After Gov. Kevin Stitt selects one of them for appointment to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, either Donna Dirickson, Travis Jett or Jon Parsley will have a say in the final interpretation of state civil laws — potentially for the rest of their lifetimes. But while each of the three candidates has years of legal experience, little information about their backgrounds or personal interests has been provided to the general public.
That’s partially because of how high court applicants are handled in Oklahoma. The Judicial Nominating Commission, which interviews applicants and advances a trio of candidates for the governor’s selection, is exempt from laws on open records and open meetings. In fact, the chairman of the 15-member JNC said he could not even reveal the vote totals from the commission’s recent meeting where Dirickson, Jett and Parsley were advanced ahead of 10 other applicants.
“All I can say about this particular vacancy is that on March 11, we interviewed 13 applicants for 30 minutes each, and then sent three names to the governor,” said retired Pittsburg County District Judge Jim Bland. “This, of course, (came) after receiving substantial materials regarding the applications and backgrounds of each.”
Issues on deck
The appointed justice will likely weigh in on several major pending legal questions, including tax jurisdiction in Indian Country, the use of public funds for religious instruction and even jurisdiction for evictions.
Bland said all 15 JNC members — six gubernatorial appointees, six attorneys elected privately by the Oklahoma Bar Association, two appointees from legislative leaders and a final member selected by all the others — were present March 11 and that none recused regarding any nominee.
“As always, I am proud of my fellow JNC commissioners for fulfilling their constitutional duties by forwarding three highly qualified candidates to the governor,” Bland said. “These 15 commissioners demonstrated their professionalism, dedication and nonpartisanship by identifying candidates with a strong record of legal competence, a steadfast commitment to justice and the highest ethical standards.”
Conversely, Jonathan Small, the president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, criticized the JNC’s lack of transparency and called for “scrutiny” of the candidates. For years, the OCPA has pushed to eliminate the JNC and shake up the state’s court system. In 2024, the conservative organization openly spearheaded a campaign against the statewide retention of three sitting Supreme Court members, narrowly defeating 87-year-old Justice Yvonne Kauger and opening the western Oklahoma seat up for appointment.
“Ideally, those applicants would discuss [their political] donations — and what their political preferences reveal about their judicial philosophy — in public. But Oklahomans won’t get to hear those answers, even if they are asked,” Small wrote in a recent op-ed.
After interviewing the three candidates privately on March 31, Stitt faces a May 12 deadline to appoint either Dirickson, Jett or Parsley to the nine-justice Oklahoma Supreme Court, whose interpretation of the most controversial questions of state statute becomes the binding law of the land, unless the U.S. Supreme Court says otherwise. To quote Justice Douglas Combs, Oklahoma law provides the legal protections it does because “justices on this court said so.”
To shine more light on the Supreme Court selection process, the following judicial candidate cheat sheet was complied from publicly available information, including research and data analysis by Audrey Nielsen and Seraphina Feron of the Sunlight Research Center in partnership with NonDoc. The nominees are presented in alphabetical order.
Donna Dirickson
Age:Â 58
Party registration:Â Republican
Residence/hometown: Weatherford
Law School: Oklahoma City University School of Law
Background: Donna Dirickson has the longest judicial resume of the three candidates. She started her career in Custer County as an assistant district attorney in 1995 before entering private practice in 1999. She spent a decade running her own firm, Duncan & Dirickson, before being appointed as a special district judge for Custer County in 2009.
In 2001, she was the president of the Custer County Bar Association, and from 2006 to 2009, she served on the Oklahoma Bar Association Board of Governors. After 10 years on the bench, Dirickson became the associate judge for Custer County in 2019, and in 2024, Stitt appointed her district judge for Oklahoma’s Judicial District 2 (which includes Beckham, Custer, Ellis, Roger Mills and Washita counties).
Businesses/campaign finance:Â Of the three nominees, Dirickson appears to have the least involvement in the private sector. Her private law practice has been dissolved since she assumed the bench, and the only nonprofit connected to her name is the Weatherford Food and Resource Center, Inc., now known as Connections Food and Resource Center, for which she served as president in 2018.
During her 2018 election campaign, she raised $26,121, mostly from attorneys and businesspeople. Her former partner at Duncan & Dirickson, David Duncan, was one of her largest donors. Dirickson loaned her own campaign $1,632, but does not otherwise appear to have donated politically in Oklahoma.
Travis Jett
Age:Â 40
Party registration:Â Republican
Residence/hometown: Woodward/Laverne
Law School:Â Georgetown University
Background:Â Travis Jett grew up near Slapout and attended public school in Laverne. His father, Alan Jett, has served as a board member for the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, and he runs the Panhandle Political Action Committee. At Oklahoma State University, the younger Jett was elected as the state Future Farmers of America president, serving from 2004 to 2005. He is also a member of the Oklahoma FFA Alumni Association. After graduating from OSU, Jett attended the Georgetown University Law Center, Â where he was the editor in chief of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy from 2010 to 2011. Prior to his 2011 graduation from Georgetown, he published an article exploring the religious liberty implications of Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned state sodomy laws. He interned at Crowe and Dunlevy.
After law school, Jett returned to Oklahoma and started his career at Fellers, Snider, Blankenship, Bailey and Tippens. He represented former Sen. Debbe Leftwich during her bribery trial and was contracted as an assistant counsel for Gov. Mary Fallin “in assisting the attorney general’s inquiry arising from the scheduled execution of Richard Glossip and any related matters,” according to a contract between his firm and the state. In 2017, he joined GableGotwals as an associate and shareholder.
At GableGotwals, Jett represented the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in opposing a Medicaid expansion petition. He also represented a challenge to SQ 804, a failed proposal for an independent redistricting committee. Since 2020, Jett has worked for the Hodgden Law Firm, briefly representing the State Department of Education. Of the three nominees, he is the only one lacking judicial experience.
Businesses/campaign finance:Â Â Excluding his home, Jett appears to own one lot of land in his hometown of Laverne, and he is the registered agent for Bryant Land and Cattle LLC. He is also associated with the nonprofit political organizations Yes on 790 Association and Building Oklahoma, Inc. Rejected by voters in 2016, State Question 790 would have allowed the use of public funding for religious purposes by repealing Oklahoma’s constitutional provision barring such funding. Jett’s law firm was also hired to represent the Yes on 790 Association.
Jett has a long history of providing legal work for political clients, and he wrote a 2012 op-ed concluding that super PACs were a “net positive.” He is the designated filing agent for his father’s Panhandle Political Action Committee. The PAC was founded in 2019, has raised $8,500, and appears to have only donated to Sen. Casey Murdock’s (R-Felt) 2024 reelection campaign. Jett personally contributed to Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s 2022 U.S. Senate campaign, the initial 2016 campaign of Rep. Mike Osburn (R-Edmond), former Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign, and attorney Evan Vincent’s 2018 State Senate campaign.
Jon Parsley
Age:Â 56
Party registration:Â Republican (formerly Democrat)
Residence/Hometown:Â Guymon
Law School:Â University of Oklahoma College of Law
Background:Â Jon Parsley started his legal career in 1995 at the law office of David K. Petty, who is currently a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission. He left Petty’s firm after eight years and founded his own practice in 2003. He served on the Oklahoma Bar Association Board of Governors from 2003 to 2009 and as the organization’s president in 2009. In 2014, Gov. Mary Fallin appointed Parsley as the district judge for Oklahoma’s Judicial District 1 (covering Beaver, Cimarron, Harper, and Texas counties), and he has won reelection since.
Businesses/campaign finance: Parsley has the most extensive business portfolio of the three candidates. He personally owns a home in Guymon and three retail spaces, including one directly across the street from his office at the Texas County Courthouse. He is also the owner of Lanier Leasing Properties, according to his 2017 financial disclosures. Lanier Leasing appears to own more than two dozen properties throughout Guymon. The Parsley Family LLC owns another seven properties in Guymon.
Parsley is the only candidate to have campaigned for partisan office. In 2002, he was the Democratic nominee for district attorney in District 1, but he lost the election to Mike Boring. Between 1998 and 2012 he made several contributions to Democratic politicians, including former Attorney General Drew Edmonson, former Lt. Gov. Jari Askins and former U.S. Rep. Brad Carson. He appears to have changed his party affiliation to Republican sometime after 2012.
