Attorney general to remain on ballot after challenge fails
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is staying on the ballot, for now.
The Edmond Republican planned to get back to campaigning Tuesday, a day after beating a GOP rival’s challenge to his candidacy.
“We’re focused on keeping the people of the state safe,” Hunter told news reporters Monday after a heated hearing at the Oklahoma Election Board. “And that’s the record that I’m going to be submitting to voters for their consideration over the next several months.”
The Election Board voted 3-0 Monday to reject the challenge, made on residency grounds. The Republican primary election is June 26.
The Tulsa attorney who filed the challenge is considering whether to appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
“We’ll weigh those factors and make a determination in the next day,” Gentner Drummond said after the hearing.
Drummond is running for political office for the first time. He said Monday he is confident voters will choose him, “an Oklahoman with Oklahoma roots,” to make a difference in the future and not continue with a lobbyist from
the permanent political elite.
He claimed Hunter abandoned Oklahoma to live in Virginia much of the last decade, “preferring to be a lobbyist paid in excess of $1 million a year.”
At issue in the challenge were requirements that an AG candidate be a “bona fide resident” of the state for the 10 years before the general election.
Hunter acknowledged during the hearing that he had lived twice in Virginia in the last decade, for years at a time.
He told the board he worked in Washington, D.C., as the chief operating officer for two trade associations. He said he did so at the request of former Gov. Frank Keating.
“It was a temporary home for me and my family,” he testified of his two stays in Virginia.
He testified that Oklahoma was always his permanent home.
His attorneys put into evidence more than two dozen ways Hunter stayed connected to Oklahoma while away, saying he “even came home ... for a colonoscopy.”
The board was told Hunter maintained a home here and held fundraisers in that home for Oklahoma political candidates. The board also was told he paid property taxes here, paid income taxes here and deposited his paychecks at an Oklahoma City bank.
The board was told he has been a registered voter in Oklahoma since 1974 and voted in 41 Oklahoma state, municipal and school elections since 2000. The board was told he also has had a driver’s license in Oklahoma since 1972 and never anywhere else.
His attorneys pointed the board to Oklahoma Supreme Court decisions for guidance, particularly a 1987 opinion that “a temporary absence, even if it extends for a period of years, will not effect a change of residence.”
The hearing on the Hunter challenge lasted more than two hours and became contentious at times.
“They’re trying to use this forum as political theater for campaign purposes,” Hunter’s attorney, Neal Leader, complained at one point. “And we need to stop this right now.”
Hunter bristled during the hearing at being called a lobbyist.
“Counsel, I object to your characterization of me as a lobbyist,” Hunter said to Drummond’s attorney, Garry Gaskins. “I’ve testified as to what my job was. One of the responsibilities I had was to supervise lobbyists. It’s important to be accurate.”
He had explained earlier that he was listed as a lobbyist on disclosure forms in D.C. only because he supervised lobbyists.
Drummond’s attorney put into evidence a deed that Hunter signed in 2011 when he bought a house with his wife in McLean, Virginia. Hunter, then at the American Bankers Association, agreed to occupy the house as his “principal residence” for at least one year.
The attorney described that as a promise by Hunter to a bank to make Virginia, not Oklahoma, his home.
The attorney also told the board Hunter’s homestead exemption on his Oklahoma home was dropped about the same time. Hunter said he had no recollection about that.
“The totality of the evidence shows that Mr. Hunter actually abandoned Oklahoma,” Gaskins told the board. “He took multiple jobs in the state of Virginia, not even necessarily in the same field ... . He did not have an honest intent to make Oklahoma his residence. He promised someone else that Virginia would be.”
Hunter, a former state representative, is running for attorney general for the first time since 1994 when he lost to Drew Edmondson. Gov. Mary Fallin appointed him to the position last year after Scott Pruitt left early to become administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Election Board worked into the night Monday on 12 other challenges.
One of the most lengthy challenges involved an Oklahoma County judicial candidate, Natalie Mai. She was retained on the ballot.
Also staying on the ballot are three candidates for House seats — Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, Ajay Pittman, D-Oklahoma City, and Shelley Brumbaugh, R-Broken Arrow.
Shelley Brumbaugh is running for the second time for the House seat once held by her husband, David Brumbaugh, who died last year. She remarried in March.
Other legislative candidates and one Oklahoma County judicial candidate, Robert Sisson, were stricken from ballots.