Fair v. State Election Board of Oklahoma

The court holds today that Senator Mike Fair is ineligible as a candidate for the office of labor commissioner. I cannot accede to its order. The dispositive issue in this original proceeding is whether this court’s Art. 5, § 231 jurisprudence creates a classification that will not pass muster under the Equal Protection Clause [EPC] of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While Art. 5, § 23 is not facially infirm, the court’s construction of its provisions in Gragg v. Dudley2 [as well as in the progeny of that case] creates a fatally underinclusive class3 of legislators intended…