Politics of Oklahoma
Oklahoma came into being as a state at the height of the era of Jim Crow Laws and had a Ku Klux Klan presence in the 1920s.
[3] Until 1964, Oklahoma was considered a "swing state" in American politics, shifting back and forth in its support for the two major parties.
However, Oklahoma voters would split their political allegiances by electing Democrats for local government, but Republicans for national office.
[6] Socialists were also elected to local office and received the nation's highest vote count per capita for the party's candidate, Eugene V. Debs in 1916.
[6] The Ku Klux Klan and the civil rights struggles of the World War I era came to Oklahoma in the 1920s, leading to the Tulsa race massacre, lynchings and other violence.
[7] Following the practical destruction of the Socialist party in the aftermath of the Green Corn Rebellion, state politics became a two-party system that continued to exclude black voters.
At the U.S. Presidential level, Oklahoma's electoral college vote was a reliable part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" coalition (which began in the U.S. election of 1932).
During this same period, Oklahoma's Governors, legislature, and delegation to Congress continued to be dominated by the Democratic Party.
However, there was political infighting over deficit spending in the late 1930s, leading to a successful bipartisan push for a 1941 constitutional amendment requiring legislators to pass a balanced budget.
[8] Leon C. Phillips, who opposed New Deal programs, rose to prominence, first as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and later as governor.
[9] During the presidential campaign in 1968, Oklahoma was targeted by the Republican Party to be included in what was called the Southern Strategy.
Gradually, the success of the Republican Party began to translate into Congressional, legislative, and other local political races.
In addition, Oklahoma was the only state where John McCain carried every county (even though Democrats still had a majority of registered voters).
As in the national government of the United States, power in Oklahoma is divided into three main branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Pinnell concurrently serves, by virtue of his office as lieutenant governor, as the president of the Oklahoma Senate.
Other statewide executive offices are contested in elections and serving four-year terms that run concurrent with that of the Governor, with the exception of the three members of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
The state has term limits for their legislature that restrict any one person to a total of twelve years service in both the House and Senate.
The state legislature convenes in regular session at noon each odd-numbered year on the first Monday in February.
Oklahoma's 1st congressional district is based in Tulsa and covers the northeastern corner of the state and it borders Kansas to the north.
Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district covers (approximately) the eastern one-fourth of the state, bordering Kansas to the north, Missouri and Arkansas to the east, and Texas along the Red River to the south.
