I’ve been fielding requests for my views on the state questions, though not so much my picks for the statewide candidates. That’s likely because the grassroots ticket is fairly obvious to anyone even slightly engaged: Mike Mazzei for governor, James Taylor for state school superintendent, and Kevin West for state labor commissioner.
I am not sure I’ve ever seen such a distinctly defined ticket of runoff candidates, almost as distinct as the partisan divide itself.
Gentner Drummond heads the establishment ticket, having won the establishment primary over Charles McCall, while his ostensible running mate, the DEI-defending Robert Franklin, outpaced the other tools of the education establishment to represent the institutionalist wing in the August runoff for state education superintendent. John Pfeiffer long being a reliable yes-man for all things establishment in the State House, rarely, almost never, finding his red “no” button, represents that group in the labor commissioner race. The insurance commissioner race provides a lone example of where this line isn’t as clearly pronounced, and unfortunately, I have no guidance to offer in that race.
Make no mistake, a win by the establishment ticket would be disastrous for small-government conservatism in the state, giving full establishment control of all parts of Oklahoma government and, perhaps worse, ensuring that Oklahoma is governed by those who do not represent the values of the people they claim to represent. That’s always an eventual recipe for disaster: politicians who run for office purporting to represent the people’s values, but whose actual governing ethos is anything but.
Even with his many second-term policy inconsistencies—especially his significant missteps in education policy—outgoing Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt was not an establishment figure in the sense that he was not brought into office by the machinery of the political establishment. So, though his second-term instincts were absolutely awful in so many ways, he didn’t owe the establishment; and, that made a big difference.
Here’s a prediction: Mazzei will be a much better governor than second-term Stitt. Not a high bar, but starkly different from turning the keys of the whole taxpayer-funded operation of state government over to the forces of big-government darkness.
And there’s every reason to believe that Mazzei, as governor, would be open to an alliance with those in the Legislature who hold and believe in conservative values and policies, and that alliance, if implemented wisely, patiently, and consistently, would ensure the people’s voice is heard and even translated into policy.
As it regards the state questions: I will vote yes on State Question 846: constitutionally establishing a voter identification requirement.
I suspect that the subject of voter ID is universally embraced by the readers of this publication; however, many are very rightly concerned about the provisions of the question which allow the Legislature to update and modify the specific documents that will qualify as “voter ID.”
This mistrust is quite indicative of just how bad it’s gotten: a Republican Legislature which does not have the faith and confidence of the most passionate and engaged Republican voters.
So why might frequently deceptive politicians want to reserve the right to dictate what those identity documents are?
Firstly, it’s important to understand the history of this policy.
In 2009, Oklahoma, as it continued its transition from a corrupt, old-guard Democratic state—one that had long struggled with issues such as voter fraud under Democratic rule—to a new era of Republican governance, found itself leading on this issue.
There were two questions: Could the Legislature enact voter ID by finding a way to bypass lame-duck Governor Brad Henry, the last of the Democratic governors and an opponent of the policy, and could the Legislature construct the issue in a way that would survive a court challenge?
The former was accomplished by sending the proposal to the voters, a very rare step, almost never taken by the Legislature when creating statute, but done to bypass the governor’s veto—a veto that couldn’t be overridden because there were enough Democrats in the State Senate, who had just been removed from power and were willing to take the hit for Henry, forever defining that group for what they were. However, few know that the Legislature can call for a voter referendum on a statutory proposal, and this effectively allows the people to play the role of governor, approving a measure that their lame-duck governor would not.
It’s been in statute ever since.
But, that was just the start. The many Henry-appointed leftist jurists of the courts were on deck, and the Legislature sent them a weak ID requirement. Likely seeking to avoid being invalidated as a “poll tax,” the statute allowed any number of documents, including voter registration cards, that not only didn’t contain the voter’s picture but could have been printed off on a personal printer.
And even though a constitutional amendment would have no doubt provided the imprimatur of that document on the policy, by doing this statutorily instead of putting it into the Constitution, the Legislature preserved some of the needed flexibility to stave off the left-wing courts. Hard-coding these specifics in the Constitution could have been problematic because, had a court invalidated that article based on the “poll tax” logic, then a new election would have been necessitated.
The state-level challenge of the law would go on for a painful eight years, not being finally settled until 2018, when the law was upheld by the state Supreme Court.
And in that time voter ID has since been widely instituted across the red-state universe as other states have joined in with actual photo id, not just id, requirements.
And it’s long been time for Oklahoma to update its provision as well. In fact, if you’ve been on social media long, you’ve probably seen one of those maps that shows the states with a photo voter ID requirement—a map that doesn’t include Oklahoma, much to the embarrassment of those who take great pride in representing their state as being on the cutting edge of good government.
So the question has been: could the Legislature advance a photo voter ID requirement, and should they allow the people to hard-code it into the Constitution? Putting a measure like this into the Constitution is generally good principle, as it makes it strong against future change, but in the context of voter ID there are still pitfalls.
First and foremost: tribal-issued ID.
A past Republican legislative proposal for a constitutional amendment that specifies the specifics of the ID documents have included tribal IDs.
That’s a problem.
It potentially offers leftist-minded tribal governments, of which there most certainly are an example or two the ability to issue identification according to their own standards, or lack of standards, and if that’s hard-coded into the Constitution, then future abuses won’t be easy to address.
Now, considering the influence of tribal governments over legislators, it’s going to be a problem no matter which poison is picked, but at least, if that provision isn’t hard-coded, then public opinion of any alleged and exposed abuses can certainly put pressure on policymakers in a way that couldn’t be as easily sidestepped.
So, in my view, this proposal is a win in that it doesn’t constitutionally hard-code tribal ID, while generally strengthening the state’s standing on voter ID, potentially setting the stage for photo voter ID, and, sixteen years after the original vote, giving the people the ability to once again validate this vital concept with their vote.
And when, next year, the Legislature presumably follows up with its legislation on this, it’s a matter which we should follow, with special attention to the tribal-issued ID component and ensuring that Oklahoma joins the ranks of states which strickly require “photo” voter ID.
Now, while I would generally suggest deference to the Legislature on State Question 846, I cannot say the same for State Question 844, sponsored by Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, which I expect will be defeated by a wide margin.
In Oklahoma there is a corporate welfare program. It allows the state to pay the property taxes for a select set of politically privileged entities. It’s all in the name of economic development, of course, as is the case with many of state government’s legalized corruption plans.
Here’s the problem: as with all things corporate welfare—designed by legislators from afar who, once they become motivated by appeasing the machine that keeps them elected, stop understanding human nature—nonsensical outcomes, as a matter of tried and proven course, naturally follow time and again. And those legislators? They never learn. They just keep making the same mistakes.
And now the Legislature finds itself in a position where the state is picking up a tab for nearly $88 million each year, with—get this—$34 million of that going to Google to cover the tab for their property taxes at their Pryor, Oklahoma data center.
Yes, at some point in the past, probably in the 1990s, the Legislature decided that data centers should qualify for this treatment, what is known as the five-year manufacturing entity exemption from the property tax, even though a data center isn’t a manufacturing entity, strictly defined. It’s pure, corrupt, politics.
By 2021, due to the Google project, that date center subsidy became so pricey that the Legislature cut off that part of the program: no more welfare for data centers; except, by then Google was clearly too politically powerful, and the local Pryor, Oklahoma schools so dependent on the subsidy, that the legislators, in what is an epic special-law-benefit territory—which, in my view, is an abhorrent, corrupt practice prohibited by the state constitution—received a special extension through 2036.
Now, instead of showing the courage to stop the Google abuse, Hilbert’s proposal would allow the abuse to continue. His solution? He would give the Legislature the ability to create a redistribution formula. Currently, when the state pays the property tax for the corporation, it sends that money to the local governments who are entitled to the taxes. Hilbert’s formula would change that, spreading the money out, instead of allocating to the Mayes County government entities where Google is located. So Google keeps their benefit, and the state picks up the tab for the taxes they aren’t paying, but instead of sending that money to that area’s governmental entities that would otherwise receive it, part of it will get distributed elsewhere.
Hilbert’s explanation suggests that this is a problem of the local county assessor, presumably in Mayes county, where he seems to suggest that the county assessor is over assessing that facility, knowing that the state will pay the bill, and Google, receiving a free benefit, won’t protest the assessment because they are not paying for it.
Now, the fix for this is easy. If this is an abuse, the legislature would direct the state’s Tax Commission, which both oversees the giveaway program and has a role in auditing assessors, to tweak its rules as needed to update the assessor auditing criteria and thus mitigate the harm.
But not content to just do an easy fix, Hilbert proposed the formula plan, a plan that puts the legislature’s hands in the till, empowers them to redistribute the money, and amends the state constitution.
But notably, Hilbert never explained the formula he would seek to implement.
And as he presented his bill in the Rules Committee, the handpicked committee that lives to rubber-stamp the Speaker’s every proposal, not a single question was asked to determine that formula; or, for that matter, any question at all.
Nor was a single question asked of Hilbert as he, in just a few seconds of time, won approval on the House floor.
Such is the state of the State House, as most know that asking the Speaker who holds all power a question is pointless, as it risks his wrath for no effective purpose, as his bills are guaranteed passage no matter how sketchy they are.
Now, it’s our turn, the taxpayers, to have our say.
Fortunately, unlike your state representative, we don’t have to live in fear of that tyrannical Speaker, and it’s my suggestion that until the specifics of the proposed formula are known, the voter is well advised to vote no.
One interesting side note: as Hilbert rose to make his proposal, he also introduced an amendment which set the proposal for the August runoff ballot. In the days since, likely not having a real understanding of this policy proposal, as few do, many of the institutionalist education crowd, on reading the bill, believe it to be a type of assault on education funding, which it isn’t—except perhaps for the potential impact on the Pryor school district which receives heavy funding, and maybe some of the Tulsa County districts which also receive some of the welfare—but that notwithstanding, it’s motivating the education establishment to turn out to vote against it. While at the polls they are also likely to support Drummond and Franklin. There have been suggestions that this may have been part of a strategy to elect establishment-minded candidates in the State Senate, to preserve their control of that chamber, and the timing of the state questions has become a point of concern in this regard.
Whether or not that concern is valid, Hilbert was never asked why he selected the August runoff as the target date for this proposal. It is also unclear whether he was asked to do so by Senate leadership. Those facts would have been helpful in assessing the validity of the theory that Oklahoma’s establishment politicians are purposefully scaring public education single-issue voters in an attempt to benefit from their votes.
All of which is to say that there would be enormous benefits for transparency, openness, and actual public policy discussion if the powerful Speaker were divested from that power, and House members could be bold and unafraid as they attempt to ask and discover the facts of important matters such as this.
But the neat part is this: in some small way, we as voters, by voting “No!” on State Question 844, can send that powerful Speaker a message—a message that, even if the establishment sweeps on election night, will offer one small silver lining to the electoral outcome.
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Thank you Jason