MuskogeePhoenix.com, Muskogee, OK

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September 11, 2006

The people speak: State gives TABOR unfair consideration

Aug. 31, the state Supreme Court handed down a decision in favor of the challengers to State Question 726, TABOR, aka stop over spending, removing it from the November ballot and removing the opportunity for people to decide if we want to allow our state Legislature to continue its runaway spending habits, increasing the budget every year at a rate three to four times that of the private sector.

A court referee found that 80,808 of the 299,029 signatures collected were invalid because the collector was from out of state, although the Secretary of State’s office had assured Oklahomans in Action that people become residents of the state when they set foot in the state. This left the petition less than 1,300 signatures short of the 219,564 needed to put the question to the people in November.

Attorney General Drew Edmondson was allowed to file a friend-of-the-court brief, saying he believed the signatures should be disallowed, but the court refused to hear oral arguments from the supporters of SQ 726.

Not only were the nearly 300,000 people who signed those petitions in good faith disenfranchised, but all of the voters in Oklahoma are denied the opportunity to have a say in how our tax money is spent.

Edmondson and four of those judges will be on the November ballot, though, asking us to let them keep their jobs.

They will not be getting my vote.

Barbara McAuliffe

Poteau

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