More on Senator Frank Shurden

A couple of years ago when Senator Shurden was doing everything he could to stop the people of Oklahoma from having a chance to vote on cockfighting he came up with the brilliant idea of Legislation (HB 1375) that would stop the anti-cockfighting group from bypassing the Legislature and going straight to the people. Shurden would have the Legislature put a vote on the ballot that would change the Oklahoma Constitution to require double the number of signatures required on initiative petitions if the issue had something to do with animals. If the people passed his ballot initiative he figured the anti-cockfighters would never be able to reach such a high requirement. Instead of about 70,000 signatures they would have to get about 150,000. Shurden thought this would be a way to get the hunters and fishermen to siddle up to his cockfighter buddies. They could pitch it as a measure to stop the "animal rights" people from targeting the hunters and fishermen after they dispatched the cockfighters. Shurden succeeded in getting our Legislature to go along with this crafty but undemocratic idea to establish an unequal system for voter initiatives.

But Shurden was counting on the cockfighting initiative that was currently underway to be killed in the courts by the cockfighter's attorney. Well, he bet wrong and Shurden's bill (SQ 698) AND the anti-cockfighting vote (SQ 687) showed up on the same ballot in November 2002. SQ 687 was on the ballot because over 100,000 Oklahomans signed an initiative petition within a three-month period to get it to a vote. Shurden's bill was on the ballot because he had enough fellow Legislators backward enough to buy in or trade votes in backroom deals. When the two state questions appeared on the ballot this month, Senator Shurden and his ilk were roundly defeated on both statewide votes.

Now it is instructive to return to Senator Shurden's statements of just over a year ago when he was attacking State Representative Russ Roach for trying to stop Shurden's bill to put the two-tier initiative petition idea on the ballot. According to the Oklahoma Rifle Association "The Henryetta legislator challenged Rep. Roach to "trust the people" on HB 1375, pointing out that the measure would put the question to a statewide vote. 'I don't understand why Rep Roach is afraid to trust the people on this question-Let's put the bull aside and let the people decide," said Sen. Shurden."

Fast forward to November 2002. The people have decided, Senator Shurden. They have spoken in no uncertain terms. Cockfighting was overwhelming defeated and your attempt to keep animal-related issues off the ballot has been soundly defeated. Now lets see who trusts the people.