Yvonne Kauger
1984 - Present
2025
40
Yvonne Kauger is a judge for District 4 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. She assumed office in 1984. Her current term ends on January 12, 2025.
Kauger ran for re-election for the District 4 judge of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. She lost in the retention election on November 5, 2024.
Kauger was appointed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 1984. She served as chief justice from January 1997 to December 1998. She was the only woman to serve as the court’s chief justice and vice chief justice.[1] To read more about judicial selection in Oklahoma, 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] Kauger received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Kauger graduated from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1958 and received her J.D. from the Oklahoma City University School of Law in 1969.[4] Prior to her appointment to the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 1984, Kauger served as presiding judge on the Oklahoma Court of the Judiciary. She also served as symposium coordinator for The Sovereignty Symposium, founded the Gallery of the Plains Indian in Colony, and co-founded Red Earth.[5] In 2001 she was inducted in the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame, and in 1999 she received the American Judicature Society's Herbert Harley Award, and the Oklahoma Bar Association's Judicial Excellence Award. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from OCU in 1991, and was awarded Oklahoma City's Pioneer Award in 1989.[4] Kauger was adopted by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma in 1984. She was also the chair of the Building Committee for the Oklahoma Judicial Center, and a member of the District State-Federal Judicial Council, and Washita County Hall of Fame.[4]
Elections
2024
See also: Oklahoma Supreme Court elections, 2024
Oklahoma Supreme Court District 4
Yvonne Kauger was not retained to District 4 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court on November 5, 2024 with 49.8% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
Yes |
49.8
|
716,283 | |||
| ✖ | No |
50.2
|
723,331 | ||
Total Votes |
1,439,614 | ||||
|
|
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Kauger in this election.
2018
- See also: Oklahoma Supreme Court elections, 2018
Oklahoma Supreme Court District 4
Yvonne Kauger was retained to District 4 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court on November 6, 2018 with 62.2% of the vote.
Retention Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
| ✔ | Yes |
62.2
|
637,315 | ||
No |
37.8
|
387,447 | |||
Total Votes |
1,024,762 | ||||
|
|
2012
- See also: Oklahoma judicial elections, 2012
Kauger was retained with 65.7% of the vote in the general election on November 6th.[6][1][7]
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Yvonne Kauger did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign finance summary
Campaign finance information for this candidate is not yet available from OpenSecrets. That information will be published here once it is available.
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.[8]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[9]
- 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.
Yvonne
Kauger
Oklahoma
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Assisted appointment through hybrid judicial nominating commission - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Democrat as of 2020
- Appointed by a Democratic governor
- State was a Democratic trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Kauger was a registered Democrat as of 2020. She was appointed by Gov. George Nigh (D) in 1984. The state of Oklahoma was a Democratic trifecta at the time of her appointment.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Kauger received a campaign finance score of -0.23, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of 0.33 that justices received in Oklahoma.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[10]
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.[11][12]
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.[11][13]
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).[11]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote, serving in that capacity for two years.[11]
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.[14] 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.[11][13]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
|
Officeholder Oklahoma Supreme Court District 4 |
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 News OK, "Voters retain Oklahoma's Supreme Court justices, appeals judges," archived April 18, 2016
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma, "Justice Yvonne Kauger, District No. 4," accessed July 5, 2021
- ↑ Project Vote Smart, "Justice Yvonne Kauger (OK)," accessed July 5, 2021
- ↑ Oklahoma State Election Board, "Official 2012 General Election Results," archived April 18, 2016
- ↑ Oklahoma.gov: Candidates for General Election, November 6, 2012 Scroll to p.13
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 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
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 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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