Ho … ho … hum?

Another week. Another proposed initiative petition – the latest aimed at legalizing recreational marijuana.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s at least five potential questions on next year’s ballots: Medicaid expansion, independent redistricting commission, recreational marijuana, Sunday liquor sales, and a constitutional amendment that would make clear only citizens are qualified to vote.

Of course, not all initiatives and referendums are created equal. Some are vital to Oklahoma’s health and well-being, others pure political gamesmanship. But there is danger voters could develop ballot fatigue, prompting them to skip the questions – or voting altogether.

In the spirit of the holidays, and as a public service, I offer a crib sheet on the proposals, some of which may never reach the ballot:

• Recreational Marijuana. If State Question 806 were to win voter approval, Oklahoma would become the 12th state (plus the District of Columbia) to fully legalize pot.

I’ve long argued Oklahoma should legalize and tax marijuana – widely regarded as the state’s No. 1 cash crop. By failing to accept reality, Oklahoma reaped only weed’s costs (of prosecuting and incarcerating users), not its benefits (tax revenue).

In 2018, voters took a giant step toward a saner cannabis policy, approving medical marijuana. So far, the system is working: 228,000 licensed patients, 6,500-plus licensed dispensaries, $20.9 million in new tax revenue.

There’s no reason not to legalize recreational use – we did learn the lessons of Prohibition, right? Still, given medical marijuana’s success so far, it might not be easy to persuade 178,000 Oklahomans to sign the SQ 806 petition, much less vote for it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?

• Sunday Liquor Sales. The state’s current alcoholic beverage laws give big-box retailers, grocers and convenience stores an unfair advantage over package stores: the ability to sell beer and wine every day.

Voters in at least four counties – Oklahoma, Tulsa, Cleveland and Muskogee – will get to decide next year whether to allow liquor stores to be open on Sundays as well. The current law is anachronistic and needs fixing.

• Medicaid Expansion. This is a textbook example of why Oklahoma’s founders included initiative and referendum in the state constitution.

At the altar of their antipathy for former President Barack Obama, right-wing statehouse ideologues have long sacrificed the physical health of 200,000 working poor and the financial health of rural hospitals by refusing to accept a 9-1 federal Medicaid expansion match.

So nearly 300,000 Oklahomans – a record – took matters into their own hands, signing the petition that will force a vote on State Question 802. The current system needs fixing.

• Redistricting. The word undoubtedly causes many eyes to glaze, but the proposed State Question 804 is truly important.

Every 10 years, based on the latest census, Oklahoma’s legislative and congressional district boundaries are supposed to be redrawn to ensure each includes as equal a number of residents as possible. Unfortunately, the Legislature itself drafts the lines, meaning politicians pick their voters, not the only way around.

SQ 804 – which hasn’t yet cleared all hurdles necessary to launch the petition drive – is aimed at creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission that would put the public’s interest first and end gerrymandering.

Twenty-one other states already have taken action to do this. The current system is broken and needs fixing.

• Citizen Voters. Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, R-Adair, wants the Legislature to send to voters a proposed constitutional amendment that would specifically outlaw what already is prohibited: voting by non-citizens.

At best, it’s a solution in search of a problem. At worst, it’s sheer xenophobia. The system isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing.

Arnold Hamilton is editor of The Oklahoma Observer; okobserver.org.