Hamilton: State Question 836 challenges political status quo

You can tell a lot about a proposed state question just by looking at who’s lining up for and against it.

So it is with SQ 836 – the “ open primaries ” initiative that last week began seeking the 173,993 signatures necessary to get the proposed constitutional amendment on an upcoming statewide ballot.

As you might suspect, the hard-right ideologues controlling Oklahoma’s Republican Party these days are apoplectic about it. They like things just as they are: R’s holding all statewide elective offices, all congressional delegation members and supermajorities in both houses of the state Legislature.

For them, change is … scary. Unpredictable. They could lose elections . Power. C-o-n-t-r-o-l. Why fix something that’s (in their view) not broken?

In reality, the system is broken. Voter