Whether it is in direct response to the firing by Attorney General Gentner Drummond of attorneys hired last year by State Treasurer Todd Russ to defend a lawsuit challenging an anti-ESG law isn’t clear at this time.
But the Oklahoma Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday will consider Bartlesville Sen. Julie Daniels’ SB 419 which would return the power of the Treasurer to “employ or appoint attorneys to advise or represent the officer, board or commission in any matter.”
Neither Sen. Daniels nor the Treasurer’s Office has responded to inquiries to explain the intended purpose of the bill and what prompted it. Her bill appears to be an amendment in which the “State Treasurer” is added to the list of those agencies and commissions which would be allowed to hire their own attorneys.
Sen. Daniels also included the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission to the list.
Last year, Treasurer Todd Russ saw the Attorney General step in and fire the attorneys hired to represent his office in a constitutional challenge of his enforcement of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Act of 2022. The firings in May of 2024 took place after an Oklahoma County Judge suspended enforcement of the law.
“It is extremely disappointing that the counsel hired by Treasurer Russ was unable to secure a favorable ruling in defense of Oklahoma’s anti-ESG law,” Drummond said at the time. “Because of this failure, the law is now on hold and at risk of being struck down entirely. Oklahomans deserve better.”
He also removed Treasurer Russ from any decision-making authority in the case which eventually was appealed to the State Supreme Court where it rests. When Drummond filed the appeal in December of last year, he stated, ““There is a great deal of lost ground to make up on this litigation after the Treasurer and his hand-picked legal counsel failed in district court.”
