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Dana Kuehn
2021 - Present
2027
4
Dana Kuehn is a judge for District 6 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. She assumed office on August 2, 2021. Her current term ends on January 10, 2027.
Kuehn ran for re-election for the District 6 judge of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. She won in the retention election on November 8, 2022.
Kuehn first became a member of the Oklahoma Supreme Court when she was appointed by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt on July 26, 2021, to succeed Justice Tom Colbert.[1] To read more about this appointment, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Kuehn received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Kuehn received a B.S. in political science from Oklahoma State University, and a J.D. from the University of Tulsa College of Law.[4] After graduating from law school, Kuehn worked as an assistant district attorney for nearly a decade. She also worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Tulsa.[5] From 2006 to 2017, Kuehn was an Oklahoma associate judge for Tulsa County in Oklahoma's District 14.[6]
Elections
2022
See also: Oklahoma Supreme Court elections, 2022
Oklahoma Supreme Court District 6, Kuehn's seat
Dana Kuehn was retained to District 6 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court on November 8, 2022 with 66.2% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
66.2
|
680,378 | ||
No |
33.8
|
347,435 | |||
Total Votes |
1,027,813 | ||||
|
|
2018
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals District 1
Dana Kuehn was retained to District 1 of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on November 6, 2018 with 64.3% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
64.3
|
656,819 | ||
No |
35.7
|
364,338 | |||
Total Votes |
1,021,157 | ||||
|
|
2014
- See also: Oklahoma judicial elections, 2014
Kuehn ran for re-election to the 14th District Court. As an unopposed candidate, she was automatically re-elected without appearing on the ballot. [7]
2010
- Main article: Oklahoma judicial elections, 2010
Kuehn was re-elected to the district court after running unopposed.[8]
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Dana Kuehn did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
Appointments
2021
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) appointed Dana Kuehn to the Oklahoma Supreme Court on July 26, 2021. Kuehn succeeded Justice Tom Colbert, who retired on February 1, 2021. Kuehn was Gov. Stitt's third nominee to the nine-member supreme court.
At the time of the vacancy, state supreme court justices were selected by the governor with help from a nominating commission.
2017
Kuehn was a judge on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals from 2017 to 2021. Kuehn was appointed by Governor Mary Fallin (R) on October 2, 2017, to replace former Judge Clancy Smith.[9] She left the court in 2021 after she was appointed to the supreme court.[1]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[10]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[11]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Dana
Kuehn
Oklahoma
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican as of 2020
- Appointed by a Republican governor
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Kuehn was a registered Republican as of 2020. She was appointed by Gov. Mary Fallin (R) in 2017. At the time of her appointment, the state of Oklahoma was a Republican trifecta.
Noteworthy cases
Noteworthy cases may be selected due to their impact on legal precedent, substantial media attention, or overlaps with another area of editorial interest at Ballotpedia. To suggest cases we should cover here, email us.
State supreme court judicial selection in Oklahoma
- See also: Judicial selection in Oklahoma
The nine justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court are selected through the assisted appointment method. Each justice is appointed by the governor from a list of three names compiled by the Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission.[12][13]
The appointed justice serves an initial term of at least one year, after which they must stand for retention during the next general election. Subsequent terms last six years.[12][14]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a justice must be:
- at least 30 years old;
- a qualified voter in his or her respective district for at least one year; and
- licensed to practice for at least five years in the state (or have five years of service as a judge of a court of record).[12]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote, serving in that capacity for two years.[12]
Vacancies
If a justice retires before the end of his or her term, the vacancy is filled just as it normally would be, with the governor appointing a successor from a list of names provided by the nominating commission. If the appointment is not made within 60 days of the vacancy, the chief justice is responsible for selecting a replacement.[15] The appointed justice then must stand for retention in the next general election after he or she has served one year on the bench to serve out the remainder of his or her predecessor's term.[12][14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, "Governor Kevin Stitt Appoints Judge Dana L. Kuehn to The Supreme Court of Oklahoma," July 26, 2021
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Zoominfo, "Dana Kuehn," accessed November 18, 2013
- ↑ questia.com, "Achievers under 40 Profile: Dana L. Kuehn, Associate District Judge, Okla. District Court, Tulsa County," archived November 30, 2015
- ↑ Oklahoma State Court Network, "Tulsa County and Judges," archived August 14, 2007
- ↑ Oklahoma State Election Board, "Candidates for State Elective Office 2014" archived November 2, 2014
- ↑ Oklahoma State Board of Elections, "Candidates for State Elective Office 2010," archived November 4, 2014
- ↑ NewsOn6.com, "Governor Appoints Tulsa County Judge To Criminal Appeals Court," archived October 6, 2017
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Oklahoma," accessed September 22, 2021
- ↑ Oklahoma State Courts Network, "Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission," accessed September 22, 2021
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Justia, "Section VII-B-5," accessed September 22, 2021
- ↑ Oklahoma Public Research System, "Section VII-B-4: Vacancy in Judicial Office - Filling," accessed September 22, 2021
| ||||||||||
Federal courts:
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Oklahoma, Northern District of Oklahoma, Western District of Oklahoma • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Oklahoma, Northern District of Oklahoma, Western District of Oklahoma
State courts:
Oklahoma Supreme Court • Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals • Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals • Oklahoma District Courts • Oklahoma Workers' Compensation Court of Existing Claims
State resources:
Courts in Oklahoma • Oklahoma judicial elections • Judicial selection in Oklahoma
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