Larry Parman has a burr under his saddle and because of it he wants to change completely and fundamentally Oklahoma’s judicial system. He’s for throwing out of office three experienced, scandal-free Supreme Court justices because he disliked his personal experience with inheritance laws when his daddy died after a farming accident.
For that let me express my sympathies but just due to his personal angst in a family matter is no reason to toss a court system that has been scandal-free for over 60 years.
Ironically, our modern court system came into existence to replace our first form of the judicial branch when three Supreme Court judges went to prison for taking bribes over many, many years.
Parman didn’t tell you in his screed but he is chairman of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a public policy conversation tank guided by a board of 23 wealthy white men and women. They cherry picked rulings concerning abortion, worker’s comp, tort decisions and other hot button items.
This bunch is the source of the scoring system that ranks some jurists low and some high. This outfit thinks taxes are too high in our state, wants tax money diverted to private schools, opposed Medicaid expansion, never met a gun expansion proposal they weren’t for, and basically are the richest, luckiest and inward-looking group of Okies one could find.
Yes, some volunteer for good causes, but rarely for good public policy unless they or their families benefit directly from whatever the changes suggest to Oklahoma’s statutes.
For example, lawyer Parman is an estate advisor, planner and counsel here in Oklahoma which has laws very beneficial to families when a relative passes away. Very little inheritance tax is collected dating back to Gov. David Boren’s administration in the 1970s when he led the effort to abolish any tax liability between husband and wife. Other changes have been made to the code through the years that allow families to retain more of the value of their estates.
Our court system is honest, fair and beyond corruption. Parman is selfishly pushing changes that will return to the bad old days of politicians running the courtrooms instead of the judges.
Why fix a system that is not broken, has kept politics out of the process, has not experienced any corruption at the appellate level for more than half of a century and is a model of dispensing justice admired and emulated by many, many other states?
You have to vote yes to protect your access to the courts. A no vote will put Kevin Stitt in charge of shutting the doors to them.
Not a close question is it?
