Oklahoma Election 2024: Statewide and legislative races

I've already published my picks for all the races, but here's a quick discussion of Oklahoma's statewide and legislative seats on the November 5, 2024, ballot:

Corporation Commission: I'm voting for Libertarian nominee Chad Williams. As I wrote in June, a vote for Brian Bingman, the Republican nominee and former State Senate President Pro Tempore, is a vote for total regulatory capture. Oklahomans, sadly, must assume that, as a corporation commissioner, Bingman will do what he did in the State Senate -- take care of the lobbyists who got him elected and not the consumers who depend on the Corporation Commission to protect our interests from the monopoly utility companies. It's basic public-choice theory: Concentrated benefits vs. diffuse costs. The companies that stand to make a financial killing from favorable Corporation Commission decisions have an incentive to pour money into the race to get their man elected. Chad Williams, the Libertarian nominee, served as a city councilor in Choctaw and has served as the state chairman of the Libertarian Party. Here are Williams's priorities, as listed on his Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey:

I am not running for office as a stepping stone to higher political ambitions. My commitment is to serve and address the immediate needs and concerns of Oklahomans. I am here to make a tangible difference in the present, not to use this position as a mere launching pad for personal advancement. My focus is on effective governance and real results, not on climbing the political ladder.

I would like to see a shift towards performance-based regulation (PBR) where utilities are rewarded for meeting specific performance metrics such as service quality, efficiency improvements, and customer satisfaction, rather than merely reimbursing costs. This can incentivize utilities to innovate and improve service delivery.

As we continue to advance technologically, it becomes increasingly imperative to reevaluate and update our regulatory frameworks to reflect the current state of technology and market dynamics. Older technologies, like landlines and cotton gins, once pivotal in shaping our industrial and communication landscapes, now operate in vastly different contexts. It is time to consider the deregulation of these sectors to foster innovation, reduce unnecessary bureaucratic overhead, and better allocate resources to more current and emerging technologies. By reducing the regulatory burden on these older technologies, we can encourage more efficient and competitive market conditions, ultimately benefiting both the economy and consumers.

Elsewhere, Williams has pointed out that Oklahoma's overregulation of cotton gins sends cotton producers in southwest Oklahoma over the border to Texas to process their crops. Williams's answers are thoughtful and creative, showing a willingness to balance the benefits of deregulation against the need to keep monopoly utility companies in check.

State Senate and State House:

In general, I've endorsed the Republican nominee, but there are 10 State House races where I made no recommendation at all because the incumbent's ratings by the conservative, free-market sources are dismal, and yet there wasn't a better alternative on the ballot. I hate to give a liberal Democrat any kind of a foothold on the political ladder, but the House Republican Caucus might be better off without some of these people. There is no danger of the Republican Party losing its overwhelming House majority. In two other races, although I disagree with them on a number of issues, Libertarian candidates Victoria Lawhorn (House 1) and Richard Prawdzienski (House 39) would add a couple of principled opponents to corporate welfare to the House ranks in place of some unimpressive RINO incumbents.

While Republicans are doing well statewide, we are seeing once reliable Republican districts in the City of Tulsa turning into swing districts or worse. Several of these districts didn't even draw Republican candidates. Seven City of Tulsa House seats, covering all of Tulsa north of 71st Street between the Arkansas River, Gilcrease Museum Road, and US 169, are represented by Democrats. That's all of midtown and all of north Tulsa.

We have a good shot at retaking two midtown and southeast Tulsa seats that used to be reliably Republican but are now in liberal Democrat hands. Both of these involve rematches, where the Republican nominees, Brad Banks in District 70 and Paul Hassink in District 79, are making a second attempt with the help of lessons learned from 2022 and a presidential race that should boost Republican turnout. Both men are engineers (Banks is a civil engineer, Hassink an electrical engineer), and Oklahoma needs legislators with an engineer's analytical skills and experience in building things that work.

Republican nominee Brad Banks, 41, is a civil engineer and the married father of four young children. He served in the US Marine Corps for five years, serving in the Western Pacific with 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, and then in Marine Security Guard Batallion in Lagos, Nigeria, and at the US embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark. After his honorable discharge as a sergeant, he obtained a degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas-San Antonio, working in infrastructure design and management. From 2013 to 2018, Banks was Manager of Operations for the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa. He worked with legislators to pass bills that would facilitate ground transportation of cargo coming to or from barges at the port. He is now in private practice with his civil engineering firm, Bridgewater Engineering, and his construction firm, Eagle Eye Construction, which specializes in concrete, drainage, grading, and fencing work.... Banks has been is strongly pro-life, supportive of the right to keep and bear arms, and opposed to medical mandates and oppressive lockdowns. Banks has been endorsed by OK2A and OKHPR.

Republican challenger Paul Hassink is an electrical engineer with degrees from Georgia Tech and Purdue and has special concern for the security and resilience of Oklahoma's power grid. Hassink has the endorsement of OK2A and OKHPR -- [incumbent] Provenzano has F grades from both of those organizations. Republican Paul Hassink's background in engineering and his consistent conservative principles will make him a great asset for Oklahomans in the Legislature.

The two Democrat incumbents both work in the non-profit sector, and both are heavily funded by political action committees, both labor unions and chambercrats, and by progressive plutocrat George Kaiser and his network.

On the Senate side, Senate District 39 Republican incumbent Dave Rader, running for his final term, is getting battered by dark-money pro-abortion ads. Sen. Rader has not been as conservative as I would like, but he's pro-life, and he's far better than the alternative, and we should not lose a south Tulsa seat to the Democrats. Dean Martin is attempting to recover Senate 35, a long-time GOP seat that was won by liberal Democrat Jo Anna Dossett after a bitter Republican primary in 2020. Martin had no primary this year but has been running hard since the beginning of the year. I endorsed him in his 2012 run for Tulsa County Clerk and am happy to have the chance to vote for him again. The redrawing of district lines has turned two elongated N-S districts (35 along the river, 39 between Harvard and Sheridan) into two compact E-W districts, with 35 covering midtown Tulsa between the river and Memorial north of I-44.

Republican candidates for open Senate seats in suburban south Tulsa County should have an easy time of it: Christie Gillespie in Senate 33 (Broken Arrow), Brian Guthrie in Senate 25 (Bixby and far south Tulsa), and Aaron Reinhardt (west Tulsa and Jenks). Reinhardt defeated a Republican incumbent in the primary and has only an independent opponent in the general.