What You Need to Know About the Appellate Judges on This Year's General Election Ballot

This year's Oklahoma general election electorate is more prepared than any in recent history to render an informed verdict on Oklahoma's judges.

It's being said that this is the first national election where independent media will have a greater impact than the corporate media.

I think that's a good analysis.

And, I am optimistic that in future elections, not only will this be the case for national-level elections, but it will also be the case for state-level elections as well.

No longer will the left-co-opted local media and the advertising dollars of dark money groups be the primary filter of voters' knowledge. Instead, a network of independent content producers and long-form will allow voters access to the real truth—a deep dive into actual, meaningful, valid information.

From X to YouTube and Rumble, from Signal to Substack, we are seeing the rise of local, Oklahoma-specific content from independent content creators, and we are seeing the impact of this, specifically on the Supreme Court judicial retention ballot, where, for the first time since the retention ballot was designed in 1968, there's a not insignificant chance that three radical, leftist judicial anarchists will be sent home.

This will greatly contribute to restoring the normal process, where retention judges will now need to rule according to clear standards, producing well-written decisions that provide insight into their reasoning. They will no longer be able to simply follow their latest leftist whims of the moment, free from accountability or even the need to craft an opinion that offers a pretense of justification. This change is crucial because, until now, the public has never failed to retain a judge, and thus there's little reason for these arrogant judges to believe there will be a day of accountability, and of reckoning for their actions. That could all change on November 5th.

I don't think this would have been possible without a growing network of Oklahoma independent content creators that, though still nascent at the state level, has so much potential to help inform the public of the truth.

In fact, I believe that this independent media will, in the future, provide the bandwidth for the voter to also make decisions on the merits, as it applies all the way down the ballot, even down to the much lesser-known appellate judges as well.

Currently, if one attempts to do his due diligence and research the appellate judges, he's going to be met with frustration.

That's because there's really no guiding resource that will inform the voter about the appellate judge's tendency to rule on matters of importance.

This forces the electorate to, if anything, apply a lazy rule of thumb:

Who appointed the judge?

A Republican governor, or a Democrat?

Fortunately, probably for the most part, though a lazy method for guiding one's vote, and one that isn't necessarily fair to the judicial office holder, in the case of Oklahoma jurists, it's probably a mostly accurate method.

That's because, if the appointee was the only Democratic governor in Oklahoma's recent history, the two-term Brad Henry, it’s more likely than not that the judge leans left.

Henry, a leftist-minded lawyer himself, strategically appointed like-minded individuals who have helped maintain the unhealthy “red state, blue judiciary” dynamic in Oklahoma. It's a dynamic that cannot endure for long, simply because it doesn't represent the values of Oklahomans. Nor did, for the most part, Henry. He was known to be extremely left-leaning in his views as a legislator, and his ascension to the governorship was through a series of unfortunate events, most specifically the state's cockfighting ballot issue that likely kept Oklahoma's Little Dixie counties blue for a little longer than they otherwise would have been.

As an incumbent, Henry was in the unenviable position of representing a state that didn't hold his views. That's a torturous position to find oneself in because one has to constantly filter their own views through the re-electability quotient, i.e., "Can I do this and still get re-elected?"

It's the same mind-torturing position a good amount of the Republican legislative caucus finds themselves in right now: being very liberal in their views but scared to death of the voters who aren't being deceived by the many thousands of dollars of tricky campaigning that deceives the voter into believing the legislator is actually conservative. This bizarre game eventually tends to break the brain of the office holder, makes them very bitter and angry, and explains why so many lame-duck legislators suddenly cast so many bizarre votes.

Here's, however, where Henry was very sophisticated in imposing his unpopular views on the people, without having to worry about significant scrutiny from the electorate: his judicial appointments. This is probably the aspect of his governorship, especially in the later years, after Republicans took control of the State House, where Henry was the most focused. In the last days of his term, as he appointed his long time friend and radical liberal Doug Combs to the Supreme Court, Henry boasted, “I am probably proudest of my appointments to the judiciary.”

Henry managed to appoint Noma Gurich, a radical leftist. In 2020, she would become the justice to order the state election administrator to accept the ballots of absentee voters, even though the identity of those voters hadn’t been verified by a notary. Henry put Gurich on the Supreme Court with just three days remaining in his governorship. It was Henry’s precedent-setting sixth appointment to the court—a move that ensured the court would be liberal for many years after Henry was in retirement.

The Oklahoman, 2011: With three days remaining in his his term, Brad Henry makes his sixth appointment to the State Supreme Court: radical leftist Noma Gurich. Gurich would later, infamously, order the state’s election administrator to allow the processing of absentee ballots from voters whose identity had not been confirmed by a notary.

Henry was a fascinating figure to analyze, and that analysis is certainly a future intent of the Oklahoma State Capital project, which can best be previewed by the question: How could Henry watch Jimmy Stewart's character, George Bailey, in It's a Wonderful Life, and not have the self-awareness to ask himself, "Yikes! Am I George Bailey, only in reverse?" If cockfighting hadn't been on the ballot that November day in 2002, and Steve Largent had been elected, how dramatically different would Oklahoma be today? It's a haunting question.

But, for the purposes of this election, for those who are really serious about casting the right vote, let's push past the rule of thumb just a little bit and take a look at the two of Henry's appellate appointees who reside within the down-ballot retention questions.

As a side note, the fact that there are only two justices remaining, on the entirety of the Court of Civil Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals' retention ballot for this year, demonstrates that finally, after many years, the state is finally realizing some relief from Henry's leftist appointments.

Robert Bell - Court of Civil Appeals, District 5 - Office 2

In 2005, Brad Henry appointed Robert "Bobby" Bell to the Court of Civil Appeals. This was, on the surface, for those who didn't know what was going on, a rather curious appointment. That's because Bell was a low-level municipal judge. How could Henry possibly justify boosting a judge, from municipal court, all the way up to the second-highest civil court in the state?

Of course, those who were in the know knew that Bell was a member of the powerful and politically connected Bell Law Firm. One of that law firm's principals had close ties to Henry and had been in a board position at a deep-pocketed private foundation where he could help hire Henry’s wife—a position she still holds to this day.

This appointment didn't just indict Henry. It indicted a system that had been designed to keep politics out of judicial appointments—the Judicial Nominating Commission. It's a state commission. A not insignificant amount of its members are appointed by the private, left-leaning bar association; and, it has the responsibility of giving the governor three choices to choose from as he makes his appointment.

Now, this system clearly has obvious drawbacks. That's because the members of the Judicial Nominating Commission are not nominated by the people; they are appointed and thus are unaccountable to the people. So when they play politics, there's really no way for the people to hold them directly accountable.

The advocates for this JNC system attempt to insist that the JNC keeps politics out of the system—basically, that the popularly elected governor can't reward his supporters by giving them judicial appointments. But the curious case of appellate Judge Bell demonstrated a case-in-point for why this isn't a valid defense.

In the current system, we have the worst of both approaches. We still have politics, but there's no way to hold those who are skewing the integrity of our judicial system to account. And it's probably one of the leading culprits for why a red state, Oklahoma, has a very, very blue Supreme Court—an imbalance that isn't healthy or sustainable.

To this day, I believe there are powerful special interests funneling money to the campaign accounts of Republican legislators, and those legislators are in turn keeping the cap on efforts to reform the system and move to the one that makes the most sense: a governor who can name appointments, but is subject to the check and balance of confirmation by the Senate. It's a reform that's likely to happen sooner or later, but it's vitally important, for the health of the judiciary, that the monied special interests who thrive on what I believe is a very bad status quo are overcome much sooner than later.

Aside from un-electing many of those legislators, which is a noble and doable goal in the 2026 primary, the only other method the people of Oklahoma have for accountability is voting "no" on the retention of Bell.

David Lewis - Court of Criminal Appeals District 5

Then there's the case of Henry's appointee to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), Judge David Lewis. Unlike Bell's appointment, Lewis' wasn't viewed as aggressively partisan. Lewis had previously been appointed as a Comanche County District Court judge by Republican Governor Frank Keating, and he had been in that role for seven years before the promotion to the OCCA.

That said, it's important to note that this Oklahoma court is on the very frontlines of the judicial chaos that has been unleashed, much to the detriment of the state's justice system, throughout much of Oklahoma due to the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial McGirt decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court, under its current makeup, wouldn't have likely approved McGirt, but even though the makeup of that court is now different, for reasons of public perception, it's not going to be able to simply and immediately reverse McGirt.

It will instead likely give the state various avenues to try to mitigate the great harm that has been done. This can be accomplished through various follow-up rulings while slowly and surely attempting to suppress the insane chaos that pretty much thwarts justice for everyone involved; and, as an aside, aside from its impact on justice, from economic development, to taxation policy, really puts a ceiling on Oklahoma's ability to move forward.

It's the rulings of the OCCA that will allow the U.S. Supreme Court to mitigate their harm, and that's an ongoing process that will play out over many years into the future as the U.S. Supreme Court is allowed to rule on OCCA decisions, and in those rulings, it will constrain McGirt.

While Lewis isn't a radical and in the past authored the vital decision that kept McGirt from being applied retroactively, earlier this year, Lewis dissented in one of the most recent of these cases, known as Deo. It was decided on a 3-2 vote with Scott Rowland and William Musseman, Republican appointees, who are also on the retention ballot this year, ruling to allow Oklahoma courts to retain subject matter jurisdiction over Indian cases.

Of course, all of this could be quickly solved in the next Congress, with the simplest of common-sense legislation from Oklahoma's powerful congressman, specifically Tom Cole, but that is not likely to happen for reasons we should get into at a later date.

Other OCCA justices who are on the ballot include Musseman, appointed by Kevin Stitt in 2022, and Rowland, appointed by Mary Fallin in 2017. Both appear to have been strong advocates of acting to restore at least the slightest semblance of judicial order in the McGirt-impacted counties.

The remaining Civil Appeals justices, who are on this year's retention ballot, are also Republican appointees. James Huber is a recent Stitt appointee, as are Thomas Prince and Tim Downing. Downing, a former state legislator, courageously opposed tax hikes in the 2017/2018 session, even while under great pressure. Mary Fallin appointed Jack Goree in 2012. Bay Mitchell, appointed by Frank Keating in 2002, has been on the court the longest.

I hope you've found this analysis helpful as you attempt to go more in-depth and cast a truly informed vote on the 2024 November ballot, even if it's just a brief glimpse into a few of the specifics of the down-ballot retention questions.

I encourage you to find and engage with independent media and publications in the upcoming years and to become ever more informed and knowledgeable about matters that previously would have never been easily available to the general public. In doing so, you will be on the ground level and an exciting movement that's going to forever hold those who govern us accountable, like never before possible.

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