Democrat judges defy Oklahoma’s GOP trend

Democrat judges defy Oklahoma’s GOP trend

By Ray Carter | September 3rd, 2024

In the last 30 years, Republican candidates have been elected Oklahoma governor in 75 percent of races.

But nearly half of the members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court—four of nine justices—were appointed by Democratic governors. And those Democratic appointees have been retained by Oklahoma voters even as those same voters overwhelmingly vote for GOP candidates in presidential and statewide races.

The persistence of Democratic judicial appointees on Oklahoma’s top court contrasts with the pattern in two of the nation’s fastest-growing states where voters have largely supported Republican candidates in statewide races.

In Florida, as in Oklahoma, Republican candidates have been elected in 75 percent of the eight gubernatorial races conducted from 1994 to today. But all seven current members of the Florida Supreme Court were appointed by Republican governors. [Two members of the Florida court were appointed by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was elected governor as a Republican in 2006 but became an independent in 2010 while running for U.S. Senate and eventually became a Democrat in 2012.]

In Texas, where justices are directly elected, all nine members of the Texas Supreme Court are registered Republicans.

In Oklahoma, judicial nominees are selected by the secretive Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC). The JNC selects up to three nominees for court positions, including the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and the governor then makes an appointment from that list.

The JNC’s membership is substantially determined by the Oklahoma Bar Association, and public records show that 22 of the 32 individuals appointed to the JNC by the Oklahoma Bar Association from 2000 to today (nearly 69 percent) have directed most of their campaign donations to Democrats, including to presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Only one bar appointee to the JNC since 2000 overwhelmingly donated to Republican candidates.

The JNC’s structure tilts the judicial nominating process in favor of Democrat-aligned judges, particularly when the governor who makes the final selection is a Democrat.

However, judges are subject to retention ballot elections, which is supposed to allow the public to have input into the process.

But a lack of public information had made those elections virtually meaningless.

“What information would Oklahoma voters have on how judges are doing their job?” said Andrew Spiropoulos, the Robert S. Kerr, Sr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Oklahoma City University. “They’re not regularly involved in the legal system and so their presumption is that judges are doing their job and if that wasn’t the case someone would tell them.”

The Democratic appointees to the Oklahoma Supreme Court are Douglas Combs, Noma Gurich, Yvonne Kauger, and James Edmondson.

In 2012, all four Democratic appointees to the Oklahoma Supreme Court were on a retention ballot and received the support of more than 65 percent of voters each, even as two out of three Oklahoma voters supported the election of Republican Mitt Romney in that year’s presidential election.

While Democratic President Barack Obama received only 443,547 votes from Oklahomans that year, the three Democratic appointees to the Oklahoma Supreme Court received 775,016 to 792,216 pro-retention votes apiece.

In 2016, Combs was retained with nearly 59 percent of the vote even as nearly two-in-three Oklahoma voters supported Donald Trump’s election as president and Republican James Lankford was re-elected U.S. senator with nearly 68 percent of the vote.

Only 420,375 Oklahomans voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that year and just 355,911 voted for the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race, but Democratic appointee Combs was retained on the Oklahoma Supreme Court with 760,927 votes.

When Gurich, Kauger, and Edmondson were last on a retention ballot in 2018, they were supported by 59 percent to 62 percent of voters apiece, even as Oklahomans elected Republican Kevin Stitt as governor. Stitt received 644,579 votes to the 500,973 votes cast for his Democratic opponent, but the three Democratic appointees to the Oklahoma Supreme Court received 611,334 to 637,315 pro-retention votes each.

In 2022, Combs was again retained with the support of 628,893 voters, or 61 percent of the vote, even as Stitt was re-elected with 639,484 votes. As a Democratic appointee to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Combs received nearly 147,000 more votes for retention than the Democratic gubernatorial nominee received that year.

Why do Oklahomans vote for Republicans candidates in presidential and statewide races while giving strong majority support to Democratic appointees to the Oklahoma Supreme Court?

In part, it’s because few Oklahomans are aware those justices are Democratic appointees.

“They don’t see any partisan listing on the ballot,” Spiropoulos said. “And to be truthful, Oklahomans get very little information on how judges do their jobs.”

Because of the lack of information, it is possible that many voters believe Oklahoma Supreme Court justices are conservatives, given that Republicans hold all statewide offices and supermajorities in the Oklahoma Legislature.

In other states and cities around the country, Spiropoulos said judicial evaluation commissions are common and provide public information on judicial performance.

But that has not been the norm in Oklahoma.

However, this year the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs has created what may be the most comprehensive judicial review site in state history, providing information on members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Judicial Scorecard can be viewed at www.oklajudges.com.

Under business-as-normal in Oklahoma, when voters are provided almost no information on judges facing retention, judges are seldom removed from office because few voters have even basic information about those jurists. Only individuals who make headlines for bad behavior face any consequences, and those cases typically involve behavior so extreme that the judge made national headlines.

Critics have long argued Oklahomans should have higher standards for members of the state judiciary than “don’t embarrass us on a national scale.”

“If a judge goes insane, or shoots somebody like we’re trying to deal with right now, have sex with your bailiff, they’ll remove you for that; the texting on the bench,” Spiropoulos said. “If a judge does something that’s publicly terrible, we have judicial discipline. But that’s the only time we remove a judge.”

Article authored by Ray Carter of the Center for Independent Journalism. Re-published by permission.