History
Oklahoma’s earliest advocate of initiative and referendum was
Theodore L. Sturgis of Perry, who founded the territory’s Direct Legislation
League in 1899, eight years prior to statehood. The I&R movement soon
picked up a formidable champion: Robert Latham Owen, who became
the state’s U.S. senator. Through the efforts of Sturgis’ growing League, 102
of the 112 delegates elected in 1906 to Oklahoma’s founding
constitutional convention were committed in writing to supporting I&R. In