Frank Shurden, Cockfighters and Castration

Just two days after the people of Oklahoma overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure to ban cockfighting Senator Frank Shurden Democrat of Henryetta told the Daily Oklahoman that he would introduce legislation next session to weaken the law the citizenry passed. Shurden said his objective was to reduce the penalties for the new law from a felony to a misdemeanor with no chance of jail time for cockfighters. Shurden was reported to have stated, erroneously, that the new law would make it illegal just to own gamefowl. Voters on Tuesday passed the question, 565,967 votes, or 56.2 percent, to 441,220, or 43.8 percent. A hefty margin in light of a campaign of disinformation by cockfighters whose advertising had tried to convince voters that the cockfighting ban would threaten hunting, rodeos and even raising chickens.

So who is this State Senator with so little regard for the voters of Oklahoma? He's the same Senator who tried every trick in the book to keep the vote on cockfighting off the ballot and then when those efforts failed, to put another question on the ballot to double the number of voters' needed to get any animal-related issue on the state ballot. The citizens of Oklahoma roundly defeated that attempt at creating two classes of voters when they defeated SQ 698 this week also. Among many others, the Daily Oklahoman and the Tulsa World had voiced their opposition to Shurden's attempt to make animal-related initiative petitions nearly impossible to get on a ballot. The Daily Oklahoman called the measure "the cockfighters' revenge" because it was introduced by Senator Shurden in an attempt to keep the cockfighting vote off the ballot. The Daily Oklahoman, a very conservative newspaper, had this to say about Shurden's bill:

Last spring the Legislature, not in one of its finest moments, placed the measure on the Nov. 5 ballot at the behest of Sen. Frank Shurden. The Henryetta Democrat was highly critical of the anti-cockfighting petition that circulated statewide, as an effort to outlaw cockfighting once and for all.

Shurden is also the Senator that introduced legislation last session to chemically castrate first offense rapists and sex offenders. When Governor Keating vetoed the bill because it clearly was a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment Shurden called the Governor a "liar" and an "arrogant smart aleck". Keating responded:

"What would you do if Frank Shurden came up to you and said, 'Are you going to sign my castration bill?' You'd probably laugh and say, 'Oh sure, I'll sign your castration bill.' I mean it was considered by most (as) silly season then and it's silly season now," To have a castration law that could apply to a person who is found innocent years later "is reckless and not progressive criminal justice policy," the governor said.

Shurden had tried for several years to pass a castration bill but they had never reached the House floor until the 2002 Legislature finally passed his bill.

So, the question to Henryetta, Oklahoma is this: is Frank Shurden representative of Henryetta? I hope not.