First test of term-limit law filed with Oklahoma Supreme Court

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Jul 31, 2002 by Marie Price The Journal Record

The first test of Oklahoma's term-limit law was filed Tuesday with the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a case challenging the candidacy of state Sen. Angela Monson, D-OKC.

Attorney Fred Leibrock said that a referee hearing has been set for 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 21. In his petition, he asked the court to hear the case and to require the State Election Board to strike Monson from the ballot.

"Senator Monson is prohibited by legislative term limits from completing the Senate term that she seeks," Leibrock said in his petition. "She is therefore not qualified to be a candidate and her name must be stricken from the ballot."

Monson's candidacy was upheld by the election board at a hearing earlier this month.

Leibrock had argued on behalf of Republican Revanelle Earnest, Monson's only opponent for Senate District 48, that the senator is not eligible to serve another full four-year term. The board disagreed.

Leibrock said that under the Oklahoma Constitution a state senator must hold office for four years, and Monson cannot do that.

"It requires service of four years," he said.

The attorney said he knows of no other races that would be affected by term limits this year as is Monson's.

"In the future, it's going to affect anyone who's switched from one house to the other," he added.

Since statehood, he said, about 32 individuals have switched houses, with about a dozen elected to fill unexpired terms. Leibrock said he believes there are a few who could be affected during upcoming election cycles as he contends Monson is this year.

Under the term limit law, a person can serve only 12 years in the House, the Senate or a combination of both. Approved by voters in 1990, it has been generally accepted that the law "kicked in" with terms that began with the general election in 1992. The limitation does not apply to periods of time lawmakers have been appointed or elected to serve out an unexpired term, or to the terms legislators were serving on the effective date of the act.

Monson was initially elected to the state House in 1990 and served a full term from 1991-92. She was re-elected to a term that began in 1993. Halfway through that term she was elected to the Senate at a special election to serve out the term of Sen. Vickie Miles- LaGrange, who was appointed U.S. attorney and is now a federal judge.

Monson has since been re-elected to two full terms.

Leibrock agreed that Monson's first partial Senate term should not count toward her dozen years, but he believes that the first year of her second two-year House term should count. Using this reasoning, should Monson win re-election this year, Monson would have served 13, rather than just 12 years in the Legislature, and be ineligible to serve.

Monson's attorney, Lee Slater, said that since the 1992 general election is the first contest to which term limits applied, from 1992 to 2002 is only 10 years, not 12. The law does not apply to partial terms, he said, so it could be interpreted not to apply either to the end of Miles-LaGrange's term or to the House term that Monson was unable to complete when she first sought the Senate seat.

At the hearing, Slater argued that this would unfairly limit Monson to only nine years.

Slater also contended that it is not up to the election board to determine whether someone can serve out a full term, only whether they are qualified to be a candidate.

"This was an issue of her free choice," said Leibrock. "This shouldn't be a surprise to her or anybody else. People are entitled to a four-year senator."

Knowing that Monson cannot complete this next term, Leibrock said, the election board acted improperly by keeping her on the ballot.

"Senator Monson's candidacy is constitutionally precluded now," Leibrock told the court. "The board therefore committed error as a matter of law when it chose to overlook the fact that its duty is to determine whether a candidate qualifies for office at the time her candidacy petition is filed."

Marie Price is the senior Capitol reporter of The Journal Record's Oklahoma Business News division. You may reach her by telephone at 524-7777 or by e-mail at marie.price