In Your State - Oklahoma
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Center Identifies Potential for Conflict in State Legislature
WASHINGTON, September 24, 2004 — The Center for Public Integrity today released results of its year-long examination of state legislators' personal financial disclosures. Researchers entered lawmakers' outside ties into a database and cross-referenced them with committee assignments and lists of lobbying organizations. In this way, the Center analyzed three key indicators of the potential for conflict: overlapping committee seats, ties to lobbyists, and employment by other government agencies. Of 141
state legislators in office in 2001 and disclosing their interests in 2002, in
Oklahoma:
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Go directly to filings: State Receives F for Disclosure of Legislative Outside Ties
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2006 — Meanwhile, Oklahoma ranked 34th in the nation for making basic
information on state legislators' income, assets and potential
conflicts of interest available to the public.
Oklahoma received 55.5 out of a possible 100 points. Report Card >>
Sample Filing(s): Statement of Financial Interests, F-1r (Long Form) | Statement of Financial Interests, F-1r (Short Form) |
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In the Oklahoma legislature, Article V, Section V-24 of the Oklahoma Constitution is the guiding authority on conflicts of interest.
The Constitution states that lawmakers must disclose a "personal or private interest" in legislation to the House or Senate and abstain from voting on the matter.
There is no statute on the topic and the House and Senate rules do not elaborate on the requirement in the Constitution.
In the House, according to Susan Hill, the assistant chief clerk and journal clerk, it is up to each individual legislator, "on his own conscience," to decide when to take the "constitutional privilege" (also known as "invoking article five"). A representative who invokes Article V does not make a declaration on the floor, but instead tells the person who is running the vote machine that he or she is taking the "constitutional privilege." This is recorded in the official Journal without any explanation of reasons. There is a Personal Index in the Journal which includes information on each member of the House, including a section on "vote explanation," which includes any invocations of the constitutional privilege by the member.
According to Senate Journal Clerk Carol Harber, a senator who has a conflict of interest will rise after the vote is declared, before voting occurs but after debate, and will ask to be excused from voting "pursuant to Article V, Section 24." The senator does not have to disclose the reason for the conflict, but according to Harber, colleagues can generally discern it because they know each others' financial interests. These recusals are indexed in the Journal of the Oklahoma Senate. Senators are generally required to participate in roll call votes, and if they fail to do so without being excused they are counted as voting nay.