Law & Principles

Oklahoma Supreme Court upholds Stitt’s remote-work ban

September 10, 2025

Ray Carter

When Gov. Kevin Stitt ordered most state employees to return to the office, effectively ending COVID-era remote work in much of Oklahoma state government, Democrats decried the order and one lawmaker sued, arguing the governor exceeded his authority.

But a district court found that state Rep. Andy Fugate, D-Del City, lacked standing because he had suffered no harm from the order, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld that ruling in a decision issued this week.

Stitt welcomed the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision, saying his December 2024 order restored accountability and productivity in state government.

“Representative Fugate spent months trying to stand in the way of common sense,” Stitt said. “Taxpayers deserve to know their public servants are back at work, delivering the services they pay for and not hiding behind Zoom calls. Today’s ruling makes it clear that a partisan lawsuit will not stop us from holding state government accountable to Oklahomans.”

On Dec. 18, 2024, Stitt issued Executive Order 2024-29, directing all full-time employees of state agencies to “perform their work in the office, facility, or field location assigned by their agency, and not from a remote location by February 1, 2025,” subject to limited exceptions granted by an agency's executive.

When he issued the order, Stitt declared, “COVID altered the way we did business for a time, but that time has passed. Now, we need to put stewardship of taxpayer dollars as our top priority. Oklahomans deserve a government that operates with full accountability and delivers services effectively. Returning to traditional work environments is a critical step in achieving that goal.”

But on Feb. 21, Fugate announced he was challenging Stitt’s order in court.

“I have grown increasingly concerned at the scope and breadth of the governor’s executive orders and the ways they supersede legislative authority,” Fugate said at the time. “It is not his job to make laws. That is the job of the legislature.”

Fugate argued Stitt’s order violated the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches because the order could require agencies to spend more money on office facilities and equipment if employees no longer worked from home, yet those expenditures had not been approved by the Oklahoma Legislature.

Fugate said the order “has also caused chaos for state employees, many of whom rely on remote work,” and that remote-work arrangements allowed state employees to have “more time to be present with their families and active in their communities.”

But in Fugate v. Stitt, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found Fugate had not identified any actual violation of the separation of powers.

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Dustin Rowe, noted, “Representative Fugate alleges the Executive Order inhibits a legislator from conducting legislative business and violates ‘statutory law’—yet fails to point to a statute the Governor allegedly violated. On the contrary, the Governor’s action in issuing the Executive Order falls directly within his authority as conferred by the Oklahoma Emergency Management Act of 2003 …”

Rowe also noted, “The Executive Order did not create a new law or require a new condition of employment for Executive Department employees. As such, no additional legislation was necessary to issue the Executive Order, nor was legislative authority usurped. Consequently, Representative Fugate has suffered no injury in fact to establish standing.”

Had Fugate’s lawsuit succeeded, the Oklahoma government would have maintained COVID-era remote work policies that have been abandoned in the private sector for years now.

The 8-1 decision included both Republican and Democratic appointees in the Oklahoma Supreme Court majority, with Justice Douglas L. Combs dissenting.

Fugate issued a press release responding to the court’s decision, suggesting the court did not side with Stitt.

“The court did not ‘back’ the governor,” Fugate said. “It simply said that a single legislator could not challenge the governor.”

Fugate also suggested Stitt’s executive order was largely meaningless, calling it “more theater than substance” and saying that thousands of state employees have been able to continue to work remotely under the exceptions granted in Stitt’s order. Fugate did not explain why he filed a lawsuit over an order he now described as mere “theater.”