Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: It's time now for our community connection right here on
Speaker 1: k the one you trust, David Bond is joining us again.
Speaker 2: How you doing, Dave? Great?
Speaker 1: Tom, thanks for having me back. Well, it's always great
Speaker 1: to have you back. You know, we learned so much
Speaker 1: from you and your organization. The last time you were here,
Speaker 1: many people would go into the voting booth and they
Speaker 1: saw that, Oh my gosh, retention of judges. What's that mean?
Speaker 1: Oh well, what the heck? You know, if I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of them, they haven't created a train wreck whatever.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they vote to retain. Sometimes they just don't vote
Speaker 1: at all. But you and your group and your organization
Speaker 1: have really taken a good analysis of the records of
Speaker 1: all these justices here in Oklahoma Supreme Court justices tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about all this.
Speaker 2: This is good stuff. Thank you so much. Tom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on behalf of OCPA Action and also OCPA we
Speaker 3: have put together the Oklahoma Judicial Scorecard. A lot of
Speaker 3: folks don't think about their Oklahoma Supreme Court very much,
Speaker 3: and so we've been going all over the state educating
Speaker 3: folks about their state Supreme Court, helping them be more
Speaker 3: familiar with the justices on the court how they have
Speaker 3: ruled on important cases, particularly over the past twenty years.
Speaker 3: And so we've put out there the Oklahoma Judicial Scorecard.
Speaker 3: It's at oaklad judges dot com, Okla judges dot comoklad
Speaker 3: Judges dot com. It's the first of its kind that
Speaker 3: we know of publicly available overview of how our Supreme
Speaker 3: Court justices have ruled on cases. It covers a lot
Speaker 3: of areas, It covers a lot of stuff related to
Speaker 3: our state's legal climate.
Speaker 2: We've been labeled here in Oklahoma as a quote.
Speaker 3: Judicial hellhole by out of state groups the American Tort
Speaker 3: Reform Association, because we every time our Republican legislators at
Speaker 3: the state capital try to pass meaningful lawsuit reform, Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court justices throw it out.
Speaker 3: That's just one example they've They're trending leftward on a
Speaker 3: lot of other things as well. But three of them
Speaker 3: are up for retention on the ballot on November fifth,
Speaker 3: Yvonne kugar No mc gurrich, and James Edmondson. All three
Speaker 3: were appointed by Democrat governors. A lot of people are
Speaker 3: surprised to learn that we have nearly half the justices
Speaker 3: on our State Supreme Court who were appointed by Democrats
Speaker 3: and who have a very liberal bent and a tendency
Speaker 3: to legislate from the bench. One of them, Yvonne Coagar,
Speaker 3: has been on the court longer than Nancy Pelosi has
Speaker 3: been in Congress, and they both have a very liberal worldview,
Speaker 3: and the other two are quite liberal as well. And
Speaker 3: so we are encouraging Oklahomas when they go in to
Speaker 3: vote to really think about who am I voting on?
Speaker 2: Is this the direction I want our state to go?
Speaker 3: Would I rather see a change and have something more
Speaker 3: in line with where a majority of Oklahomas are on
Speaker 3: the court. And so the way retention election works is
Speaker 3: if you vote yes, they are retained in office. They
Speaker 3: get to stay in office. And if you vote no,
Speaker 3: then they are removed and somebody else will be nominated
Speaker 3: to take their place and we can make a change.
Speaker 2: Wow, you guys have really done your homework.
Speaker 1: You've actually scored all the justices, but these three in particular.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're nine justices on our state Supreme Court. We
Speaker 3: have a ranking from up to one hundred percent score
Speaker 3: all three of these Gurrich, Kauger and Edmondson have scored
Speaker 3: pretty low it's meant to be a scorecard that lines
Speaker 3: up with conservative judicial principles. So folks on the other
Speaker 3: side of the spectrum may see these scores and say, well,
Speaker 3: I want to vote to retain them. I think they're great.
Speaker 3: I think we need liberals on our Supreme Court. I'm
Speaker 3: glad we still have justices who are appointed by Democrats.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
Speaker 3: But other folks may say, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: if that is a good thing. I think I may
Speaker 3: need to vote, know and remove these folks. It's not
Speaker 3: just been on tort reform stuff that they've been throwing
Speaker 3: out conservative reforms. They've been throwing out a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: They've thrown out portions of our states election security laws.
Speaker 3: Back during COVID, you know, a lot of states were
Speaker 3: getting rid of a lot of security measures to verify
Speaker 3: mail in absentee ballots. A lot that was going on
Speaker 3: all over the country. During twenty twenty, our State Supreme
Speaker 3: Court actually did the same thing. They threw out some
Speaker 3: protections on our security verifications for mail in ballots here.
Speaker 3: The legislature later thankfully came back and shored that back up,
Speaker 3: but our Supreme Court was doing the same thing that
Speaker 3: folks in Pennsylvania and Arizona were doing to water down
Speaker 3: the validity of mail in ballots in those states. They've
Speaker 3: thrown out pieces of our state's immigration law, particularly pieces
Speaker 3: that have pertained to illegal aliens who come in our
Speaker 3: state and commit felonies, making it harder for law enforcement
Speaker 3: to deal with that.
Speaker 2: So they've thrown out a bunch of things.
Speaker 3: They threw the Ten Commandments monument off the state capitol
Speaker 3: grounds a few years ago, when the ACLU and other
Speaker 3: people said, we can't have that Ten Commandments at our
Speaker 3: state capital. We have separation of church and state. Never
Speaker 3: mind that the Ten Commandments are at the US Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court and our laws are based on those.
Speaker 3: Many of them are yes, So our our state Supreme
Speaker 3: Court sided with the ACLU and also the Church of
Speaker 3: Satan believe it or not, the actual Church of Satan,
Speaker 3: and said, yeah, we can't have the Ten Commandments at
Speaker 3: the state capitol. Those are just a few examples. We've
Speaker 3: got many many more at the judicial scorecard at OKLA
Speaker 3: judges dot com ok La judges dot com.
Speaker 1: Now I've heard that a few of these justices have
Speaker 1: been accused of actually trying to reword or rewrite legislation.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do have.
Speaker 3: They are liberal activist judges in the in the modern
Speaker 3: sense of the term. They legislate from the bench on
Speaker 3: a regular basis. You know, we have Republican majorities at
Speaker 3: the state Capitol, we have a Republican in the governor's office,
Speaker 3: and they pass legislation that's that goes a certain direction
Speaker 3: on a whole host of issues. And our state Supreme
Speaker 3: Court has developed a pretty consistent habit of throwing a
Speaker 3: lot of that stuff out and in fact legislating from
Speaker 3: the bench, not always even giving written opinions as to
Speaker 3: why they're throwing something out, sometimes just doing it, and.
Speaker 1: Often speaks of authoritarianism right there, when you don't have
Speaker 1: a rationale for your decision, just do as I say.
Speaker 2: That doesn't sim well with a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It is interesting the way we do Supreme court judges
Speaker 3: here in Oklahoma. They're not really there's not a checks
Speaker 3: and balance process with the legislative branch like you have
Speaker 3: in the US Constitution. And so we have developed over
Speaker 3: time a situation where our state Supreme Court doesn't usually
Speaker 3: feel like they have to answer to a lot of folks.
Speaker 3: They run in retention elections every six years after they're
Speaker 3: initially put on the court. Nobody's ever been unretained by
Speaker 3: the voters in Oklahoma. This would be the first time.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's a pretty severe situation. We've
Speaker 3: got three folks who were appointed by Democrats, have a
Speaker 3: clearly left leaning view of how government ought to be,
Speaker 3: and have consistently legislated from the bench in the liberal direction,
Speaker 3: siding with trial lawyers but also with the ACLU and
Speaker 3: other folks.
Speaker 1: How liberal are the justices ranked in the United States?
Speaker 1: I mean, where's Oklahoma coming in as far as having
Speaker 1: liberal justices?
Speaker 2: Thank you for that question.
Speaker 3: So group of researchers from Alabama and Georgia did a big,
Speaker 3: extensive study of all the state supreme courts in the
Speaker 3: entire country over the last four decades, and they found
Speaker 3: that Oklahoma Supreme Court was the fourth most liberal in
Speaker 3: the country, more liberal than New York, California, Vermont, Illinois,
Speaker 3: New Jersey, you name it. Only Hawaii and three other
Speaker 3: states had more consistently liberal leaning supreme courts than Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: And I think some folks would be a little bit
Speaker 1: shocked hearing this for the first time.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are surprised.
Speaker 3: A lot of people assume, well, we have Republicans in
Speaker 3: the legislature and a Republican governor. Surely we have a
Speaker 3: right leaning state Supreme Court that really is not true,
Speaker 3: has really never been true in Oklahoma. This would be
Speaker 3: a big sea change. You have three of the most
Speaker 3: liberal folks on the court. If they were to be
Speaker 3: removed by the voters, if a majority of voters vote
Speaker 3: no on the three of them on November fifth, they
Speaker 3: would be removed, and then there would be the possibility
Speaker 3: of a true flip in the court to a right
Speaker 3: leaning court, which would probably be more in line with
Speaker 3: where a significant majority of Oklahomans are.
Speaker 1: All right, people want to find out where do we
Speaker 1: go to get this scorecard?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 1: You said that at the beginning, and I know some
Speaker 1: folks just tuned it in the middle.
Speaker 2: Thank you find that, Thank you so much, Tom.
Speaker 3: Okla Judges dot com, oklad judges dot com. Ok La
Speaker 3: judges dot com is where folks can find the Oklahoma
Speaker 3: judicial scorecard.
Speaker 2: And where can we find out more about your organization?
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Ocpak dot org. If you go
Speaker 3: to the scorecard, it'll take you to our website as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you, oklad judges dot com. We really hope folks
Speaker 3: will see that as a resource, just so they have
Speaker 3: something to go off of when they're going in to
Speaker 3: vote on these Supreme Court justices. We typically know how
Speaker 3: we're going to vote on a congressional race or presidential
Speaker 3: because we've had a lot of information thrown at us
Speaker 3: and we can sift through it. But most voters, I've
Speaker 3: certainly never had a place where I could go and say,
Speaker 3: who are my Supreme Court justices?
Speaker 2: Are they liberal? Conservative? What are they?
Speaker 3: And something that I can go off of when I
Speaker 3: go in to vote. And so that's what we've tried
Speaker 3: to all Right, Hey, David, thank you for being with
Speaker 3: us today. Thank you Tom for the opportunity.
Speaker 1: All Right, folks, you have been watching and listening to
Speaker 1: our community connection