The argument for NO

Today Oklahoma voters are deciding eleven state questions... questions that, if passed, would become amendments to the Oklahoma constitution. The proposed amendments range from banning Islamic law in Oklahoma courts, to funding education at the regional average, to forcing voters to show ID at the polls, to depositing more money into our rainy day fund.

Upon reviewing the plethora of proposed amendments, it occured to me that the United States was founded on only 10 amendments, and Oklahoma voters are being asked to decide eleven in one election?

What amendments to the constitution ultimately do is remove lawmaking from the hands of lawmakers, and put it in the hands of judges to interpret. So what are our lawmakers there for? I feel there are better ways to pass laws then amending our constitution. My reasons are:

• Many laws may become outdated and useless 20 or 30 years from now. It's much easier to repeal a law passed by the state legislature, rather than amend the constitution again... which leads me to my next point...

• A constitutional amendment should be something we, as voters, should be comfortable with for a lifetime. Are there really eleven things of this magnitude that need to be decided in one year alone?

• Oklahoma is one of the youngest states, with the longest constitution, and every new amendment makes the document less and less valuable. Passing several amendments every couple of years on a whim will eventually make our state constitution a very long, very useless document, filled with nonsense.

• I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but a few of the questions were even confusing to me. It was then I realized that if I have no clue what the state question is addressing, then it probably hasn't been impacting my life in a negative way, therefore, so why change anything? Again, it's more difficult to change the constitution than it is a law passed by House or Senate bill.

All in all, some of the state questions, particularly the one addressing education funding, were authored with good intent. Good intent doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be included in our state's governing document, however. We are basically asking average citizens to make complex legal decisions.

It was for all these reasons that I chose to vote no on every state question proposed. It may not have been the right thing for each individual question, but I felt I needed to stand on principal and reject the notion that new laws should be cemented by constitutional amendment.

I know many will not agree, and I welcome the differing opinions, because at least then I know people are practicing critical thinking.