August 11, 2010 06:43 PM UTC

Where's the OK in Oklahoma?

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• by: JO

My late great-aunt lived on a farm in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Hung on to it with pure grit and determination, and was later rewarded with an oil well on her property. But it was the Dust Bowl, not the petro bowl in her backyard, that defined her adult personality. Long after the oil was flowing, $1 was still a sum of money to fret about before you spent it. Thanks to her, there was enough money to pay for the grand piano that sits in my living room. It reminds me of her every time I hear someone playing.

Nevertheless, I do wonder about Oklahoma, a state I’ve seldom visited and then only as a means to get to another one, usually Texas. The topic came to mind when I read the story of James Fisher, who spent 27 years on Oklahoma’s death row, escaped execution twice on grounds that his legal representation was grossly incompetent, and was finally released in exchange for a plea deal: he pleaded guilty to a crime he didn’t commit and agreed to leave the state forever. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08… Justice OK style.

That story in turn brought to mind Colorado’s choice, forthcoming and just past, for a new senator. Groan, moan, gnash our teeth as we may about who will fill the seat, his or her vote stands to be canceled by the votes of James “Global warming is the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” Inhofe or Tom “Hold ‘Em” Coburn. In those senses, they are our senators too.

I wonder: How can the people of the sovereign state of Oklahoma send even one such person to the Senate, much less two? AND I wonder: Why does the rest of the country tolerate a system that lets just one such senator put a “hold” on presidential nominations, or thwart legislative consideration of bills that address pressing issues such as clean energy or  “global warming” (see Moscow Chokes on Wildfire Smoke, Pakistan Suffers Worst Monsoons in 80 Years, etc.). Is it “democracy” when one Senator representing 3.6 million people can cancel the vote of a Senator from a state representing 36 million?

The Founders (pause for genuflection) had reasons for establishing the Senate as they did. Those reasons are long, long past in the era of railroads, airplanes, interstate highways, and, gasp! the internet.  Are citizens of Colorado somehow distinct from, their interests somehow different, than the citizens of California or Connecticut? Can we detect something unique about Oklahoma that doesn’t exist in Ohio or Oregon? Does evolution occur in some but not the other? Does global warming affect all but one? Should we continue to put up with this arrangement, designed from the outset specifically to curb the popular will, under the faux rubric “democracy, the best system ever invented”?

Time for a change, by which I don’t mean a change (or not) in the name of the person who occupies one seat in the chamber reserved for the Colorful state.