The fourth of the seven charter change propositions on the City of Tulsa November 14, 2017, ballot would once again scramble our city election process. A yes vote on Proposition No. 4 would modify three separate sections of Article VI (Election and Qualification of Officers), with the effect that the...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 7, 2017 11:54 PM
Here is a brief history of all the changes to the City of Tulsa Charter, Article VI, Elections. That link leads to the current text of Article VI and the text of each change, with the ballot language and election results of each. When Tulsa adopted a mayor-council form of...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 7, 2017 10:46 PM
There's a good deal of confusion about the City of Tulsa election process. Tulsans have amended the election dates and terms of office about a dozen times in the last seven years. In just a few years we've gone from partisan elections in February and March of even-numbered years to...
Posted by Michael Bates on June 8, 2013 11:11 PM
Only seven districts have Tulsa City Council races but voters in every district of the City of Tulsa can vote Tuesday, November 8, 2011, on the four charter amendment propositions on the general election ballot. On the left of the ballot (under a city council race, if you have one)...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 7, 2011 2:21 AM
In this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly, Ray Pearcey deploys an apt analogy against the Save Our Tulsa non-partisan election proposition on Tulsa's general election ballot this Tuesday. If you are a baseball fan you've had time to recover from late night World Series games, so I want you to imagine...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 6, 2011 7:17 PM
Yesterday, the 2011 Tulsa County Republican Convention unanimously approved the recommendation of the convention's platform committee to be the Tulsa County Republican Party's official platform. The platform includes clear stands on several current city and county issues. Here is the local section of the platform in its entirety: LOCAL GOVERNMENT...
Posted by Michael Bates on March 27, 2011 4:43 AM
There they go again. Many of the same people involved in the attempt to recall Tulsa City Councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock, many of the same people involved in Tulsans for Better Government (the group promoting at-large councilors) -- they're on the list of named members of a group...
Posted by Michael Bates on October 10, 2010 10:53 PM
What are the odds? After protesting loudly during the mayoral campaign that he wasn't a member of Tulsans for Better Government and had no idea how his name got on that list, Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr is now talking sympathetically about the concepts -- at-large councilors and non-partisan elections...
Posted by Michael Bates on July 12, 2010 12:32 PM
Earlier today District Judge Jefferson Sellers ruled that an initiative petition seeking a charter amendment to make Tulsa city elections non-partisan is invalid. The petition, circulated in 2008 by the group Tulsans for Better Government, was challenged by City Councilor John Eagleton on two grounds: That the petitions lacked a...
Posted by Michael Bates on August 24, 2009 1:48 PM
Last week I wrote a piece correcting the history of Tulsans for Better Government and the three charter changes recommended by the Citizens' Commission on City Government. In that entry, I quoted a statement in the Citizens' Commission report that some of the commissioners preferred my notion of multi-partisan city...
Posted by Michael Bates on August 9, 2009 12:21 AM
An edited version of this piece was published in the April 5, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Posted on the web August 8, 2009. For multi-partisan city elections By Michael D. Bates Once again, dear reader, you have me at a disadvantage....
Posted by Michael Bates on April 5, 2006 11:58 PM
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