sales and ad valorem tax within the district will support development to the tune of more than $78 million over 25 years. Officials estimate the initiative could produce more than 625 homes and generate at least $90 million of economic value.
One of the main developers whose projects would benefit from the district is Stuart McDaniel.
“There’ll be low-rise apartment buildings to quadplexes and six-plexes, to single-family homes and townhouse-style, and a mix of retail and commercial development. It’s really a wide array of types of property and development within that area,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel and Hall-Harper said there’s a need for projects like this in north Tulsa, which has suffered from a lack of investment for years. Hall-Harper said McDaniel has worked to not displace people “who have lived in the area for decades,” which she appreciates.
“He’s actually moved some people out of their home temporarily, reestablished, put foundations, basically remodeled their homes and moved them back in,” Hall-Harper said.
Hall-Harper also said the district plays into the city’s broader mission to build more housing in Tulsa. The mayor’s office aims to get 6,000 affordable homes operational by 2028.
On Tuesday, Mayor Monroe Nichols affirmed a commitment to achieving "functional zero homelessness" by 2030. He announced the creation of a homeless encampment decommissioning team, plans for a new winter shelter with increased bed capacity elsewhere, and a mayoral coalition on eviction mitigation.
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