To encourage Oklahoma's to get more acquainted with their state Supreme Court. It's why we've set up the Oklahoma Judicial Scorecard. To our knowledge, it's the first publicly available scorecard of how Oklahoma Supreme Court justices have ruled on consequential cases over the years. And that's Okla judges dot com ok La judges dot com.
Oh, well, you know this is neat because we got the election coming up and a lot of people we're talking about this in the green room. We don't really have a green room. I'm just kidding, but day and we were talking beforehand that people say, yeah, wow, it's the big presidential election. Well who else you're voting fort what? And the downpote They get a little oh my, how what am I doing? And this is kind of what
we're here to do. Thank you? We have how many judges do we have running for the Supreme Court?
Thank you, sir. So there's non justices total on the court. They have six year terms. They're staggered terms, so every election cycle we usually have two or three up on a retention vote. They don't run in Canada versus candidate elections, but three of them are up in November for a retention vote.
Okay, let's talk about those for retention. How do these score with your group?
Well, it's very interesting. A lot of folks are assumed that because we have Republicans in control at the state legislature and we have a Republican in the governor's office, surely we have a right leaning state Supreme Court. That's actually not the case. Outside groups outside of Oklahoma have rated our state Supreme Court. It's the fourth most liberal in the country. Only Maryland, West Virginia, and Hawaii have
more consistently liberal supreme courts. So the three who are up this November, Justices Gurichkagar and Edmundson, have been three of the most liberal on the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and so they're up for a retention vote, which is a yes or no whether to keep them on the court.
Okay, and then we have other people who are running for the at large positions.
Correct, No, it's just these three who are up for retention. So if they if more than fifty percent of the voters vote to not retain them, so vote no, then these three will be out off of the court and there will be three vacancies on the Supreme court that will then need to be filled.
Okay, now I'm understanding. Now this is how a lot of folks are out there and driving in their car going I did not know that. Absolutely. Yeah, so we've got that all taken care of. That is super yes, wonderful. Now, and tell us about some of the other folks who are kind of up for this.
Well, So the three who are up for attention this November, or Justices Gurich, Cougar, and Edmondson, they do not have very high scores on the judicial scorecard at Oakland judges dot com, which is basically just a look at how
did the justices on the court align with conservative judicial principle. Sure, so, they've typically voted in sync with trial attorneys and the trial bar on raising the cost of doing business in Oklahoma, throwing out conservative reforms on lawsuit reform, at tort reform, and workers comp perform that small businesses and manufacturing really rely on those reforms to be able to keep their doors open, and these folks have been throwing those reforms out.
They've also done some other interesting things too. A lot of people remember during COVID and twenty a lot of states on the coast in the Upper Midwest were throwing out a lot of election protections, a lot of things that secured, in particular mail in ballots, and our state Supreme Court in Oklahoma did the same darn thing. They weakened our mail in ballot laws and the security of
our elections here in Oklahoma. The Legislature was able to come back in and shore it up somewhat, but our mail in ballot laws are less secure now because of
these three justices. These are also the folks who you may recall a few years ago there was a Ten Commandments monument at our state capital that had been privately funded, and the ACLU and literally the Church of Satan made some noise about that, say, we have separation of church and state here in America, and we shouldn't have that, even though the Ten Commandments are on display at the US Supreme Court, and our state Supreme Court sided with the ACLU and the Church of Satan and said we've
got to get those out of the state capitol and they are no longer there. And these are three of the folks for attention, Gurich, Kauger and Edmondson who were a part of that.
Wow, this is very important to know about your state Supreme Court justices for a lot of folks who just kind of casually just said, oh, well, you're getting the big wake up call today.
We're trying to put this information in front of folks. Some folks are going to say, well, I agree with all those decisions, and so I want these folks to stay on the court. So I'm going to vote yes to retain them. That's their decision. Other folks are when they learned some of these things, When they learned that all three of these justices were appointed by former Democrat governors, a lot of people think, well, we have a Republican governor now, so all our justices must have been appointed
by them. That's not the case at all. And so we are trying to put this info in front of people and so they can make an informed decision.
Now, some of these have been around for many years. We have some that have been on for what almost twenty five years, and one who's a current justice. Again, this has been on since nineteen eighty four.
Yes, thank you for that question. So Justice Cougar has been on the Oklahoma Supreme Court longer than Nancy Pelosi has been in Congress, and is of a similar liberal persuasion as Nancy Pelosi. So she's been on there quite a long time. She's up for attention in November as our girch and Edmondson, and yes vote would keep these liberal folks on the court. A no vote would remove them from the court and create an opening.
Wow. We tell us where we can find all this information on your website.
Thank you so much. Oaklad Judges dot com is the Oklahoma judicial scorecard where you can look and see how they voted on all these things, what their rulings have been. Oklad Judges dot com, ok La judges dot com.
Wow, this is incredible. And as far as your grouping your website are concerned, you branch out, you cover a lot of different parts of government as far as things that you analyze correct, Yes.
Sir, thank you so much. Our groups have been around starting in nineteen ninety three, not as long as Nancy Pelosi has been in Congress, but a little while. And we do stuff related to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, related to our judicial climate and whether we're a jackpot justice judicial hell whole state. So we do a lot of stuff related to that, encouraging folks to get more plugged in with what our state Supreme Court is doing and
be more aware. We also do stuff. We like low taxes, we like less government in people's daily lives, government doing less, letting individuals and people do more. We're all about free speech. These justices have also ruled against a lot of free speech protections in some cases that we've had here in Oklahoma. You think, well, that's just over in California or on the East Coast, it's actually starting to rear its head some here in Oklahoma too, and these three folks on
the retention ballot have been a part of that. Those are just a few of the areas that we work on. Parental choice, in education, we're big on empowered bring parents and education. These folks have gone sideways on that too.
David Bot, thank you very much for being with us today.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Oh not a problem, folks, you've been watching and listening to our community can