Constitutionally, Oklahoma lawmakers are required to gavel their annual sessions to a close no later than 5 p.m. on the final Friday in May. This year, they formally exited the Capitol two-plus weeks earlier.
In truth, they quit doing The People’s business even before then – hundreds of public policy proposals and gubernatorial vetoes twisting in the political wind as Senate and House leaders made like roosters vying for barnyard supremacy.
And what do the elected elite get for shirking their responsibilities?
A $7,400 pay raise.
Running government like a business? Hardly. Private sector slacking more often is rewarded with a pink slip than a salary boost.
The 2026 Legislature did manage to produce the one thing it’s constitutionally required to do: a balanced state budget. But the nearly $13 billion spending blueprint was about as imaginative as a college freshman’s last-minute, cut-and-paste essay.
Little wonder voting-age Sooners have been so apathetic. Persistently low election turnout is an unmistakable sign that workaday folks don’t think the system is working for them.
It’s always darkest before the dawn?
Maybe.
There is evidence Oklahomans are slowly but surely coming to grips with the reality that the cost of living in this country is accepting and exercising their civic duty.
Registering. Voting. Showing up at meetings. Writing letters. Paying attention to what elected officials do. Holding them accountable.
That’s a lot to add to plates already heaping with day-to-day responsibilities: jobs [often more than one], household budgets [buffeted by soaring gas and food prices], kids, health … just to name a few.
Yet, the sleeping giant awakens: Voter registration set records in 2024 [though turnout was the nation’s lowest]. Registration has continued climbing this year, too. Long-moribund Democrats are fielding their highest number of candidates in a generation.
And – get this – polls suggest voters are especially clued in on an important June 16 primary ballot proposal: SQ 832 which, if approved, would mandate a series of increases in the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour – the first hike in nearly two decades.
Despite opposition from the likes of the State Chamber, Farm Bureau and National Federation of Independent Business, it’s clear the public, writ large, supports the idea of Oklahoma joining 30 others states that already have raised the minimum wage – 19 this year alone.
The citizens’ petition drive that secured the statewide vote on SQ 832 collected about 180,000 signatures – nearly twice as many as required to get it on the ballot. A late April CHS & Associates poll of 500 likely voters found 51% support SQ 832, 43% oppose [4.3 percentage point margin of error].
Failure to exercise civic duty is not an option. Failure is what we endure today.
A Congress that presided over the longest government shutdown in America’s 250-year history and had, as of a late April, enacted just 90 laws this year – fewest since Richard Nixon was president, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Congress whose members are rewarded with taxpayer-funded $174,000 base salaries and gold-plated health insurance.
And an Oklahoma Legislature that is in session only four months a year and produced a fiscal year 2026-27 budget all-but-devoid of vision for making the lives of workaday Oklahomans better. An Oklahoma Legislature whose members next year will receive taxpayer-funded base salaries of $54,900 plus benefits.
[FYI: The actual cost to taxpayers for each rank-and-file state legislator currently is $72,869 – base pay of $47,500 plus benefits. That’s significantly higher than the state’s median individual wage of $51,405 or per capita income of $35,624.]
Creating an elected leadership that prioritizes The People over special interests begins by voting June 16.
