Freedom in The Oklahoma House: What's Driving Republican Legislators to Shake Off Establishment Control

Republican state house members are finally shaking free of establishment control. The shift is subtle but significant—and it’s being driven by the newest representatives.

Readers of this publication recently received what might be the white pill moment of this legislative year: a mid-year measurement of Republican legislators’ propensity for blindly voting in lockstep shows that, for the first time in years, Republican legislators are waking up, becoming independent-minded, and starting to actually represent the values of the voters instead of the powerful institutions.

This measurement, complete with a breakdown of each Republican House member's scores, was recently provided to paying subscribers of The Oklahoma State Capital, and will soon be released to all subscribers. This will allow you to see where your legislator ranks and determine into which group they fall:

the courageous, independent legislators who are reading the bills and voting the values of the people;

the mushy self-described conservatives who are trying to serve two masters, the grassroots and the establishment simultaneously; or

the lemmings who are thoughtlessly enabling a powerful centralized leadership by blindly hitting their green buttons for just about anything that makes it to the House floor.

The scorecard captures the exciting fact that the propensity for Republican legislators to simply hit their green "yes" button has, for the first time in years, dropped significantly—falling from 94.39% of the time to just 90.25%.

At this rate, it’s entirely probable that when the end-of-year report is run, the yes voting will have dropped below 90%, which would be an incredible turn of events.

So what is exactly driving this turn of events?

Let's break down some of the factors for this dramatic improvement, in order of impact.

The Freshmen

Without a doubt, anchoring the improvement are the new Republican freshmen—those in their first year in the House. Of the Republican freshmen representatives, only one has shown regression when compared to his predecessor.

Those freshmen posting the most improvement are the three freshmen who defeated an incumbent Republican. In one case, a freshman representative is scoring a 43% year-over-year improvement when compared to her predecessor.

Republican primaries really do matter. The Republican primary voting base is starting to show that it doesn't matter how powerful the incumbent or how much dark and special interest money attempts to keep them in power, the Republican electorate is becoming immune to the effects of big money. That's probably why the Republican primary is under attack, and it must be defended.

This new group of new representatives is proving much more difficult than normal for leadership to co-opt.

The Mushy Self-Declared Conservatives

The second most important factor in the improvement of the scorecard: the dramatic progression of the mushy self-declared conservative grouping.

Most loosely defined, this is the group that votes "yes" between 80% and 90% of the time.

More specifically defined: these are the legislators who like to play the grassroots game and stay active and popular in the real world, where they attend Republican Party functions and speaking circuits and make the long-form grassroots podcast circuit rounds. But once they get into the Capitol, they enter into the fake world, and it’s here where they come under tremendous pressure.

In fairness to them, it's a crushing pressure—the fear of being ostracized from their peers, the fear of not having their bills heard, the fear of having their ambitions quelled, essentially being unable to move up in the powerful Speaker of the House's command structure and perhaps never getting a committee chairmanship, or having the one that they hold taken away; the fear of alienating the special interests that have given to their campaign; the fear of not being able to intellectually hold their own against the skilled government bureaucrats who know how to frame the debate to make the conservatives appear "stupid" for opposing them; the fear of the powerful government institutions from back in their district—and many others.

All of these fears combine to ensure that while the mushy conservative legislators will vote the values of the people with more propensity than the completely co-opted, lemming legislators, they routinely cast bad votes on the low-profile bad votes—the bills that are likely to fly under the radar and not get picked up by the grassroots. Examples include expansions of regulations and creations of new state agencies, boards, and commissions; fee increases; exemptions or raising of thresholds from the checks and balances of central services such as purchasing or shared services (frequently sponsored by the powerful bureaucracies); rule suspensions; and other exemptions from transparency laws—and many others.

In reality, because the mushy conservatives are often playing the game, courting both the grassroots and the special interests, they side with the grassroots when the grassroots are engaged and paying attention. But there are many bills that enable the sick system, that keep the lobbyists, bureaucrats, and other politicians happy, and fly under the radar. The mushy conservatives can routinely vote for these and try to keep the other politicians, the lobbyists, and the bureaucrats happy—while also still trying to be perceived as catering to the grassroots.

You can usually spot these types of legislators when they go on the long-form media of the grassroots—such as the Jake Merrick show, or any number of podcasts, or post on public-facing social media—where the legislator can't completely pander to the grassroots because they know that someone in the establishment will see or hear the broadcast or podcast, and when asked for their opinion of House leadership, will always manage to either put a positive spin on it, or will have some excuse for why they cannot support or don’t like the truly independent, courageous members who are the true fighters for our values. Their excuses are the tip-off that they’re either scared of the powerful people in the capitol, or are trying to play the game—or both.

This group, usually numbering about 15 or so legislators, by nature of their weakness, has not had the support of or pressure from a strong counter-prevailing force. Due to the 2018 purge of the conservatives, there hasn’t been a large group to which the weak legislators can turn for the safety of the herd, or which exerts enough of a counterforce to put pressure on that weak legislator to do the right thing.

Now, with the arrival of the new freshmen, this has started to change.

A weak-minded legislator, who either wants to or knows that he should do the right thing, can both find safety with a group of other like-minded true representatives of the people, and will also feel the increasing pressure to do the right thing.

As you review the above the scatter plot, your attention will be drawn to the front end of the curve. Note the number of blue Xs towering above the red Xs. Much of this is the mushy conservative group being pulled in the right direction—whether willingly or not.

Until this group becomes courageous, we are still behind the eight ball, but their year-over-year progressions are notable and significant and are a major reason for the collapse in the overall "yes" voting percentage.

The Lemmings

While not nearly as significant, even the lemmings appear to be starting to feel and respond to the pressure. These are the legislators who vote "yes" 90% or more of the time and have long ago been co-opted by the system of special interests and centralized power. They are on the long tail of the red X, all still mostly lined up in lockstep up with little difference between them, slow to—and will likely never truly—represent the values of the people, still running the grift of campaigning as a conservative in their district, but voting for many pieces of legislation that fly in the face of these values and betray the voters back home.

Many of the lemmings posted a slight improvement. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be replaced—and straightaway—but it's still encouraging regardless.

The External Factors

The rise of independent media, as a counter to the corporate media, is most certainly having its effect.

But it’s this independent reporting, both long and short form, that is becoming increasingly sophisticated—that’s able to get true, real, unfiltered information out immediately. This will be vital as the session enters its last days, when House rules appear to have been designed to move shucked bills faster than ever before.

Also important to note are the emerging array of tools that will enable the people to truly quantify the betrayal of the legislators’ actions. Indexes such as the Republican Platform Legislator Scorecard are providing a truly comprehensive accounting, catching those many bills that fly under the radar—where legislators have previously been able to betray the values of their voters without consequence.

Now, however, they must pay attention to even the seemingly low-key bills.

And, the people are responding to this new media, and are using these tools. There’s good reason to believe that some of the lemming legislators likely still have their head in the sand on this matter, foolishly deluding themselves into believing that the voices on the grassroots issues are in fact just a few people on Facebook.

But, they should know, it goes much, much deeper than that.

The Regressors

So what about those 10 republican legislators who are regressing?

With one exception, the regressions are limited to less than 1% change year-over-year.

A glance at the scatter plot shows only one legislator regressing to the extent that his blue X fails to touch the red X.

What is his story?

This is a legislative sophomore—now in his second term—who appears to be following the traditional co-option-by-leadership model. This is the system by which an ambitious representative gets elected, holding some core conservative principles shared by the local electorate. But as he starts playing the game and advancing in leadership, his voting deteriorates.

This is the type of regression that grassroots have long associated with their representatives: electing a conservative they believed in, but slowly becoming aware that this person has dramatically changed—and not in a good way.

In a normal legislative environment, this regression would hardly deserve notation. It’s commonplace. But, and unfortunately for this legislator, due to the dramatic improvement of so many other legislators, his regression sticks out like a sore thumb—it’s the one and only blue X that falls significantly below his previous score.

The observer has to ask: with so many self-declared “conservative” legislators showing improvement, what’s going on with that one member?

That the tracker has only isolated one single Republican legislator who fits this criteria speaks volumes about the direction in which the House has started to trend.

The Extra Courageous Who Kept the Light On During The Imperial Speakership of Charles McCall

As notable as all of this—and as the momentum of reform continues to build—it’s so important to take note of the handful of legislators who have, in an incredible example of courage, kept the light on: an example for others to follow.

Two of those legislators are still in the House, and they are the anchor of the independent group—reading the bills, helping the new legislators understand the importance of independence—both having taken the "no lobbyist money pledge." Their example has been absolutely vital to educating the incoming generation of Republican lawmakers and making this whole reform happen.

Without them, there would have been no example to follow and no significant counter-pressure whatsoever in the system. In short, we would likely be in a very different position right now were it not for Tom Gann and Rick West—and the legislators who were unafraid to ally with them during the dark years of the Imperial Speakership of Charles McCall, to include Tommy Hardin, Sean Roberts, and Wendi Stearman.

These five legislators should always be remembered for representing the values of the people when it mattered the most—and when it was the most difficult to do so—and whose collective effort made all of this possible.

To acquire the complete list and scores of Republican House members, become a paying subscriber to The Oklahoma State Capital Substack at this link and support the ongoing work that's making these types of reports possible. Or, just stand by, as this entire report will be released to all subscribers—both free and paid—in just a few days.