How the Capitol Conformity Tracker was Received by Members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and What is Next?

How legislators responded to the Oklahoma Capitol Conformity Tracker and introducing the new tool to help the voters hold them accountable: The People's Audit.

“Leadership isn’t going to make it easy on them. There’s reason to believe that an agent—a Judas goat—is operating among the freshmen, likely on behalf of leadership, trying to minimize the impact of the report, telling them it’s nothing to worry about.”

Three weeks ago, this publication published a mid-year update of the Capitol Conformity Tracker. That report received intense interest, exceeding expectations, from both the public and the Capitol crowd.

So what did your legislator think about that report?

But before describing that response, and why it matters, some important context is needed.

The report is based on a simple concept: what would happen in your personal or business life if you said yes to every salesman, advertisement, or person who asked you to take an action? Of course, that would be disastrous. A wise individual, in the real world, has a responsibility when managing a household or even a business budget: he must exercise self-control and say "no thank you" frequently. To do otherwise is to betray the trust of one’s family, employees, employers, customers, and clients.

Should we expect any less from those entrusted to manage the public budget and write the laws under which we must live?

But that’s not how things work in the artificial world of the Capitol building and the Oklahoma House of Representatives. That institution is built on a smoke-and-mirrors system where a few powerful individuals make decisions behind closed doors, and the majority of state representatives—the lemmings—are expected to blindly approve those decisions, no matter the cost to the citizens.

On average, over the past several years, the typical Republican state representative has voted yes 94% of the time. That means they routinely approve the wishes of powerful politicians, government bureaucrats, monied special interests, and other nefarious players who are highly skilled at rigging the game of big government to their advantage. As government gets ever bigger, so does the strength and the budget of these special interests.

In their personal and business lives, these individuals would never say yes 94% of the time when it comes to solicitations on their own budgets or business interests. But when it comes to the people’s business, they rarely test their no button.

As a rule of thumb, there are three classes of Republican representatives.

First, the independent minded—those who vote "yes" less than 80% of the time. They currently number just eight members. This is the group actually reading the bills, trying to figure them out, and showing independent thought and a willingness to do the right thing, even at political risk. These eight members are key to restoring the people's voice in state government.

Second, the mushy middle—those who vote "yes" between 80% and 90% of the time. These often try to have it both ways: attending grassroots functions and posing as champions of the people, but ultimately enabling the broken system through either cowardice or ambition. Keeping in mind that house members cast between 900 and 1000 votes each year, they will vote the right way on the big bills, the ones they know lots of people are following, but they will often vote to advance the bad bills that are flying under the radar of widespread public attention. They will also often vote to prop up and even strengthen the smoke-and-mirrors system that has created a powerful Speaker of the House with massive power to determine outcomes behind closed doors, instead of in an open and transparent public manner by which the people can hold their representatives accountable for their actions. There are currently 15 representatives in this group.

Third, the lemmings—57 strong—are those who vote "yes" 90% of the time or more. Their role, in practice, is to surrender their voters' sovereignty to political leaders, special interests, and bureaucrats. They likely don't even read the bills—why bother, when they are going to approve them regardless? While the size of this group may seem discouraging, there is reason for optimism: its numbers are steadily shrinking as more members begin to break free from the artificial pressures, social conditioning, and groupthink that dominate the Capitol culture.

Now that we've established the context, let's review how this report was received by the public and the legislators.

First, the public.

This was an encouraging and motivating report. On the encouraging side, it was motivating to those who have felt that grassroots involvement hasn't yet made a difference. Seeing a drop from 94% uniformity to 90% uniformity was the first concrete sign of dramatic improvement, and there is now a sense of inevitability among the grassroots. Of course, they will need to wait for the outcome of the final report, after the session concludes; but, this mid-year good news is likely to keep them encouraged and staying in the battle to hold their legislators accountable.

For some, it was eye opening. There's an ongoing con game happening. There are any number of grassroots conservatives who know that there is a problem, but they are being conned by their state representative, who is managing to convince them that they are one of the good guys, representing the views of the people and standing up for shared values. In actuality, those representatives are playing a double game, trying to serve two masters and essentially running a grift on the people while constantly giving in to the politicians, monied interests, and government bureaucrats. This report is a real eye-opener to those individual grassroots members. They can now see, with one quick review and with this common-sense rule of thumb, what exactly is going on: they are being grifted.

So, how did the legislators receive this mid-year run of the report?

First, among the independent group, the report was affirmation. Being an independent voice at the Capitol is lonely. What is common sense in the real world is heresy in the Capitol, and constantly being branded a heretic takes a toll even on the strongest minds and bravest spirits. When a report like this captures their good work and the widespread positive grassroots response validates it, it provides critical reinforcement. It lets them know they are not alone—and that the people are going to be paying attention and supporting their good work.

If this had been just another obscure report buried on a website, it would have mattered little. But the broad public interest from the grassroots made it a powerful affirmation for the handful of good legislators who haven't been co-opted by the artificial world of the Capitol.

Second, among the mushy middle, the report exposed their duplicity. And because it reached the most engaged citizens, it’s bad for their political business. More and more, as the independent group grows—buoyed by several new freshmen—and as grassroots conservatives get better at seeing through the smoke and mirrors, the mushy middle is under increasing pressure.

Some of them are beginning to change—slowly and perhaps reluctantly—but they are moving in the right direction. Some will enjoy this move, being freed from the controlling hand of those who do not share their values; others will detest it, being forced to choose between the powerful and doing what’s right. Whatever the mindset, it's better late than never.

Then there are the lemmings. They probably don't much care for the report, but likewise, they most likely don't care that it exists either. Many of them long ago locked in their lot with the corrupt grift of pretending to be conservatives while selling out so frequently that it no longer phases them. Many are too arrogant to believe there will ever be a day of reckoning. Some are lame ducks, not running again and more interested in the next thing. Others have likely convinced themselves that the pendulum swinging back toward the values of the people is temporary and survivable.

Then there are the freshmen—the brand-new representatives who just started casting their votes a few weeks ago.

Perhaps the most interesting and important reaction came from them. Unlike the old-school lemmings who have long been fully absorbed into the corrupt system, the freshmen are new enough to care because they still have a foot in the real world.

Several freshmen are already part of the independent minded group and among all the freshmen graded, only one is voting "yes" more often than his predecessor. In some cases, the improvement is dramatic—double digits.

The freshmen appear to be evenly split in their response. And that's a huge improvement over the House as a whole. This is the battle for the future of the people's House. If each new class continues to split more evenly between the independent-minded and the leadership-and-special-interest-controlled, then it’s only a matter of time before the dark regime crumbles.

Some freshmen are falling into the lemmings category but, because they are still connected to the real world and haven't yet been fully co-opted, this report likely served as a wake-up call. They are adjusting—and that’s the great value of releasing a mid-year report. Had it only been published at the end of the year, they would have had no opportunity to reflect and change course.

When the final report is released, likely at the end of May or early June, it will be fascinating to observe the improvements. There is reason to believe that mid year this has opened their eyes and that starting this week, as they cast many, many votes, they will cast those votes with a much more critical eye than they otherwise would have had it not been for the report.

Of course, leadership isn’t going to make it easy on them. There’s also reason to believe that an agent—a Judas goat—is operating among the freshmen, likely on behalf of leadership, trying to minimize the impact of the report, telling them it’s nothing to worry about.

In the past, that tactic might have worked. Freshmen could easily slide into the system, mindlessly vote yes, and rely on the protection of the Speaker and dark money to fend off challengers.

But today, the machine has weakened. Dark money has lost much of its punch. Attack ads often backfire. And House leadership endorsing candidates in primaries can sometimes hurt more than it helps.

The mighty machine built by Imperial Speaker Charles McCall, also known as Speaker Maximus, couldn’t even protect his own Appropriations Chairman from a primary challenge. Speaker Kyle Hilbert—far weaker—will be even less effective at saving co-opted freshmen from defeat.

All that is needed are challengers who will use this report as a roadmap, targeting and replacing those legislators who have cast so many bad votes.

That’s the point of the Capitol Conformity Tracker. It allows the people to quickly identify who is playing the game.

While the tracker is based on a broad, simple rule of thumb, it serves as a signal; but, of course, it will also be important to have a detailed listing of some of those bad votes.

Thus the point of this article.

Here's the plan.

At the conclusion of this year's session, this publication will release a much more comprehensive, year-end version of the Capitol Conformity Tracker. Unlike the mid-year report, by request of readers, this report will highlight the names of the various legislators, good and bad, and bring attention to specifics to help educate the voters in a much more detailed manner.

But it’s not just about the rule-of-thumb provided by the Capitol Conformity Tracker. It’s also going to be important to release a specific list of the actual bad votes being cast by these "conservative" legislators. These are the 80-20 votes. An 80-20 vote is one where 80% of the Republican primary voting electorate will be shocked and disappointed with the incumbent's bad vote.

Thus, for all of those poor-scoring members who claim, "I am just voting for what I think is best for my constituents," there will be clear evidence to the contrary—evidence that can be used by a brave challenger candidate to expose the grift. This second publication, the accompaniment to the Capitol Conformity Tracker will be tentatively known as the "The People’s Audit."

It will expose a list of the most offensive, under-the-radar votes—the votes that betray the conservative values these politicians claim to hold when they run for office.

The new index will not only show the bad vote but will also explain why the vote matters, who benefited from it, and how it hurt the people of Oklahoma.

All of this is made possible by your interest and your support. If you have yet to subscribe to the Oklahoma State Capital, at OklahomaStateCapital.com/substack your free or paid subscription makes this work possible as we build the tools to allow the people to truly have their voice and values heard in Oklahoma state government.

Stay tuned. Together, we are going to make a big difference.

You will find the mid-year run of the Capitol Conformity Tracker here.