Political context of the vote on the 2010 Oklahoma international law amendment

Abstract

In November 2010, voters in Oklahoma approved State Question 755, a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment prohibiting judges in the state from using international law or Sharia Law in making judicial decisions. This paper examines the political context of this voting outcome. It analyzes the influence of religious affiliation on the county-level vote for the amendment as well as political party identification and the county-level circulation rate for the Oklahoman and the Tulsa World, controlling for various demographic and socioeconomic variables. The analysis reveals that the newspaper circulation rate was related to the strength of the voting outcome. Support for State Question 755 and the 2010 Republican gubernatorial vote also was an important relationship.