Oklahoma Engaged

Welcome to Oklahoma Engaged, a collaborative series between KGOU and KOSU focusing on election issues in the state of Oklahoma

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Oklahoma Engaged is a collaborative series between KGOU and KOSU, with support from the Kirkpatrick Foundation. Below is a handy list of our state question breakdowns, community stories and profiles, and additional stories and videos. STATE QUESTION BREAKDOWNS

SQ 776 - concerning executions

SQ 777 - concerning farming and ranching

SQ 779 - concerning sales tax for education funding

SQ 780 & SQ 781 - concerning criminal justice reforms

SQ 790 - concerning public money for religious purposes

SQ 792 - concerning state liquor laws

COMMUNITY STORIES & VIDEOS

A Preview of Capitol Hill (video)

Why Is Oklahoma’s Voter Turnout So Low?

How New Residents Have Changed The Business, Voter Makeup In South Oklahoma City

Is The Election Impacting Oklahomans' Pocketbooks?

Voter Profile: Charito Rodriguez (video)

Voter Profile: Don Graham (video)

Voter Profile: Agustin Trejo (video)

Voter Profile: Ligia Barona (video)

Voter Profile: Marco and Santiago Arzate (video)

Voter Profile: Lorenzo Robles (video)

Voter Profile: Brett Fisher (video)

ADDITIONAL STORIES & VIDEOS

State Question 779: An Explainer (video)

State Question 792: An Explainer (video)

How Oklahoma Got Its Liquor Laws

How Political Districts With Prisons Give Their Lawmakers Outsize Influence

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South Oklahoma City business owner Brett Fisher says times are hard at his pawn shop, and he's scared about the future of the country. He supports Donald Trump for president and says he's the right guy for the job.

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South Oklahoma City resident Lorenzo Robles is a first-time voter, and says he's concerned about Republican nominee 's stance on immigration. He says immigrants have been an important part of sewing the fabric of America.

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How Political Districts With Prisons Give Their Lawmakers Outsize Influence

After finishing up work at the airplane manufacturing plant where Robert Karr has worked for more than three decades, the McAlester city councilman drives his pickup truck around the town's 4th ward. Karr has lived in this area almost his entire life, save for six years when his family moved out of town.

His 4th ward roots are deep, and Karr knows his constituents well.

“This guy right here is pretty interesting,” Karr says as he drives past a one-story brick home. “He's got his Batmobile car back there, if you ever want to see a nice Batmobile car.”

A few blocks down the road, Karr stops short of a barbed wire fence in front of a massive white brick building. There’s a guard tower, and three men in orange jumpsuits are walking the grounds.

“This is the entry to the prison. When we was kids, we ran all over here. Used to fish on prison property and get run off,” he says.

The Oklahoma State Penitentiary sits in Karr’s ward. But it’s not the only prison here. The Jackie Brannon Correctional Center is another block away. And those prisoners — all 1,500 or so — are technically Karr’s constituents.

The U.S. Census Bureau counts prisoners at the location they're at on the day of the census, instead of at their home residence. That's different than the way college students or newborn babies are counted.

Karr gets a lot of grief from his fellow councilmen every time there's a disturbance behind the prison's walls.

“Boy, you better calm down your constituents over there. Come on, councilman, take care of that problem,” Karr says the councilmen joke.

AN ACCIDENTAL ADJUSTMENT

It wasn’t always this way. For most of McAlester’s history, the city excluded the prison population from its redistricting process. But when the city adopted a new charter in 2006, it accidentally undid that practice. And when the redistricting committee redrew the lines, Karr’s ward was cut in half.

“Of course I opposed it,” Karr says. “I said, ‘You know, surely this isn't right.’ But they said, ‘Well our charter was written. That's why it's going to have to be.’”

Instead of 3,000 constituents, Karr now represents around 1,300. His ward is less than half the size of others in the city, so his vote on the city council is actually more powerful.

It might not be such a big deal in local politics, but Karr worries about the implications on a larger scale.

“When you're more powerful than a local city like a state representative or something, or a United States representative, it really wouldn't be fair with somebody like that,” Karr says.

‘FLUFF IT UP’

Prison gerrymandering, or drawing district lines with prisons inside so it benefits a particular party, is pretty common, according to the University of Oklahoma's Political Science chair Keith Gaddie. He argues it distorts the One Person, One Vote doctrine.

“This means that you need fewer actual voters in the district. And it also means that you can draw a district with relatively few voters in it but it meets the equal population criteria. But you've been able to fluff it up with a bunch of non-voters,” he says.

Prisoners count for nearly 10 percent of Oklahoma House District 59’s population in western Oklahoma, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Most were counted at the federal prison in El Reno and a private prison in Watonga, which has since closed.

“If you count a few people in the wrong place, that's not ideal,” says Aleks Kajstura with the Prison Policy Initiative.

But as incarceration rates have grown, Kajstura says equal representation has become harder to maintain.

“Starting really with the 2000 census there's just been so many people incarcerated when that data is used for redistricting purposes, it really skews representation within a state and within counties and cities,” Kajstura says.

Without those prisoners in House District 59, the district would not meet federal minimum population requirements.

REDISTRICTING WOES

Kajstura says this practice also causes headaches because prisons can close at any time. The one in Watonga shut down just weeks after the 2010 census.

“That particular facility where you are in on Census Day isn't representative with where you eat and sleep most of the time,” Kajstura says.

Political science professor Keith Gaddie says the practice benefits rural areas. He’s unsure how intentional it is, but he says a Democratic representative did approach him in 2002 during that year’s reshuffling.

“He said, ‘Dr. Gaddie, you know a perfect Democratic district is like a nursing home or a junior college tacked on to a prison, that way you don't need a lot of actual voters,’” Gaddie recalls.

As for McAlester’s city troubles, citizens voted to amend the redistricting procedures to exclude the prisons. Robert Karr’s hopeful the new ward lines will mean someone new could run for his post in 2018. He works full time, has a couple grandkids and is ready for a break.

“Hopefully, if we redistrict before then there may be some people who want to run, and I'll contribute to their campaign,” Karr says.

As unfair as he says his pint-sized district is, Karr admits it’s worked to his advantage: he receives half as many phone calls as his city council colleagues.

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Santiago Arzate and his son, Marco, own several businesses in the Capitol Hill district of south Oklahoma City. They are trying to encourage more Latinos to vote. They would rather have a good time with family instead of get into heated political arguments.

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A Field Guide to State Question 777: StateImpact's Documentary on OK's Agricultural Ballot Measure

When Oklahoma voters go to the polls next week, they’ll decide on State Question 777, known by supporters as the right-to-farm amendment. The measure would make farming and ranching a constitutional right and make it harder for the Legislature to enact laws that further regulate the agriculture industry.

The ballot question seems simple on the surface: Do you support the right to farm? The answer for many Oklahomans, however, is more complex. Environmental and legal considerations complicate the issue, and it has become very culturally and politically polarizing.

StateImpact has been following right-to-farm for almost two years. In this hour-long documentary, we unpack SQ 777 with interviews and analysis from all four corners of the state.

Public polling on State Question 777 — the so-called right-to-farm amendment — is fluctuating wildly as Election Day approaches, and the fundraising race between supporters and opponents has tightened.

Millions of dollars in contributions are flowing from individuals, businesses and organizations to groups campaigning for and against State Question 777.

Those groups have collectively spent more than $1.8 million dollars — on billboards, advertisements, commercials, bumper stickers, social media campaigns, research and more — to sway voters on the measure, which would make farming and ranching a constitutional right in Oklahoma.

The yes on 777 campaign got an early start. The primary group backing the state question, Oklahoma Farmers Care, was organized in 2015 and leads total fundraising by more than one-third. To date, the group has pulled in more than $1.3 million dollars in donations.

Many of those donations have come from individual farmers. Those smaller amounts have been amplified by $5,000 and $10,000 checks from local Farm Bureaus, banks and ag industry groups like the Cattlemen’s Association and the Pork Council, which in full disclosure, has financially supported StateImpact.

Groups urging a no vote on State Question 777 started from behind but have almost caught up in fundraising. The two primary groups opposing 777 — the Stewardship Council and Oklahoma Food, Farm and Family — out-fundraised the yes campaign during the last two quarters. They have nearly closed the 2016 fundraising gap. Groups opposing 777 have raised about $950,000 so far.

The ‘no’ coalition has received big checks from social welfare group Oklahoma Rising and the Humane Society of the U.S. and received financial support from individual donors, including a board member of the Kirkpatrick Foundation, which in full disclosure again, has also financially supported StateImpact.

We’ve detailed the money coming in. Let’s talk about the money being spent. Overall, the no on 777 groups outspent the yes team through September, but just slightly. Recently, the yes campaign has boosted spending by more than 700 percent, while the no campaign has ramped it up by 300 percent.

It’s impossible to know how much money individual groups or businesses are spending on their own to tell Oklahomans how to vote on 777. And we won’t know how much money the organized campaigns raised and spent during the final Election Day push until well after the vote.

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Is The Election Impacting Oklahomans' Pocketbooks?

Oklahomans might be holding on to their money leading up to the election. One researcher suspects people here may be even more anxious than voters than other states.

The business at Dean’s Drive-Through Pawn Shop in south Oklahoma City is slower than it used to be. Brett Fisher's dad started the shop in 1968. Owning a business was never easy, but they did it as a family and still had time to ride dirt bikes together. Brett bought the business 23 years ago, and things have never been tougher.

"It’s not that great anymore," Fisher said. "A lot of times I wish that I could work my eight hours and go home and leave what I had there for tomorrow.  It’s 365/24/7 with me, and it’s because I have me, my wife all of my employees, and their families depending on it."

It’s not just a pawn shop anymore. To keep up, he’s added a check cashing business and a drive through post office, one of just a few in the whole country. He says it’s what small business people do. They find ways to do more to make just a little more money…to make ends meet.

Brett is nervous about the future, about what might happen after the elections. "I’ve never felt this scared about the future of my country and what choices I may have to make as an individual with gun rights, as a business owner, what legislation might come down," he said.

Just a few blocks away from the pawn shop, Leo Guevara opened Leo’s Cakery, a custom dessert business nearly five years ago. He’s a Mexican immigrant living the American dream.

While Brett Fisher worries about what will happen if Hillary Clinton wins, but Leo is afraid of what will happen if Donald Trump becomes the next president. He says his customers feel anxious, so they’re holding on to their money.

"No one is spending money," Guevara said. "You know, even myself. I do on basic things that I have to but not like going out to eat so much. I'm just trying to save money because you know you don't really know what's going to happen. We are all afraid of that, I guess."

The business at Leo’s Cakery is down 40 percent from a year ago. In this Hispanic neighborhood, people are scared about what immigration policies might look like under a Trump presidency. Even Leo has considered packing up and moving his family to another country because of what might happen.

"I'm an American citizen. I become American about four years ago," Guevara said. "What if something happened to me? What if he wants to send me back? I have to keep all my money so I can have money wherever I go."

Can fear of what might happen in the elections really have that much of an impact on our local economy? Maybe.

Will Kenton is the senior news and market editor for Investopedia, an online financial news site. For close to a year, his team has tracked data about what people in Oklahoma are searching for when it comes to finances.

"We have seen that readers in Oklahoma have displayed in the last 12 months or so more economic anxiety than the rest of the country," Kenton said. "Whether that's due to the oil industry or something else, I think that that will have some effect on how people pull the lever in the ballot box."

Many of the people we talked to during our election coverage say they are anxious about the elections and they’re being more cautious with spending. Economically, Kenton says it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"It could be that as soon as that question is resolved that whoever wins,  if the economy is doing well that people will feel less anxious," Kenton said.

Chintamani Jog is an economics professor at the University of Central Oklahoma and points to one reason why people might change spending habits based on their feelings.

"There’s something called anchoring, which psychologists often use. Anchoring is the term which says it’s a tendency to put more than proportionate emphasis on the first or the biggest piece of information you hear," Jog said

In other words, with the presidential election dominating the news cycle, we might unconsciously blame the economy on the presidential election, and we could do that with any other major news event.  

Back at the pawn shop, Brett doesn't have the luxury of spending his time just worrying about the presidential election.  There are other battles to fight.

"It’s all regulations, it’s all paying bills," he said. "It’s doing this, worrying about insurance, worrying about workman’s comp, worrying about health insurance, worrying about this, worrying about that."

Oklahoma will still have economic worries after the election as the oil and gas industry continues to struggle.  For small business owners like Brett Fisher and Leo Guevara, there’s even more to worry about as they think about making the next dollar.

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85-year-old Colombia native Ligia Barona talks about why she's voting for the first time. She became a naturalized citizen this year after spending the past 22 years in the United States.

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Agustin Trejo has never voted, and says he might cast a ballot for the first time this year. He says a lot of his neighbors are afraid to go to the polls because they don't know how they'll be received.

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Don Graham describes 30 years of changes he's seen in the Capitol Hill neighborhood and talks about the importance of civic participation.

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Charito Rodriguez of Babalu Cuban-Latin Cuisine talks about the issues that face the Hispanic community in Oklahoma City and how important it is to vote.

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State Question 790: The Case For and Against A Ten Commandments Monument

Just over a year ago—under the dark of night—a Ten Commandments monument was removed from the state Capitol grounds.

Representative Mike Ritze paid for it. Governor Mary Fallin supported it. But its placement prompted a public debate—and ultimately a lawsuit—that forced its removal.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled it had to come down and based their decision on a section of the Oklahoma Constitution—Article 2, Section 5—that says public money and property may not be used to benefit religion.

Now legislators are seeking to remove that part of the Constitution so they can get their monument back. That’s what a “yes” vote on State Question 790 would do.

But Ryan Kiesel of the American Civil Liberties Union said another monument wouldn’t be around for long.

“Anyone who believes that by removing Article 2, Section 5—by passing State Question 790—that we just roll out a red carpet for a Ten Commandments monument—you are mistaken,” he said.

Instead, Kiesel said the ACLU will challenge it in federal court, as undermining the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

“The Establishment Clause, in the most basic terms, says the government shall not establish a religion.”

Kiesel said putting a Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds holds Christianity up on a pedestal. Which, he thinks, is dangerous.

“If you think about the anger and the frustration that culminates on both sides, it’s that very sort of division that our founders, both at the federal level and the state level, sought to prevent against,” he said.  

The main force behind State Question 790 is State Representative John Paul Jordan (R-Yukon). He said this issue is bigger than religion.

“The idea that this is all about a Ten Commandments monument—first off—is a misnomer,” he said.

For him it’s about lawsuits. He said when the state Supreme Court justices ruled against the monument last year, they consequently forged a very strict interpretation of Article 2, Section 5. And now all government money going to religious institutions—whether directly or indirectly—will be problematic.

“If anything has religious context, and it is receiving some kind of religious benefit… it’s violating the state constitution and that benefit has to be removed,” he said.

For example, he said roadside memorials on government property would not be allowed. Legislators who are also pastors would not be able to receive payment from the state. And religious-affiliated hospitals would be exempt from receiving state insurance dollars.

“To me it’s basically that aspect of, now there’s a mechanism for outside groups – the ACLU, Freedom From Religion, Americans United for Separation of Church and State – for being able to file a lawsuit against a town, a county, a school district, for anything that they would perceive as having religious content and trying to test the waters.”

Jordan envisions years of lawsuits because of this. And so, the easiest solution in his mind is to just remove the provision.

But University of Oklahoma Law Professor, Rick Tepker, said Jordan’s hypothesis is extreme and wouldn’t make it far in court. He said the state isn’t paying hospitals or pastors to promote religion, so there shouldn’t be an issue.

“Admittedly there might be a lawsuit about it,” he said. “But I personally argue that insurance programs designed to promote medical care pursue a secular objective.”

Tepker thinks this case is cut-and-dry: putting a Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds is an establishment of religion, and if it’s challenged at the federal level he thinks the US Supreme Court will rule as such.

Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s Attorney General, and some legislators like Rep. Jordan argue the Ten Commandments are a historical document and the basis of our modern legal system. More than just a religious symbol—and therefore it should be able to stay.

“From a historical perspective, there is a historical lineage from the Ten Commandments to the Oklahoma Constitution,” Jordan said.

But professor Tepker said this argument is unfounded.  

“Nobody in this law school, or any other law school that I know of, is going to make a serious argument, that the Ten Commandments, and particularly the religious dominated first few, are foundations of our common law system, or our statutes, or our constitutional principles,” he said.

And beyond that, Tepker argues this issue is using time and financial resources that are hard to come by for the cash-strapped state.

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State Question 777 would create a constitutional right to farm and ranch in Oklahoma, giving the agriculture industry unique protection from the state legislature. The ballot question concerns livestock and crops, but legal experts say the statewide measure will likely come down to lawsuits and courts.

Read more: https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2016/10/20/the-legal-complications-of-oklahomas-state-question-to-constutionally-protect-farming/

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How New Residents Have Changed The Business, Voter Makeup In South Oklahoma City

Pete White drives slowly through his old neighborhood in south Oklahoma City. The 78-year-old Oklahoma City councilman has lived in the area his entire life.

“This is the house I grew up in right here,” White said as he drove through a tree lined neighborhood of modest homes.

He pulled onto Southwest 25th Street in the business district of an area known as Capitol Hill. White pointed out the location of former businesses. Department stores, a doctor’s office, and pharmacies. All of them are long gone.

“This was a Langstons. Like the one in Stockyards,” White said as he pointed to a building. “A big Western store.”

Like many inner-city neighborhoods throughout the country, Capitol Hill declined. Retail competition from malls and big box stores drove small businesses out.

“The people moved to the suburbs. This failed about the same time downtown business failed,” White said.

Now, south Oklahoma City is in transition. Many neighborhoods have seen a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants over the decades, and that’s altered the area’s business makeup. Mexican restaurants and grocery stores dot the neighborhood. Attorneys, accountants and beauty salons that cater to Hispanic clients line the streets.

Santiago Arzate and his son, Marco, kick back with a glass of wine in their storefront property on Southwest 25th Street. Just one block away, a Mexican band entertains a large crowd on the street during Fiesta de las Américas, a full-day celebration of Latin American culture.

Both Santiago and Marco Arzate are businessmen. Santiago has owned several ventures over the past 25 years, and Marco owns his own lighting company. Marco says the commercial district is peaceful these days, but it was a rough place in the mid-90s when his dad opened his first Mexican restaurant.

“It was scary. There was prostitution. Gangs. Drugs. Graffiti. People tagging the walls. The police didn’t really run too much around here. They didn’t care to,” Marco said.

Santiago says one by one, more shops opened. Plywood came down off store windows. But the neighborhood still had a bad reputation. Sometimes, he still has to convince people to stop by.

“‘You need to come by and check it out,’” he would tell skeptics. “‘It’s nice and quiet and people don’t bother you.’”

Santiago was born in the United States but raised in Mexico, just south of the border. He ran away from home as a teen and ended up in Oklahoma City 45 years ago. Santiago says immigration is a big topic in his community, but so are education and security. He and Marco will both vote in November, but they say both presidential candidates are making it hard.

“You don’t know who to vote for,” they said in unison while laughing.

“That’s the sad part, right?” Marco said.

“That’s bad. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Santiago said.

Santiago never voted until the mid-1990s, when he opened his restaurant and became involved in the community. This year, he expects more Latinos in Oklahoma City to cast their ballot.

“A lot of Latinos are voting. They’re voting. A lot of them are registering. A lot of them are going to vote. No doubt about it,” Santiago said.

Voter turnout

The Pew Research Center estimates over 27 million Latinos are eligible to vote nationwide this November, and represent 12 percent of all eligible voters. But turnout among Latinos is traditionally low. Only 48 percent of eligible Latino voters cast a ballot in 2012.

University of Oklahoma political scientist Mackenzie Israel Trummel says this is because most people mirror the political behavior of their parents.

“A lot of us think of voting as a very low cost form of political participation, if you haven’t had that history in your family of voting,  it can sort of a kind of mystery,” Israel Trummel said. “It’s difficult to learn how do you register, how do you find your polling place, how do you find out what’s on the ballot. So it can actually be more of a high-cost political act.”

Santiago Arzate didn’t learn about voting from his parents, and he didn’t vote until later in life. But his son, Marco, is a consistent voter.

“Seeing your parents vote sort of teaches the lesson that his is an important part of civic engagement and this is something you do when there’s an election happening,” Israel Trummel said.

Both Santiago and Marco are engaged in politics and their community. But there’s not a lot of political talk at the Arzate house.

“He don’t [sic] think like me. He’s my son, believe me, he don’t think me. We’re all different,” Santiago Arzate said. “So everybody’s got different points of view on everything.”

Santiago says keeping peace in the family is more important than winning a political argument. They would rather have fun together, drink some wine, and sing and dance.

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Law Enforcement, Advocates Differ On How To Fix Oklahoma's 'Felon Factory'

Oklahoma’s prisons are crowded, and the state continues to incarcerate offenders at the second- highest rate in the nation, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Two state questions on the November 8 ballot aim to ease both of those strains.

Carla Quillen started using drugs when she was 17. Before she knew it, she was addicted and selling crack cocaine to support her habit. She compiled a lengthy rap sheet with multiple drug charges, but Quillen mostly stayed out of prison. Then, fourteen years ago, she gave birth in her house to her son Justice. She was high at the time. Shortly after Justice was born, he died. Quillen was charged with murder.

“It was horrible,” Quillen said. "That's the last thing I wanted to happen, and to think that people were saying that I literally, intentionally wanted my son to die, it just made me want to continue to get high to ease the pain because that's not who I am.”

The charge was eventually downgraded to child neglect, and Quillen went to prison for about a decade. She got out last year and landed a job. She’s been sober for 13 years, but she can’t believe addiction ruled her life for so many years.

“Ugh, it took that much for me to wake up? It actually took that?” Quillen said.

A financial and social responsibility

Quillen thinks if the state had sent her to treatment instead of just deferring her first sentence, she could’ve quit drugs years before. That’s what these two state questions — 780 and 781 — aim to do.

“These reforms are ultimately about making the best use of our state's resources both from a financial standpoint and from a human capital standpoint,” said Kris Steele, the head of Oklahomans For Criminal Justice Reform. The grassroots group developed the two measures voters will see on the ballot next month.

State Question 780 would elevate the monetary threshold for property crimes from $500 to $1000. A vote yes also means several low-level drug and property crimes will be reclassified as misdemeanors instead of felonies. That means offenders won’t serve prison time. Steele expects the state to see significant savings by lessening incarceration rates. The second measure — 781 — redirects those savings to counties to expand drug and mental health treatment programs.

“What we're doing right now is not working. And so we've got to try a new approach and we believe that the answer based on the success in other states is to address the root cause of the crime through appropriate levels of treatment and mental health care,” Steele said.

Business leaders like Clay Bennett and Gene Rainbolt have backed the state questions, contributing financially to the campaign. Rainbolt argues there's an opportunity gap between Oklahoma's potential and the way the state deals with the mentally ill and drug-addicted.

"We are running a felon factory in Oklahoma that, in generations to come, will exacerbate the problem we already have," Rainbolt said.

The changes are statutory, not constitutional, meaning the legislature could amend the laws as needed. Steele says that's by design.

“We're going to have to continue to do our research we're going to have to continue to consider other reforms that would also be necessary to try to achieve the best possible outcomes possible,” Steele said.

A carrot without a stick

But some experts in the criminal justice system are skeptical permanently reclassifying these offenses as misdemeanors will encourage rehabilitation.

“If there's not a lengthy prison sentence hanging over my head as some incentive to go to drug court or some incentive to change my lifestyle and address my addictive behavior, then I'm not going to do it,” said Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater.

All carrot, but no stick, he argues.

Some misdemeanors carry a potential sentence of one year in jail. But Prater fears overcrowding could lead to diverted sentences, meaning offenders could avoid time behind bars altogether.

Besides, Prater says, most defendants who end up in prison due to drug possession have had multiple chances.

“Though the crime that they ultimately may have gone to prison for is a simple possession case of whatever the drug of choice was, they're not going on first offense. And many times, they're going after they've failed drug court,” Prater said.

Prater wants to see Oklahoma’s criminal justice system revamped. He’s long advocated for a better system that prioritizes treatment programs, but his concerns with these proposals are echoed across the state by DA’s and law enforcement. Prater also doubts the legislature would appropriate needed dollars for county treatment centers.

“We need to fund inpatient and outpatient substance abuse services, mental health services and the like. That's not being funded now. So you think the legislature's going to fund it now that they've made everything — or will make everything — a misdemeanor? It just isn't going to happen,” he said.

‘Threat of incarceration’

Many loss prevention specialists are also wary of the change in the monetary threshold for property crimes. State Question 781 builds on a recently passed law. During the 2016 legislative session, Gov. Mary Fallin signed House Bill 2751. The bill raised general property theft felony bar from $500 to $1,000. This state question ensures all property theft statutes, not just those in the general category, match the same threshold.

Norm Smaligo owns a loss prevention consulting firm. He argues the new law and the state question are missing one key component.

“Most retailers would have no problem raising the felony limit as long as there's an offsetting, what's called an organized retail crime statute passed,” Smaligo said.

An organized retail crime statute ensures thefts from multiple locations would be bundled together instead of counted separately. Furthermore, Smaligo wants to see stronger punishments for repeat offenders under these proposals.

“As retailers we love diversion programs for first time offenders,” Smaligo said. “Because those diversion programs work. But they only work because the threat of incarceration is there.”

Carla Quillen is more optimistic. She carries the weight of her son’s death daily and believes the measures could save other addicts.

“I don't want something like this to happen to somebody else because this is something I have to live with for the rest of my life,” she said.

Instead of waiting for disaster to happen, Quillen says the state needs to be proactive about helping its people confront and treat their addictions.

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