National Popular Vote continues to fund junkets for Oklahoma legislators

You'd think they'd give up, at long last, but advocates of the National Popular Vote compact continue to lobby Oklahoma legislators to agree to enslave our electoral vote to that of higher-population states on the coasts.

Jamison Faught, the Muskogee Politico, recently dug through the legislators' financial disclosure statements for 2017 and 2018 and found that the NPV lobbyists continue to fund junkets for Oklahoma legislators to attend "seminars" for the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections (IRPE), a front group for NPV.

All told, since December 2017, IRPE and the National Popular Vote effort have doled out at least $47,017.53 to bring 8 GOP Senators, 7 GOP Representatives, 7 Democratic Senators, 5 Democratic Representatives, and one Democratic legislative staff member to their conferences in Utah, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and New York.

That's 20% of the Senate GOP caucus, and almost a full third of the entire Senate.

At the link you'll find the full list of legislators and the amounts they received from IRPE/NPV.

Faught also has statements from Greg Treat, President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma State Senate, and Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell, who serves ex officio as President of the State Senate, both expressing firm opposition to NPV. Treat was one of a minority of sensible "no" votes when NPV passed the State Senate in 2014. As State Party Director for the Republican National Committee since 2013, and not long after his stint as OKGOP chairman, Pinnell expressed strong opposition to NPV in this January 2015 piece in The Okie. (Faught is still awaiting comments from Gov. Kevin Stitt and House Speaker Charles McCall.)

From Faught's list, it may be that NPV advocates hope that a near-unanimous vote from Democrats plus a sufficient number of squishy Republicans will put them over the top. If our Republican legislative supermajorities were filled with principled, intelligent legislators, I wouldn't worry. Unfortunately, establishment RINOs teamed with public-sector unions to drive many of our principled, intelligent legislators out of office in last year's elections.

Keep your eye on the Muskogee Politico blog for further developments.

BACKGROUND:

BatesLine has been following NPV for over six years. On February 20, 2013, the Oklahoma State Senate Rules Committee forwarded SB 906 with a "Do Pass" recommendation. The bill sat dormant for a full year, when it was hastily taken up on February 12, 2014, and passed by a 28-18 vote, including 16 Republicans. The subsequent outcry caused several state senators to recant their support. We learned soon after that legislators had been taken on junkets to south Florida, Scottsdale, Arizona, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, and St. Croix. The bill died in the State House committee, but Gov. Mary Fallin refused to take a firm stand in opposition. That autumn, an NPV lobbyist, Ray Haynes, began meeting with grassroots activists prior to the 2015 legislative session, in order to neutralize opposition prior to the bill's reintroduction in the following session. Perhaps because of public outcry, the 2015 bills never made it out of committee. Although every county in Oklahoma voted for the Republican nominee for the fourth straight election in 2016, NPV pushers have resumed their efforts with Oklahoma legislators, including a 2017 Christmastime junket to New York City.

MORE:

OCPA Executive VP Trent England, director of the Save Our States project, participated in a recent debate over the Electoral College and National Popular Vote at the Cooper Union in New York City. One of his debate opponents is John Koza, the inventor of the lottery scratch-off ticket who has bankrolled much of the NPV push. Here's the video: