Oklahoma is decades late in asking voters about a constitutional convention. Stitt’s disputed remedy has intensified a larger debate over who could reshape the state’s foundational law.
By Tim Allen, Managing Editor
Oklahoma’s constitution still contains a provision setting the flash test for illuminating kerosene at 115 degrees Fahrenheit. It also requires the state to ask voters at least once every 20 years whether they want a constitutional convention.
The kerosene provision remains. The convention question has not appeared on a ballot since 1970.
Anyone younger than 77 today has never been eligible to vote on such a question.
In the waning days of his administration, Gov. Kevin Stitt decided to call the vote himself. The Attorney General’s Office and former state Rep. Mark McBride say the constitution does not give him that power.
That is the contradiction at the center of the controversy: State leaders ignored one constitutional requirement for generations. Stitt is attempting to correct that failure through a unilateral action whose legality is now before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
What a convention could put in play
Oklahoma’s constitution was unusually long and detailed from the beginning, reflecting Progressive-era distrust of concentrated power. Its authors placed restrictions in the constitution because they wanted some rules beyond the reach of future governors and legislatures.
A convention could remove outdated provisions and modernize the document. It also could propose broad revisions or an entirely new constitution. Voters would have the final say on anything produced.
The central political question is what would happen inside the convention. Whichever faction gained control could shape proposals involving courts, public education, taxation, individual rights and limits on government power.
To supporters, a convention could bring a 1907 constitution into line with today’s Oklahoma. To skeptics, it could allow one political faction to remake Oklahoma in its own image.
The question is whether removing provisions such as the kerosene standard would be worth opening the entire constitution to reconsideration.
An overdue question, a disputed remedy
Oklahomans have been asked three times whether they wanted a convention. They rejected proposals in 1926, 1950 and 1970, each by more than 2-to-1.
Those results do not tell us how voters would respond today. But the constitution requires the state to keep asking. The next vote should have occurred by 1990, making Oklahoma 36 years overdue.
On Aug. 25, Stitt issued a proclamation setting a statewide special election for April 6, 2027. His office says he acted to fulfill the state’s neglected obligation.
Drummond’s office says placing the question on the ballot requires legislative action. Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton said a convention was too consequential to pursue unilaterally.
McBride, a Moore Republican who served 12 years in the House, has asked the Supreme Court to invalidate Stitt’s proclamation and executive order.
The dispute turns on a question the constitution does not explicitly answer: What happens when state leaders ignore the 20-year requirement?
Stitt says his action fulfills the state’s neglected constitutional requirement. Drummond’s office and McBride say legislative inaction does not give the governor power reserved to the Legislature.
Stitt has not said that provoking the Legislature was part of his strategy. Yet, whether intended or not, his action has intensified the public debate and could pressure lawmakers to act.
If stimulating that discussion was part of Stitt’s calculation, that part is working.
The Supreme Court may decide Stitt cannot call the election. The Legislature could then submit the question through the established process—or allow the silence to continue.
Oklahomans may decide the state constitution needs a broad overhaul. They may decide that opening it to wholesale revision by the state’s most ideologically driven political factions carries more risk than reward.
But if the election Stitt called is struck down and the Legislature again does nothing, when will voters finally be asked?
