House Communications Division
Rep. Josh Cockroft announced today he will file two pieces of legislation that would make county elections non-partisan in Oklahoma.
The first bill will focus solely on sheriff elections. The second bill would make all county elections non-partisan.
“Making these non-legislative positions non-partisan is an important step to simply putting the right people in the right office, no matter their party,” said Cockroft, R-Tecumseh. “Constituents are always telling me about the frustration they have with the current system, where they can’t always vote for the candidate they want because of his or her party designation. While I believe legislative positions should be partisan, I don’t think most of us see a need for partisan county elections.”
The Oklahoma Sheriff’s Association voted unanimously for the first time to support legislation to make sheriff elections non-partisan, Cockroft said. Non-partisan elections would allow all voters to participate, even if candidates that file belong to only one party.
“Individuals will still be able to run for office pointing to the ideals of the party they belong to, but the duties that they perform don’t require an R or a D behind their name, and the ballot box won’t either,” Cockroft said.
Lawmakers are currently in the process of drafting legislation, which must be filed by Jan. 17, 2013. The legislative session convenes Feb. 4, 2013, with the governor’s State of the State address.
In November, eleven Republican candidates running against incumbent Democrats in various county races around the state won.
At the same time, not a single Democrat defeated an incumbent Republican seeking reelection.
2012 proved that the voters of Oklahoma take the Republican and Democrat ‘label’ to mean something important.
It is time to secure that Republicans and Democrats have the opportunity to nominate whom they wish. It is not time to further dilute the process with the silly notion of ‘non-partisan’ elections.
Richard Engle is right. There has been a lot of hard work done by consernvatives to build the brand of the GOP over the last 30 years into a political powerhouse and now some who benefit from the GOP brand now want to undermine that work?