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State Question 804, which has the tagline of “Stop Gerrymandering,” was discussed by our local delegation during the Bartlesville Regional Chamber of Commerce's Eggs & Issues Breakfast at Tri County Tech on Friday morning.

Senator Julie Daniels said State Question 804 needs to be read carefully. She said she hopes the question fails to get across the second hurdle, but if it does, we should all be concerned.

During the Obama Administration, Sen. Daniels said President Obama was doing well on the Federal level, but the administration lost state legislators, city councils and schools boards in Red States like Oklahoma. She said State Question 804 is an effort to go around traditional methods to boost the Democratic Party in these Red States.

State Question 804's description for the ballot is being challenged a second time. Sen. Daniels said redrawing district boundaries is inherently political. She said there has never been a case of gerrymandering in the State of Oklahoma.

The closest the State of Oklahoma has been to seeing a gerrymandering case would have been in 2005 when Washington County was in District 5. Sen. Daniels said it was clearly seen at the time that the County belonged to District 1 or District 2 of Oklahoma.

State Question 804 is problematic to Sen. Daniels because the Democratic Party controlled the state for over a hundred years. She said they redistricted the state 9 or 10 times, while the Republican Party has only redistricted the state once. This to Sen. Daniels is a power grab by the Democratic Party, and that we should be very careful in not jeopardizing the Constitutional Republic we live in.

Representatives Derrel Fincher and Judd Strom joined Sen. Daniels at the breakfast on Friday morning. The entire panel discussion and the issue of gerrymandering, which was addressed at the end of the breakfast, can be heard here.