The Man Who Wouldn’t Play the Game May Now Decide It

Stranger than fiction: Gubernatorial hopeful Charles McCall had years to listen to Tom Gann. Now, at the precise moment when McCall needs Gann’s credibility most, the irony is absolutely providential.

Regular readers of the Oklahoma State Capital’s Substack will immediately recognize where this is going. That’s because, as regular readers, you’ve been privy to one of the most amazing stories in Oklahoma politics.

House District 8 State Representative Tom Gann.

The gist of it: Tom Gann has done the opposite of what one would expect from an Oklahoma “politician.” He’s consistently voted according to principle, not by horse trading, vote swapping, power, money or personal relationships. And, time and again, he’s been the one who has spoken out, based on the principle of the matter, even when speaking out caused the House of Representatives’ leadership and the state’s monied establishment great consternation.

From exposing the heavy-handed House rules that eviscerate the ability of individual legislators to represent their constituents, to slowing down the AI-driven police surveillance state that, had it not been for Tom Gann, would have very likely been codified into state law by now; from exposing the unacceptable conduct at the state’s Corporation Commission that most insiders would have preferred to pretend never happened, and much more, one can make a very credible case that Gann has been, hands down, the most interesting if not on of the most influential state legislators of the last decade.

And he did it by governing on principle, resisting the co-opting forces of money, power, and relationships, working hard, and asking the right questions — no matter who those questions offended.

And that claim absolutely accounts for the long-serving House Speaker in the House of Representatives: Charles McCall.

For you see, after McCall’s team was able to remove the term limits rule that would have kept McCall in check, opening up his nearly decade-long imperial speakership, McCall, put Tom Gann on “ice.”

Though a wise leader would have brought Gann into the leadership room to hear his dissenting counsel, not only was there no room for the conservative, principled Gann in the leadership circles, but in the later years of the Imperial Speakership, Gann, though a senior member and one of the most knowledgeable, wasn’t afforded as much as a committee chairmanship from McCall.

Gann would still find ways to be effective, but he had to do so either in a low-key manner, going under the radar, or in a very high-profile manner, leveraging public sentiment and appealing to the jury of public opinion, such as his successful quest to keep the Legislature from codifying Orwell — the previously mentioned, potentially AI-driven Flock surveillance system, the plan that will put AI’s all-seeing eye on every major street corner.

Gann’s great test would come, though, as the McCall machine rolled out the frightening new era of “corporate welfare on steroids” when corporate welfare giveaways would take on an all new life of their own in terms of size and scope.

For Gann, a principled, small-government conservative, these were, at least in theory, easy votes.

Back in 2016, Gann won office as an upset challenger. He had defeated three other candidates, all of whom, at least on paper, had a tremendous advantage over Gann.

That, in and of itself, is a story to tell for another day.

Gann won because of hard work, his stance on no lobbyist money, and constitutionalist principles.

Core to those principles was the warning that a republic cannot long endure once voters discover they can vote themselves benefits from the public treasury.

That concept is reflected in our state’s Constitution by a strict prohibition on “special laws,” the idea being that, in a republic, the law should govern by general rule, not by legislative favor.

Essentially, no one specific recipient should be singled out for public largesse.

Now, the state Supreme Court has long ago surrendered its moral authority to prevent this abuse, allowing a legislative loophole that eviscerates this constitutional principle. But that, as Gann well knows, doesn’t make it right.

And so, time and again, throughout the McCall/Echols era of corporate welfare on steroids, where those two facilitated the rushed consideration — sometimes with just days if not hours of public transparency — of giveaways of hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s been Gann who has stood in the gap, slowing things down, asking the questions, and staying true to his declared values.

The great irony?

On at least two occasions during McCall’s speakership, and once during McCall’s successor Kyle Hilbert’s speakership, the beneficiary of that giveaway of hundreds of millions of dollars was Gann’s district.

That’s right. One of the few representatives who wasn’t playing the game, trading votes for favors and pork, was being given a level of pork giveaways that most co-opted politicians could only dream about.

But that didn’t change Gann’s principles. He held firm on the Constitution.

Now, one might have thought that this would have made Gann very unpopular back home.

But here’s where, once again, incredible irony enters the story.

Those multi-hundred-million-dollar giveaways?

They proved to be either a nonissue or very unpopular with the locals.

As it turns out, rural Oklahomans aren’t so supportive of tax-subsidies for international corporations with their woke, DEI, culture-changing values.

There are, of course, the local institutionalist insiders, those who want to make a name for themselves by being a part of the giveaways, or who are tied to the various government and pseudo-govermental institutions that will benefit financially. And for them, this election cycle was their big opportunity to finally reclaim their House seat for the special interests.

They found an unwise individual, Todd Rice, to put his name on the ballot, challenge Gann and set about restoring institutional control.

Rice’s platform? “Not just standards, but results,” a clear hit at Gann’s insistence on, “raising the standard” and refusing to play the political game.

But their timing, that of Rice and his institutionalist special interests supporters?

It couldn’t be worse.

In another ironic twist, just as the establishment made its move to unseat Gann, opposition to the latest massive corporate giveaway really began to catch fire.

It was no small matter: a massive state subsidy tied to a United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund’s plan to build an aluminum smelter in Inola.

And the people who would have to live with the consequences — the landowners, families, and local citizens trying to protect their community’s culture and their property values — began to mobilize against an out-of-touch state government using their own money against them.

This was an in-tune crowd, able to see reality for what it was.

They realize that Gann is one of the few in state government who, by virtue of his defense of constitutional principle, has been with them all along. He refused to play the big-money, wine-and-dine game in Oklahoma City. He never betrayed their values.

They understand that the institutions — including the local government structure — have let them down. And now, they are looking for those rare heroes who will stand in the gap.

In Gann, they found one.

And on June 16, they are set to make their voices heard.

And for just a moment, they thought they had found a second hero.

Gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei, surging, especially in the Tulsa area, joined their cause and spoke out against the abuse.

But then came the sick reality of modern Oklahoma politics.

Almost overnight, the people who had placed their hope in Mazzei were forced to endure the heartbreak of betrayal, as Mazzei appeared to trade away that support in exchange for the all powerful endorsement of Donald Trump. Mazzei saw that gold ring of power, and he reached for it, notwithstanding the crushing betrayal of those who had believed in him.

Mazzei’s flip-flop provided a tremendous opportunity for the slick politicians, the other gubernatorial candidates whose need for just a couple of percentage points potentially either gets them into or eliminates them from the Republican gubernatorial primary runoff, and who now seek to profit from Mazzei’s betrayal by staking their claim to the outrage.

Gentner Drummond soon jetted into Gann territory, quickly leveraging his already heavily politicized attorney general’s office to take action, and the shameless Charles McCall was quick to get in on the new land run for Inola votes, boldly taking to Facebook and declaring that he stood with the people of Inola.

It’s hard to believe that the broken-hearted landowners and property owners of that town, fresh off an epic betrayal, will be deceived by these politicians. They have already received a brutal lesson in the sick state of Oklahoma politics and they are unlikely to let it happen again.

They will certainly realize that Drummond could have been with them at any time in the past. And just as quickly as he has shown up, he will almost certainly disappear once he no longer needs that extra couple of percentage points to stay alive in a political endeavor on which he has spent so many millions.

After all, this is the candidate who began toxifying the public airwaves with his ads just days after the last election ended, helping create a perpetual election cycle in which voters are given no relief from their obnoxious politicians — foremost among them, Drummond.

Are we to really believe he would have said a single word in opposition to this project had it not been for Mazzei’s flip-flop?

And as for McCall, we must always remember: He was the House Speaker who brought the era of corporate welfare on steroids to the House of Representatives.

So if the reader believes that McCall, had he been in the Speaker’s Chair instead of Kyle Hilbert in 2025, would have stopped the UAE giveaway bill then the reader also knows the old saying: There is a bridge in Arizona just waiting for your check to clear.

No, the people, though desperate for help and heroes, will see through these politicians and more likely than not realize they have two remaining options: Keating or Merrick. I would suggest the latter, the candidate who won’t take the lobbyist money and is thus going to be largely immune to the skyscraper crowd the next time they want to play the international economic development game with your money.

But here is where the irony becomes so rich that it affirms one’s strong belief in God, and in the idea that He has ordered the universe in such a way that, at some level and in some form, justice always finds its moment.

For you see, there’s now likely only one state government official whom the people of Inola and the surrounding area, for that matter, still completely trust.

Yes, it’s the one person whose endorsement could make all of the difference in swinging that 1 to 2 percent of the vote that could very well determine the second-place finisher in the June 16 primary and put either Drummond or McCall into the runoff with Mazzei.

Of course, it’s the leader whose never-wavering commitment to constitutional principle made him such a target of the imperial speakership of Charles McCall; who continued to provide that small voice of opposition, as best he could, which was a challenge, as demonstrated when McCall’s team snuck through a rule change that allowed them to ignore any member rising to make a motion, or when McCall and his appropriations chairman endeavored to give away millions to the Volkswagen corporation, and that appropriations chairman “advanced the question,” cutting off Gann’s very ability to debate and to speak to the underlying constitutional principles.

I would make the case that, had McCall done the wise thing — had he put Gann in the leadership room, allowed his voice to be heard, and permitted constitutional principle to slow down, restrain, or even stop some of those massive corporate welfare giveaways — perhaps Gann would now be in a position to give McCall what he needs most.

Not another dark-money mailer.

Not another television ad.

What McCall needs most, for the purposes of the east-of-Tulsa exurban vote, the very vote that’s now opened up due to the Mazzei flip-flop and could make the difference between surviving into the runoff, or being eliminated in the primary, is the one endorsement that could now matter more than all the others, even more than Donald Trump himself: the endorsement of the one state official those voters still trust, House District 8 State Representative Tom Gann.

The very same Tom Gann who McCall so ruthlessly pushed to the margins.

The same Tom Gann who kept warning, year after year, that constitutional principle still mattered.

And now, at the precise moment when McCall is so in need of a trusted voice in Gann’s part of the state, that voice belongs to the very man his machine tried, but failed, to silence.

That irony is not just rich.

I believe, it is providential.