The right to trial by jury has been guaranteed and protected by the United States’ Constitution for more than 200 years and by the Oklahoma Constitution for more than 100 years.  But your constitutional right to trial-by-jury is being attacked today by powerful and wealthy special interests groups.

You likely have frequent contact with some of these special interests groups, such as insurance companies, automobile manufacturers, doctors and hospitals. These special interests groups are not inherently evil. In fact they produce many useful products and services that greatly benefit our society.

However, when these special interests groups believe that they should not be held accountable for injuries and death directly caused by their negligence, that is evil. And when these big business conglomerates mislead the public as to their true intentions (abolishing the fundamental right of trial-by-jury) by using vague terms such as “tort reform” or “lawsuit reform”, they are being downright unAmerican.

For decades special interest groups have been doing their best to convince Oklahomans that unless we pass laws limiting or abolishing the right to trial-by-jury, terrible things will happen, such as: doctors will stop delivering babies, doctors will leave Oklahoma for other states, and Oklahoma will not be able to attract good jobs and industry. The reality is that this doom-and-gloom scenario is pure fiction. Oklahoma doctors are still delivering babies. In fact, just look in the Yellow Pages — Oklahoma is flush with doctors. And the Oklahoma economy is doing quite well. Oklahoma has one of the lowest unemployment rates of all states in the United States and companies are bringing high quality jobs to Oklahoma. Look at the city of Pryor and its two newest corporate citizens Gatorade and Google.

The truth is that these big business special interests groups are seeking to scare Oklahomans into changing the laws so that companies can more easily avoid being sued and held accountable when they injure or kill someone. Big business doesn’t like it when a jury of common folk judge them and hold them accountable for their wrongdoing. And big business hates it when these juries comprised of down-home, hard-working, God-fearing Oklahomans serve justice by ordering that they pay their victims substantial compensation.

We Oklahomans need to let the corporations know that while we welcome them to our state, and we applaud and appreciate their products and services, we also insist that they be model corporate citizens exhibiting the virtues of personal responsibility and corporate accountability.