Court Opinion

ID: 9793104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:42:38.832585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:00:49.339666
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, J.,
with whom LAVENDER and OPALA, JJ., join, dissenting:
¶ 1 The Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority may not borrow money that is to be repaid via legislative appropriations over a number of years unless the voters of Oklahoma have approved the law authorizing the debt.1 Very simply, the Legislature stands accountable to the people before a debt-authorizing statute may be carried out. I cannot turn away the people’s constitutional right to vote for or against the statutes before us today.2 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent to the approval of the instant bond proposals for all the reasons set forth in my dissenting opinions in Application of Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority, 1998 OK 25, 958 P.2d 759, 782, and 795, cert. denied, — U.S. -, 119 S.Ct. 174, 142 L.Ed.2d 142 (1998). Further, I would allow at least ten days within which rehearing may be sought.

. The Oklahoma Constitution, art. 10, § 25 provides that “no debts shall be hereafter contracted by or on behalf of this State, unless such debt shall be authorized by law for some work or object,” ... and "(n)o such law shall take effect until it shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election.”

. Neither 73 O.S.Supp.1998, § 168.3, authorizing 6 million dollars in bonds for the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics, nor 73 O.S.Supp.1998, § 301, authorizing a total of 320 million dollars in bonds for a variety of state projects, have been submitted to a vote of the people. The Legislature has had nearly 8 years to submit the statute authorizing the 6 million dollar bond issue to a vote of the people. It was originally enacted by 1991 Okla. Sess. Laws, ch. 270, § 37, with a declared effective date of July 1, 1991. And, the Legislature could have submitted the statute authorizing the issuance of 320 million dollars of bonds to a vote of the people at our general election in 1998. That statute was originally enacted by 1998 Okla. Sess. Laws, ch. 372, § 1, with a declared effective date of September 1, 1998.