Diane Drum for State Senate

The Republican National Committee ("RNC") is utilizing its heavy financial hand through the Republican State Leadership Committee ("RSLC") to intentionally mislead the voters of Senate District 15 by attacking Diane Drum regarding her role relating to eminent domain and voting political mailers.

Diane Drum passed the Oklahoma State Bar Exam in October of 2005.  As a new attorney, she assisted the senior attorney in the case cited by the RSLC political mailers, In re Initiative Petition No. 382, 2006 OK 45. 

Although the RSLC would like the voters to believe that Diane Drum 'fought against protecting homeowners rights' or 'fought to take away our right to vote' or 'fought to make it easier for developers to take our homes,' etc., this is categorically not true.

The essence of the case is this: in 2005-2006 there was great concern that the government had too much power to take private property at its whim and sell it to developers.  A few Oklahoma citizens decided to try to write a law to strengthen private property rights, IP 382.

A law can be enacted in two ways, either through the traditional method in the state legislature or through an initiative petition ("IP").  For an IP to become law, a citizen must first write it and gather a given number of signatures who agree that it should be a law.  After the signatures are verified, the IP can be placed on a statewide ballot for the citizens of the state to vote upon whether the IP becomes law. 

However, it is very important that the IP be written extremely carefully so that it does not violate any of the voter protections written in the Oklahoma Constitution.  One of those protections is often referred to as "logrolling." 

Logrolling is when multiple questions are lumped together into one big question.  It would be like walking into an ice cream store and wanting a banana split but the store only offering banana splits with spinach on top.  You want the banana split but not the spinach.  The Oklahoma Constitution requires that the ultimate power rest with the voter to vote up or down on each item separately: yes or no to the banana split and yes or no to the spinach.  Each one is a separate vote.  This is why in the library issue recently voted upon by the citizens of Norman, the library vote was separate from the senior citizen center vote.  The citizens of Norman were able to say no to the library and yes to the Senior Citizens center.

In IP 382, the citizens who wrote the IP unfortunately combined two different subjects: (1) the power of eminent domain and (2) zoning laws.  In IP 382, the Oklahoma Supreme Court simply told the citizens that the current version of IP 382 unconstitutionally involved two subjects, that they were able to submit another IP, but that each subject must be separated so that the voters are not required to vote for all or nothing.  In the end, Diane Drum actually fought on the side of protecting voters' power.

And the RSLC knows this.

Quotes from the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in IP 382, 2006 OK 45, which can be found online in its entirety.

"IP 382 presents a voter with exactly the sort of choice the single subject rule was enacted to prevent." ... "Because the concern [with eminent domain] continues, voters might approve of limitations on the power of eminent domain contained in IP 382.  However, those who might approve the first subject of IP 382 , would by no means necessarily approve of the unrelated second subject, which would seem to make most zoning laws, with a few exceptions, unworkable.  To present the voters with such an all-or-nothing choice is clearly an attempt at logrolling which violates a basic purpose of the single subject rule.  Because IP 382 consists of two unrelated provisions, it does not comply with the single subject rule of article 5, section 57 of the Oklahoma Constitution."