Well, you “can’t put a Band-Aid on a broken bone,” according to Gov. Kevin Stitt, but you can push for Oklahoma voters to make legislators’ problems go away.
In his State of the State address to start the Legislature’s 2026 session, Stitt asked lawmakers to send several state questions to this year’s ballot, all while wielding a damaged right wing fresh from a surgery.
Among the governor’s requests were making the state superintendent of public instruction an appointed position rather than an elected one and revisiting the legalization of medical marijuana and the expansion of Medicaid. In their own ways, all three suggestions would take power out of voters’ hands.
Looking at Oklahoma’s last decade of educational outcomes and outlandishness, I can understand the appetite to change how the leader in that area is selected. Giving up your ability to choose that person, however, probably requires some pause.
The same can be said for medical marijuana. I can still remember the feeling in 2018. Voters wanted to pass the issue, and we expected the Legislature to create regulatory framework for the industry in Oklahoma.
Well, the people did their part, but listening to Stitt’s words in his address, it sounded like he was saying, “We just don’t want to deal with this, so you all should make it go away.”
As for the Medicaid question, Stitt’s suggestion that the state save money by making fewer people qualify for SoonerCare seemed ironic at best from a person eligible for a public health insurance plan physically representing the value of effective health care.
What issues the Legislature sends to 2026 ballots remains to be seen, but Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton harshed the governor’s — infamous — buzz on the pot predicament.
“What I would suggest to the governor is we don’t need a state question to pull this back,” said Paxton (R-Tuttle). “There are some good Oklahomans who invested their life-savings into this program, and they are trying to do what the voters actually thought they were voting for. Now, what we got was this cartel-invested rural Oklahoma that was really the center of illegal marijuana in the nation.”
Meanwhile, Paxton and House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) have indicated support for making the state superintendent an appointed position, but they believe it should involve restructuring the State Board of Education to give the Legislature some appointments.
“I personally think it’s a good concept,” Hilbert said. “I think if we’re going to do something in terms of changing the appointment structure, the oversight structure of the State Board of Education should also be considered.”
Stitt trying to revisit medical marijuana and Medicaid expansion in 2026 — less than a decade after Oklahomans passed each — feels like a weird way to go out. But maybe if you not if you remember his 2022 gubernatorial debate remarks on the topic.
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