The 2022 Oklahoma Legislature may consider a bill that would allow voters to decide whether incumbents who are unopposed in their bid for another term should stay in office.
Under House Bill 3059, which would apply only to state lawmakers, incumbents who have no opponent would still appear on the ballot. Those lawmakers would stand for retention, meaning voters would decide whether to keep them in office.
The measure relies on the same process that voters use when deciding to retain or replace justices on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals or the Oklahoma Supreme Court, said the bill’s author, Rep. Andy Fugate.
As it stands now, an unopposed incumbent simply wins the election by default. Under HB 3059, incumbents who do not have an opponent would still take office, but voters would be able to decide in the November election whether to keep that person as their representative.
“If they choose ‘no,’ the person is still seated so that there’s no loss of representation,” Fugate said. “But there’s a special election that is called, where others will have an opportunity to vote against the incumbent.”
If no one steps up to challenge the incumbent, they will win the office by default. But Fugate said he did not think that was likely.
“My guess is, that probably would not happen,” he said. “Because if the people of a district in the general election said, ‘Hey, we don’t want to keep this person,’ then others in the community would look around and say, ‘You know what? There are enough people that don’t like this person, we ought to at least give it a shot.’”
Election-related issues
Fugate said his interest in election-related issues began several years ago, when he heard former U.S. Rep. Mickey Edwards speak about how elections work.
“That just got me thinking about elections in Oklahoma and what we do,” Fugate said.
The Del City Democrat has written several bills on election-related issues during his legislative career, including a 2021 measure dealing with primary elections. He said he was disappointed that bill failed, so he kept thinking about other ways to improve Oklahoma elections.
That prompted Fugate to introduce HB 3059 this year.
“In 2020, of the 126 (legislative) positions that were up for a vote, 46 of them had no challenger and so those people won by default,” he said. “That’s almost 40 percent of all the elections, and nobody got a chance to decide whether or not they wanted to keep their incumbent. That’s not good government. It’s certainly bad representative democracy.”
HB 3059 has been assigned to the House Elections and Ethics Committee, and Fugate said he has requested a hearing on the measure.
He said he hoped his colleagues understand that HB 3059 is not intended as an attack on incumbents, but an attempt to ensure representative democracy in Oklahoma. He said he doubted the measure would pass this year, since it takes a while for lawmakers to understand and discuss new ideas.
“I don’t know if it will make it all the way to the end this time,” Fugate said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It just means people need the chance to think about it, talk to their constituents about it and say, ‘Oh, yeah, maybe that is a good idea.’”