While not specifically saying he will sign reform legislation, Gov. Kevin Stitt voiced support for addressing flaws in Oklahoma’s initiative-petition process during a press conference this week.

“There’s got to be a voice for the people,” Stitt said, “but we can’t let anybody with a million dollars be able to get their crazy initiative on a ballot.”

Because associated costs are much lower in Oklahoma, experts have noted the state is increasingly targeted by left-wing groups from outside Oklahoma who are pushing ever-more extreme liberal ideas through the state’s initiative-petition process.

Those outside groups also benefit from the fact that they can currently collect signatures for an initiative petition mostly from the state’s urban core, where the small share of liberal voters in Oklahoma is most highly concentrated.

Lawmakers have attempted to address those problems to reform the system in ways that reduce the likelihood of fringe proposals reaching the ballot, wasting taxpayer resources on unnecessary elections.

Senate Bill 1027, by state Sen. David Bullard and House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, includes several transparency reforms, but the provision receiving the most attention requires initiative petitions to gather signatures from a larger swath of Oklahoma.

Under the legislation, signatures equal to no more than 11.5 percent of the votes cast in any county during the most recent statewide general election may be collected for a petition to change state law.

If a petition would amend the Oklahoma Constitution, which requires a larger raw number of signatures to qualify for a public vote, the maximum number of signatures that may be gathered from any one county cannot exceed 20.8 percent of the number of votes cast in the county during the most recent statewide general election.

That change would require petitions to reach out to voters in at least 18 to 20 Oklahoma counties out of the 77 statewide.

While that is not even half the state, current petition efforts can involve an even smaller geographic share of the state.

During House debate on the bill, Hilbert, R-Bristow, noted that 67.9 percent of signatures gathered by one recent initiative-petition effort came from just two counties—Oklahoma and Tulsa. Those two counties are home to only 36.4 percent of Oklahoma’s population and are not politically representative of the state as a whole. While Donald Trump received two out of three Oklahoma votes cast statewide for president in 2024, nearly half of the Oklahoma votes cast for Kamala Harris came from Oklahoma and Tulsa counties.

Stitt noted that other states require a greater show of public support before a measure can be placed on a statewide ballot.

“It’s so much easier to get something on the ballot in Oklahoma than it is in Texas or Tennessee or some of these other states,” Stitt said. “So we should look at that to say, ‘Can anybody with a million dollars get a question on our ballot, or should we make it more like other states, right?’ If you’re going to change our constitution, it shouldn’t be about who has the most money and who can write a check.”

Medical marijuana has been linked to an infusion of organized crime throughout Oklahoma, including the presence of criminals involved with international cartels.

Stitt cited the problems created by medical marijuana as an example of an initiative-petition measure pushed by outside interests that was poorly designed and created far more problems than alleged benefits.

Oklahomans were told marijuana would be used medicinally to aid certain conditions, but that’s not what has occurred, the governor noted. Medical marijuana has been linked to an infusion of organized crime throughout Oklahoma, including the presence of criminals involved with international cartels.

“Did we have any idea that we were going to have 7,000 growers and this many ‘pharmacies’ and it was going to be like anybody with a hangnail could get a medical-marijuana card and it was actually going to be recreational?” Stitt asked. “Of course we didn’t.”

In addition to requiring petitions to gather signatures from citizens in more counties, SB 1027 requires that the gist of a proposition (the description of a proposed ballot measure provided to voters) use simple language that clearly describes the proposal and avoids jargon understood by only a subset of the population.

The bill also requires that those gathering signatures be Oklahoma registered voters, and signature gatherers must publicly reveal if they are paid by outside entities to circulate a petition and identify their funders.

SB 1027 also requires a gist to clearly state whether an initiative petition will have a fiscal impact that could require either a tax increase or the diversion of funds from other uses.

The legislation has drawn opposition from Oklahoma United, a group seeking to have Oklahoma’s election system changed to largely mirror California elections, where voters’ November choices are often limited to two Democrats and no Republicans.

Stitt said Oklahoma citizens “need the ability to put stuff” on the ballot, but that some safeguards are sensible.

“I think there’s a balance there the Legislature’s trying to work through,” Stitt said.

SB 1027 has passed through both chambers of the Oklahoma Legislature and was sent to the governor this week.

Update: Governor Stitt signed SB 1027 with an emergency clause which makes this law effective immediately.