Opinion ID: 2629250
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: we assume the u.s. district court correctly limited application of oklahoma's right-to-work amendment in accordance with extant federal law

Text: ¶ 3 This court's authority when responding to a certified question is limited to answering state-law questions when it is satisfied there is no controlling decision of the Supreme Court or Court of Criminal Appeals, constitutional provision, or statute of this state. [6] Because severability is a matter of state law, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit deferred on the issue to this court's answer about whether, on review of the U.S. Districts Court's decision now on appeal, severability analysis with regard to Oklahoma's right-to-work amendment may be entirely dispensed with as unnecessary. [7] ¶ 4 The Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution arms Congress with the power to preempt state law. [8] Congress has regulated labor-management relations, allowing states to intrude solely upon a narrowly defined portion. Whether Oklahoma's amendment fits within the narrow exception granted by Congress or reaches beyond and is hence preempted by federal law is exclusively a federal-law issue. [9] This court doesn't give a federal court advice on issues of federal law. Under the certified question statute, 20 O.S.2001 § 1602, we may give a federal court our answer solely on the issues of state law. For our answer today we must assume the preemptive impact to be that which stands decreed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.