After winning a judge’s ruling which permanently suspended Oklahoma’s law banning financial firms from discriminating against the oil and gas industry, a state retiree is asking the same Oklahoma County District Judge to grant a final ruling on his lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Act.
Don Keenan’s attorney, Colin Walke filed a motion last week asking District Judge Sheila Stinson to grant summary judgment which in essence would mean a final determination of the lawsuit without a trial. As a result of the motion, it put on hold the State Attorney General’s indication last month to file an appeal with the State Supreme Court over Judge Stinson’s granting of a suspension of the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act passed in 2022.
The lawsuit was filed in December 2023 against State Treasurer Todd Russ who maintained a list of firms blacklisted from doing state business because of their reported ESG (environmental, social and governance )policies against oil and gas firms.
In asking for summary judgment, Walke, a former Democratic state lawmaker, contended the Act is unconstitutional for three reasons. He contends it is a violation of Freedom of Speech because it compels speech and is viewpoint and content discriminatory.
“—because the Act compels certain expressions of speech and prhobits certain types of speech in order to do business with the staste (i.e., one may not speak against oil and gas and do business with the state) the Act is viewpoint and content discrinatory,” he wrote in his motion.
Walke also maintains the Act violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it prohibits any person from challenging the Act and mandates an award of attorney fees and costs in favor of the state. Third, Walke stated it violates the Constitution because it mandates attorney fees for declaratory judgments.
Walke’s motion charged the Act is a special law because it treats declaratory judgments under the Act differently than any other declaratory judgment.
“A statute is a ‘special law’ where a part of an entire class of similarly affected persons is separated for different treatment,” argued Walke.
Attorneys for the state informed Judge Stinson at the time of her July 19 ruling they would appeal. On the date of the judge’s decision, the State Attorney General responded with a statement from Communications Director Phil Bacharach.
“The ruling comes as no surprise given the fact that Treasurer Russ and his hand-picked legal counsel already lost the initial hearing to defend the law. At that time, the judge ruled the plaintiff had established a ‘substantial likelihood’ of success on the merits of the case. We plan to appeal and hope we will be able to repair the damage at the Oklahoma Supreme Court.”
Asked about Walke’s request for summary judgment and the impact on the appeal, Bacharach told OK Energy Today, “It’s a little complicated by the fact that the plaintiff asked the judge for summary judgement. We need to wait for summary judgement and then we will appeal, presuming it does not go the way of the state.”
In May, Attorney General Gentner Drummond took over from Treasurer Russ the defense of a lawsuit challenging the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Act of 2022. The move came after an Oklahoma County District judge issued a preliminary injunction against the statute.