Flashback: Ayatollah Drew Edmondson shackles petitioners

In 2007, Attorney General Drew Edmondson made national headlines -- embarrassing headlines -- when he indicted three leaders of a petition effort to protect taxpayers and property owners against government-backed greed and then had them shackled and perp-walked out of the courtroom.

The spectacle caused publisher and erstwhile presidential candidate Steve Forbes to ask, "Has North Korea Annexed Oklahoma?"

Back in 2005, despite organized harassment from unions and other pro-government forces, Jacob and other activists--with the help of a professional petition-signing firm--managed to collect the required number of names to get the antispending item on the ballot. In a tantrum worthy of an Iranian ayatollah the pro-political class Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the petitions invalid.

Why? Oklahoma has a statute that states petitions can be carried only by Oklahoma residents. What is a resident? According to precedent, residency is determined by an individual's intention to be a resident. When out-of-staters moved to the state to help local people get signatures for the antispending petitions, the State Supreme Court decided that precedent didn't matter and concocted a new interpretation: Petitioners had to make Oklahoma their "permanent home."

That was bad enough. But just to be sure no one ever again tries to restrict free-spending pols, the state's hoodlumesque attorney general, Drew Edmondson (Dem.), has decided to seek to imprison the petition leaders.

The Oklahoma case stands out as an extreme move to restrict the behavior of political activists. But unless this thuggish behavior is firmly punished, other states and municipalities will quickly follow suit. After all, many local pols and their developer friends have been making ample use of the Supreme Court's hideous decision two years ago that allows local authorities to seize private property to help politically connected private developers. Jacob has worked with Oklahomans pushing an initiative that would bar this type of eminent domain abuse, as well as a state term limits initiative. Now he is accused of committing a felony.

Edmondson charged Rick Carpenter, Paul Jacob, and Susan Johnson -- who became known as the Oklahoma Three -- for violating a never-before-enforced law against hiring out-of-state petition circulators. The two petitions they were pursuing were to enact the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and to protect property owners against the use of eminent domain for private benefit, plugging a loophole created by the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in the Kelo v. New London case.

Their approach to circulating petitions had been used by many other successful Oklahoma initiatives. The definition of eligibility was broad enough that it could include anyone residing in Oklahoma, even if only for the duration of the petition drive.

What was different in this case? It might be the list of wealthy and influential Oklahomans who were trying to block these petitions from the ballot:

...Keith Bailey, Clayton Bennett, G.T. Blankenship, John Brock, Bill W. Burgess, Lynne A. Bussell, Luke R. Corbett, Marlin Glass, Jr., Fred Hall, V. Burns Hargis, Kirk Humphreys, George B. Kaiser, Albert Kel Kelly, Jr., Tom Love, Stanley Lybarger, John Massey, Aubrey McClendon, Melvin Moran, J. Larry Nichols, Joseph L. Parker, Jr., Stuart Price, H.E. Rainbolt, Carl R. Renfro, Stacy S[c]husterman, Sabra Tucker, Steve Turnbo...

Evidently it didn't satisfy Ayatollah Edmondson that the voters would be denied the opportunity to approve these measures. Here's what happened next, as Paul Jacob told Reason:

I appeared in court and they unsealed the indictment and we heard the charges for the first time. We pled not guilty, then several policemen came up and handcuffed the three of us together and led us through a barrage of TV cameras and photographers and reporters....

Halfway through processing they had our legs shackled--my right leg shackled to Rick Carpenter's left leg in addition to being handcuffed, and both Susan Johnson's legs shackled together. We never were locked in a cell when going through processing, but it did take hours and we were handcuffed the whole time to a bar across our seat. It's a fairly dehumanizing process.

Jacob notes that, although Edmondson was going after them for hiring people who were illegally gathering signatures, he didn't pursue charges against any of the signature gatherers who were allegedly violating the law.

The charges against the Oklahoma Three were dropped after the law, which had never before been enforced, was nullified by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals as unconstitutional.

Before you go to the polls on Tuesday, take a few minutes to read Rick Carpenter's compelling account of the petition drive, the indictment, and the aftermath, and share it with your friends, so that they know about Drew Edmondson's contempt for democracy, and his willingness to pervert justice for the sake of his wealthy cronies.