By M. Scott Carter Special to Southwest Ledger OKLAHOMA CITY – Not long ago, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt replaced three members of the State Board of Education. The governor exercised his authority to take the action.
Under the Oklahoma Constitution, a governor’s nominations must be advised and consented to by the Oklahoma State Senate. In addition, before members of the Senate take an up or down vote, the individual nominated by the governor has to have their nomination carried by a member of the Senate. And, just like any piece of legislation, that nomination must go through a Senate committee before being presented to the full body.
That process, while not completely outlined in the Constitution, is set up by Senate tradition and rules.
But therein lies the problem. Because she was frustrated with the governor’s February removal of her friend, Kendra Wesson, state Sen. Lisa Standridge, a Republican from Norman, said she would not support the nomination of Michael Tinney, and further, said she would not bring the nomination to the Senate. Prior to that, Standridge had said she would carry the nomination.
Standridge’s change of heart has given the senator the opportunity to shoot down the governor’s nomination without a hearing and without a review by the full Senate.
“I don’t mean this as a smear to [Tinney] at all, not at all,” Standridge told the online media outlet NonDoc. “It’s not anything to do with whether I think he’s qualified or not. The fact of the matter is that Kendra was fired unceremoniously, and she was doing a fantastic job, and I just don’t feel like she was treated fairly in what she did and sacrificed for the State of Oklahoma.”
Standridge told NonDoc that she has been a close friend of Wesson since meeting her through Unite Norman, an activist organization formed amid tensions about police funding in 2020. Standridge said Stitt’s removal ofWesson and his nomination of Tinney put her in a “weird place.”
“I just don’t feel that — to replace her with somebody from, somebody in Norman, I just felt was a further, kind of, twist in the knife in her back,” Standridge told the outlet. “That’s the way I feel, and I don’t want to be a party to it.”
Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) said he would follow the Senate rules and not move the nomination without its sponsor.
Still, Standridge’s frustration allows her to bypass both the governor’s authority and the state Constitution and, in one single stroke, diminishes the governor’s authority to make appointments.
It shouldn’t be that way and the process needs to be fixed.
However, based on the attitudes and actions by the Senate, it’s unlikely that the GOP Caucus would support a constitutional change to the executive nomination process. Instead, an easier fix would be to focus on the Senate’s rules.
Instead of requiring the senator of the nominee’s home district to carry the nomination, the Senate could change the rule allowing the President Pro Tempore to choose which member of the Senate would carry the nomination.
This simple change would put some balance back in the executive nomination process and, at least, guarantee that the governor’s nominee receives a full review by a Senate committee and a complete hearing on the Senate floor.
It also helps equalize the authority between the governor and the Legislature and provide transparency to the process.
The governor should have the ability to a name a nominee to a state board or commission and the Senate should take full advantage of its opportunity to review and evaluate that nomination.
An open, transparent process would benefit everyone involved and the entire state as a whole.