By Nuria Martinez-Keel, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY – A proposal that could make the state’s top education office an appointee of the governor, rather than an elected position, has failed in the state Senate.
House Joint Resolution 1055, which would put the idea to a vote of the people, failed to receive a Senate committee hearing before a deadline last week, despite calls from Gov. Kevin Stitt for a state question on the matter.
“After hearing feedback from Oklahomans across the state on how our State Superintendent of Public Instruction should be selected, I chose not to advance House Joint Resolution 1055 this session,” the resolution’s author, Senate Majority Floor Leader Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, said. “The people of the state of Oklahoma have made it clear that they prefer to keep the state superintendent an elected position.”
The Governor’s Office did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
Stitt, in his last year in office, has urged the Legislature for months to put a statewide question on the ballot that would ask voters whether to make the state superintendent a governor-appointed position. He said there’s been “misalignment” between him and past state superintendents because their positions are separately elected.
Stitt had the rare opportunity to appoint someone to the post after former state Superintendent Ryan Walters resigned with 15 months left in his four-year term. The governor chose Lindel Fields for the role.
When appointing Fields, Stitt made his first call for the office to become a permanent gubernatorial appointee. He renewed that call in his State of the State Address and again last week before signing a landmark reading bill into law.
“I think we need to take politics out of the education space, and that’s why I’m a proponent to have the next governor appoint the education superintendent,” Stitt said at the bill signing ceremony.
Not all Oklahomans share the governor’s enthusiasm for the idea.
A recent poll of more than 1,100 state residents by the Oklahoma Center for Education Policy found 62 percent of respondents opposed making the state superintendent a governor-appointed position. Only 26 percent favored it, according to the poll by the University of Oklahoma-based policy center.
A resolution to put the proposal on statewide ballots faced bipartisan opposition but still passed the state House 63-33 in March.
It was then assigned to the Senate Rules Committee but never received a hearing, despite the committee’s leader, Daniels, being one of the resolution’s authors. A deadline to advance through the committee stage came and went Thursday with no vote on HJR 1055, bringing the proposal to a dead end.
Legislative leaders initially said they were supportive of the state superintendent becoming an appointed role, as long as the House speaker and Senate president pro tem had the opportunity to appoint members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education.
State law allows the governor to appoint all members of the powerful state board except for the elected superintendent. Lawmakers advanced House Bill 3327, a measure to expand the board with legislative appointees, in tandem with HJR 1055.
But by last week’s deadline, HB 3327 had passed through the Senate Rules Committee while its fellow resolution on the state superintendent had not. One is able to advance without the other.
The state superintendent office will appear on primary and General Election ballots this year. Nine candidates across two parties are running for the post.
