Agricultural News
Oklahoma Stewardship Council's Drew Edmondson Helps Kick Off Local Meetings Against 777- Proclaiming It Bad for Family Farmers
Thu, 08 Sep 2016 05:31:55 CDT
The Oklahoma Stewardship Council, closely aligned with the Humane Society of the US, held what was billed as a kick off meeting on Wednesday night. This meeting in downtown Oklahoma City was the first of a total of twelve meetings planned across Oklahoma over the next two weeks. According to the group, "State Question 777 is a dangerous amendment that could devastate Oklahoma's family farms, take away your voting rights and harm animals. We're working to stop this harmful measure. But to be successful, Oklahomans like you need to get involved. Please join us at our Kick-Off rally to help defeat this measure."
About thirty supporters of the Stewardship Council attended the meeting- and heard from several speakers who were critical of the process of putting State Question 777 on the ballot, as well as the measure itself. Oklahoma City State Representative Jason Dunnington was proud of his no vote on HR 1012, the underlying legislation that resulted in State Question 777 in 2015- and he sounded a familiar theme that this measure will be harmful to small family farmers.
Featured speaker for the event was former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Stewardship Council- who told the supporters present that proponents of 777 are telling lies as they attempt to convince voters to support the measure. Ahead of his presenation, Edmondson talked with Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays and said he was most concerned about protecting the environment. The former AG contends that the Amendment, if approved, would prevent Oklahoma from being able to exercise oversight over ag practices in the future saying "other then the laws that were on the books in 2014, there will be no new regulation of agriculture in the future and that is, to me, very dangerous."
Edmondson also talked about his fear that lawmakers in the future would relax current legislation on puppy mills and cock fighting in the state- and that if that happened- State Question 777 would then offer protection to those enterprises.
He told the rally that the Stewardship Council and the other group organized to fight the State Question will be aggressive on the airwaves in Oklahoma between now and Election Day, urging voters to reject the State Question. He was critical of the two general farm organizations in the state of Oklahoma for their support of the State Question, suggesting they were not representing family farmers with their stance.
The third speaker of the evening was grass roots organizer Kevin Stamps, who worked on the Vote No campaign in Missouri on their Right to Farm Constitutional Amendment- working closely with the HSUS in that state as they spent a large amount of money in the final weeks of campaign there. The Missouri measure narrowly passed- losing badly in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas- but offsetting those no votes with a strong showing outside of those two metro areas.
You can hear the full conversation that Hays and Edmondson had on Wednesday evening by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
If you want to learn more about State Question 777, we have several resources that you can go and investigate. To begin with, we would suggest you go and read the actual State Question from the official State of Oklahoma website- click here for the ballot language for 777. The State Legislature passed underlying legislation in spring of 2015 to send the Right to Farm amendment to a vote of the people by votes of 90 to 6 in the State House and 39 to 6 in the State Senate. After the vote, Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays sat down with one of the lead authors of the underlying bill, State Representative Scott Biggs, to discuss the measure- click here to review that story and their conversation.
There is one PAC that is registered with the State of Oklahoma that is raising money with the intent of supporting the State Question- Oklahoma Farmers Care. Click here for their website. There are two PACs registered with the State of Oklahoma opposed to the State Question, Click on their names to jump to their respective websites- the Oklahoma Stewardship Council and Oklahomans for Food, Farm and Families. After the Stewardship Council was formed, Hays talked with former Attorney General Drew Edmondson about the efforts to organize a "NO" vote on the measure- click here for that story from November of 2015.
A new resource that has just been released is from Oklahoma State University- Dr. Shannon Ferrell and Dr. Larry Sanders have written a Fact Sheet on State Question 777- click here to go and read their analysis.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
