Oklahoma Constitution

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The Constitution of the State of Oklahoma is the governing document of the state of Oklahoma, superseded only by the Federal Constitution. Adopted in 1907, Oklahoma ratified the US Constitution on November 17, 1907, as the 46th US State. At its ratification, the Oklahoma Constitution was the longest governing document of any government in the world.

History

Topics in Oklahoma government
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Constitution
State Government:
Oklahoma Legislature *House of Representatives *Senate Governor of Oklahoma *Lieutenant Governor *Secretary of State *Attorney General *State Treasurer Oklahoma Supreme Court *Court on the Judiciary
Federal Government:
Senators *James Inhofe (R) *Tom Coburn (R) Representatives *John Sullivan (R) *Dan Boren (D) *Frank Lucas (R) *Tom Cole (R) *Ernest Istook (R)

From 1890 onward, the land that now forms the State of Oklahoma was made up of the Oklahoma Territory (to the west), and the Indian Territory (to the east). Indian Territory, as its name suggests, had a large Native American population; the territory itself had been reduced over time to its then size.

The movement to secure statehood for Indian Territory began in 1902 with a convention in Eufaula, consisting of representatives of the "Five Civilized Tribes". The representatives met again in 1903 to organize a constitutional convention.

The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention met in Muskogee, on August 21, 1905. General Pleasant Porter, Principal Chief of the Creek Nation, was selected as president of the convention. The elected delegates decided that the executive officers of the Five Civilized Tribes would also be appointed as vice-presidents: William C. Rogers, Principal Chief of the Cherokees; William H. Murray, appointed by Chickasaw Governor Douglas H. Johnston to represent the Chickasaws; Chief Green McCurtain of the Choctaws; Chief John Brown of the Seminoles; and Charles N. Haskell, selected to represent the Creeks (as General Porter had been elected President).

The convention drafted a constitution, drew up a plan of organization for the government, put together a map showing the counties to be established, and elected delegates to go to the United States Congress to petition for statehood. The convention's proposals were then put to a referendum in Indian Territory, in which they were overwhelmingly endorsed.

The delegation received a cool reception in Washington. Eastern politicians, fearing the admission of two more Western states, and no doubt unwilling to admit an "Indian" state, put pressure on the U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, who finally ruled that the Indian and Oklahoma Territories would be granted statehood only as a combined state.

The hard work of the Sequoyah State Constitutional Convention was not entirely lost, however. When representatives from Indian Territory joined the Oklahoma State Constitutional Convention in Guthrie the next year, they brought their constitutional experience with them. The Sequoyah Constitution served in large part as the basis for the constitution of the State of Oklahoma, which came into being with the merger of the two territories in 1907.

List of Prominant Delegates to Convention

• William H. Murray (Constitutional Convention President, ninth Governor of Oklahoma, first Oklahoma Speaker of the House)
• Charles N. Haskell (first Governor of Oklahoma)
• Robert L. Williams (third Governor of Oklahoma, first Chief Justice of Oklahoma)
• Henry S. Johnston (Constitution Convention President Pro Tempore, seventh Governor of Oklahoma, first President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate)
• Pete Hanraty (Constitution Convention Vice President)
• Albert H. Ellis (Constitutional Convention Second Vice President)
• Charles M. McClain (Constitutional Convention Secretary)
• Chas H. Filson (Secretary of Oklahoma)

Preamble

The Oklahoma Constitution Preamble reads:

Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessing of liberty; to secure just and rightful government; to promote our mutual welfare and happiness, we, the people of the State of Oklahoma, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

Article of the Constitution

The remainder of the constitution consists of twenty-nine articles, with the first eight pertaining to the state’s government.

Federal Relations

Article One establishes how the state of Oklahoma is to relate to the United States federal government, stating that the US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. By this article, religious freedom is established, polygamy is forbidden, the debts of Oklahoma Territory are acquired by the State of Oklahoma, public school are established to be taught only in English, and that suffrage shall never be revoked due to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Bill of Rights

Article Two enumerates the rights of all citizens of the State of Oklahoma. These include that all political power derives from the people, the inherent rights “to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry,” the right to peaceful assembly, a ban on the interference with suffrage, the definition of treason, the right to trial by jury, that marriage in the State of Oklahoma is defined as being between a man and a woman, and many others.

Suffrage

Article Three deals with suffrage in the State of Oklahoma. All peoples of the age of 18 are qualified electors in the state and a State Elector Board is established charged with the supervision of such elections as the Legislature shall direct. No elector in Oklahoma may vote in any election unless previously registered to do so with the state, and all elections must be “free and equal,” as no “power, civil or military, shall ever interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage,” and “electors shall be privileged from arrest during their attendance on elections and while going to and from the same” except in cases of treason against the state.

Separation of Powers

Article Four established the Government of Oklahoma under the doctrine of separation of powers and reads:

The powers of the government of the State of Oklahoma shall be divided into three separate departments: The Legislative, Executive, and Judicial; and except as provided in this Constitution, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of government shall be separate and distinct, and neither shall exercise the powers properly belonging to either of the others.

Legislative power

Article Five establishes the legislative branch of government, Oklahoma Legislature, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Article establishes the manner of election and qualifications of members of each House. In addition, it provides for free debate in congress and limits self-serving behavior of congressmen, outlines legislative procedure and indicates the powers of the legislative branch.

Executive power

Article Six describes the governorship (the executive branch): procedures for the selection of the governor, qualifications for office, the oath to be affirmed and the powers and duties of the office. It also provides for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma, and specifies that the Lieutenant Governor succeeds to the governorship if the Governor is incapacitated, dies, or resigns. Other executive offices and departments created in the article are the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the State Auditor and Inspector, the Insurance Commissioner, the Commissioner of Labor, the Department of Mines, the Board of Agriculture, and the Commissioners of the Land Office.

Judicial power

Article Seven describes the court system (the judicial branch), including the Supreme Court. The article requires that there be one court called the Supreme Court; the Legislature, at its discretion, can create lower courts, whose judgments and orders are reviewable by the Supreme Court. However he Article dose created a few lower courts or provides for how such lower courts shall be organized. Article Seven also creates the Oklahoma Court on the Judiciary (charged with reviewing Justices and Judges), designates how Justices and Judges are selected, and how and under what circumstances Justices and Judges are removed from office,

Impeachment

Article Eight states that all state elected offices, including Supreme Court Justices, are subject to impeachment for wilful neglect of duty, corruption in office, habitual drunkenness, incompetency, or any offense involving moral turpitude committed while in office.. If charged with impeachment and found guilty, the official’s term is immediately suspended.

Remaining Articles

• Article Nine - Corporations
• Article Ten - Taxes and Revenue in General
• Article Eleven - State and School Lands
• Article Twelve - Homestead and Exemptions
• *Article Twelve A - Homestead Exemption From Taxation
• Article Thirteen - Education
• *Article Thirteen A - Oklahoma State System of Higher Education
• *Article Thirteen B - Board of Regents of Oklahoma Colleges
• Article Fourteen - Banks and Banking
• Article Fifteen - Oath of Office
• Article Sixteen - Public Roads
• Article Seventeen - Counties
• Article Eighteen - Municipal Corporations
• Article Nineteen - Insurance
• Article Twenty - Manufacture and Commerce
• Article Twenty-one - Public Institutions
• Article Twenty-two - Alien and Corporate Ownership of Lands
• Article Twenty-three - Miscellaneous
• Article Twenty-four - Constitutional Amendments
• Article Twenty-five - Social Security
• Article Twenty-six - Department of Wildlife Conservation
• Article Twenty-seven - Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (repealed)
• Article Twenty-eight - Alcoholic Beverage Laws And Enforcement
• Article Twenty-nine - Ethics Commission

The final section of the Oklahoma Constitution deals with laws and other ordinances in place in the Territory of Oklahoma before its admission to the Union in 1907.

Section Attestations

The Oklahoma Constitution ends with the officers and delegates to the Constitutional Convention signing the documents. It reads:

Done in open Convention at the City of Guthrie, in the Territory of Oklahoma, on this, the sixteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seven, and the Independence of the United States of America one hundred and thirty-first.

• John McLain Young, Secretary.
• William H. Murray, President of the Constitutional Convention of the proposed State of Oklahoma and Delegate from District No. 104.
• Pete Hanraty, Vice President
• Chas. H. Filson, Secretary of Oklahoma.
• Albert H. Ellis, Second Vice President and Delegate 14" District.

Territory of Oklahoma, Logan County:

I, Wm. H. Murray, President of the Constitutional Convention of the proposed State of Oklahoma, do hereby certify that the within and foregoing is the original parchment enrollment of the Constitution and the several articles thereof adopted by the Constitutional Convention of the proposed State of Oklahoma, to be submitted to the people of the proposed State of Oklahoma for ratification, and that all the interlineations therein contained and all the erasures and words stricken out, were made and done before the same was signed by the President, the Vice-Presidents, and the members of said Convention.

:Witness my hand this the sixteenth day of July, A. D., Nineteen Hundred and Seven.

::William H. Murry, President of the Constitutional Convention of the proposed State of Oklahoma

::John McLain Young, Secretary

See also

• [Oklahoma Constitution]

Constitutions of the U.S. States and Territories
States	Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming
Territories	American Samoa | Guam | Northern Mariana Islands | Puerto Rico | United States Virgin Islands

 

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