By Paris Rain, FOX23.com News Staff
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma lawmakers have unanimously approved a resolution urging Congress to advance a constitutional amendment that would give states more authority to regulate election spending.
Supporters said the measure is aimed at increasing transparency and addressing concerns about so-called “dark money” influencing state elections.
Brent Howard (R-Altus) is the senate sponsor of Senate Concurrent resolution 1006. He said the effort began after hearing from constituents frustrated with negative political advertising and outside groups funding campaign mailers and commercials.
“We had started talking on this last year and obviously with getting into an election year, my mailbox is just overflowing,” Howard said. “A lot of constituents have asked if there’s something we can do about a lot of this false negative advertising out there.”
The resolution asks Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that would allow states to regulate groups spending money on elections or state questions within their borders.
Howard said the push comes in response to U.S Supreme Court decisions that classify campaign spending as protected free speech, limiting how much states and Congress can regulate.
“The biggest problem that we have is, again, going back to the Supreme Court decisions, it said electioneering is free speech,” Howard said. “So no limitations can be put on groups as to the amount that they can spend.”
For decades, federal court rulings have narrowed what states and Congress can do to set election spending rules, leaving fewer options for oversight.
If Congress were to approve a constitutional amendment, Howard said it could require greater disclosure for political communications, including mailers, television ads, and robocalls.
“It would apply to any kind of communication that’s sent out to influence elections or campaigns,” said Howard. “We could have transparency as to who those groups are that are pushing all of those communications.”
The resolution itself does not change current law. Under the U.S. Constitution, if two-thirds of state legislatures (34 states) request it, congress can propose an amendment.
The proposed amendment would then need to be ratified by the states. Howard said Oklahoma has now joined roughly two dozen other states making simple requests.
“So we’ve done our part as the State of Oklahoma,” said Howard. “And we’ve joined about two dozen other states that also say they would like to have this power returned back to the people and to the states.”
