Oklahoma Election 2024 Category

While I reserve the right to change my mind, here are the candidates I am currently inclined to support in the Tulsa general election and Oklahoma runoff election on August 27, 2024.

Between now and the election, I will be keeping an eye out on PAC donations and looking deeper into consulting companies. With so many establishment candidates having lost in the primaries, special-interest PAC money is going to be flowing somewhere, and we'll find out which candidates can resist their siren songs.

Political observers have a 40/5 rule of thumb: A candidate that gets over 40 percent in the primary and has at least a 5 point margin over the second-place candidate is almost certain to win the runoff. There have been exceptions, but it generally holds true. In Senate District 33 (Christi Gillespie 44%, Shelley Gwartney 25%), the first-place finisher could likely win just by turning out her voters in August, while the second-place finisher has to get her own people to the polls, plus those who supported the eliminated candidates, a big hill to climb. House District 32 (Jim Shaw 46%, Kevin Wallace 42%) could go either way by the 40/5 rule, but an incumbent who finishes second in a primary is unlikely to prevail in the runoff.

In Tulsa Council districts 5 and 6, there aren't any candidates I can get excited about, but differences over managing the police department and cooperation with ICE might tip the scales one way or another. In 2 and 9, there are multiple interesting possibilities. In 3, I don't know enough about the two candidates.

Only the Tulsa mayor's race and council districts 2, 7, and 9 will be on the August 27 ballot, because there are three or more candidates. The remaining council districts will be settled on November 5. CORRECTION: All of the council seats will be on the August 27 ballot, and any two-candidate race will be settled then. This is in contrast to school board seats, where the law was changed a few years ago so that a two-candidate race is settled on what used to be the school-board runoff date in April.

In District 4, I got to know Aaron Griffith many years ago in the Midtown Coalition of Neighborhood Associations. He's to my left politically, but he has a thick skin and is willing to endure the slings and arrows to stand up for what he believes is right. Aaron is strongly pro-neighborhood, has been a vocal critic of administrative shenanigans at Tulsa Public Schools, and he supports enforcing our immigration laws.

In District 7, I know Eddie Huff through his years as a conservative radio talk host at KFAQ. Margie Alfonso has been an important contributor to conservative politics over the years, but Eddie is better suited to winning a November runoff and serving, but he'll need enough GOP turnout to force a November runoff.

Chris Cone spoke to a Republican group about his vision for the job and his concerns about District 8. He was very impressive, and it will be good to have someone on the Council who is not beholden to the big foundations, knows something of the real world, and does more than pay lip service to his Christian faith. In District 1, I have not met Angela Chambers in person yet, but I see her very positive posts about life and entrepreneurship, and she seems like she will be a great improvement over the incumbent.

Brent VanNorman switched from the Council District 9 race to the mayor's race, and he looks like the best chance to get a conservative in the mayor's office for the first time since Dick Crawford and Jim Inhofe almost 40 years ago. He has the resources to run a strong race, but he needs to draw enough GOP turnout in the August 27 election to force a November runoff.

Tulsa City Elections:

Mayor: Brent VanNorman
Council District 1: Angela K. Chambers
Council District 2: Undecided
Council District 3: Undecided
Council District 4: Aaron Griffith
Council District 5: Undecided
Council District 6: Undecided
Council District 7: Eddie Huff
Council District 8: Chris Cone
Council District 9: Undecided

Oklahoma runoff:

Senate 3: Julie McIntosh
Senate 15: Lisa Standridge
Senate 33: Undecided
Senate 47: Undecided

House 20: Jonathan Wilk
House 32: Jim Shaw
House 50: Stacy Jo Adams
House 53: Undecided
House 60: Ron Lynch
House 98: Gabe Woolley

Tulsa County Commissioner District 2:

Republican runoff: Melissa Myers
Democrat runoff: Maria Barnes

Polls will be open for in-person voting on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

NOTE: Precinct boundaries, voting locations, and district boundaries have changed significantly since the 2020 elections. Enter your name and date of birth on the Oklahoma State Election Board's online voter portal and you will see where to vote and your sample ballot.

UPDATE: Don't miss my final thoughts on the 2024 Oklahoma Republican Primary.

In response to popular demand, I have assembled the guidance detailed below into a downloadable, printable, single-page PDF.

Here are the candidates I'm recommending and (if in the district) voting for in the Oklahoma Republican primary elections on June 18, 2024. (This entry will change as I decide to add more detail, link previous articles, or discuss additional races between now and election day. The entry is post-dated to keep it at the top.)

As I post this, I'm still unsure about several races, but time is short, people are soon to vote, and many have asked for a summary of my recommendations. My most enthusiastic choices are in bold; in other races, there may be one or two other candidates that would be acceptable, or I simply don't know the endorsed candidate as well as I would like. There are certain incumbents that I'd like to see defeated, but I don't feel comfortable endorsing an opponent at this point. I'll try to fill in TBDs and NOTs before the start of early voting.

One race in particular, SD 33, was a tough choice; I've endorsed each of the three candidates who have run in previous elections (Tim Brooks, Shelley Gwartney, Christi Gillespie), and I've known the fourth, Bill Bickerstaff, for many years and know him as a principled conservative who has been quick to volunteer for other candidates and who has been a key member of the Tulsa Beacon team. I watched the GOP forum, and I believe Brooks is best prepared to be an effective legislator who will follow in the footsteps of Nathan Dahm and Jason Murphey, who won't be lured into the capitol favor factory. But any of the four candidates should be very good legislators.

1st Congressional District: Kevin Hern.
2nd Congressional District: Josh Brecheen renominated without opposition.
3rd Congressional District: NOT Frank Lucas
4th Congressional District: NOT Tom Cole and NOT Paul Bondar
5th Congressional District: Stephanie Bice was renominated without opposition

Corporation Commissioner: Russell Ray

State Senate 1: Micheal Bergstrom
State Senate 17: Shane Jett
State Senate 25: Brian Guthrie
State Senate 29: Wendi Stearman
State Senate 33: Tim Brooks
State Senate 37: Cody Rogers

State House 2: Jim Olsen
State House 10: Chad McCarthy
State House 23: Derrick Hildebrant
State House 25: Robert Burch
State House 28: Danny Williams
State House 38: Marven Goodman
State House 41: Denise Crosswhite Hader
State House 67: Rob Hall
State House 68: Jonathan Grable
State House 79: Paul Hassink
State House 98: Gabe Woolley
State House 100: Marilyn Stark

Tulsa County Commissioner District 2: Melissa Myers

Tulsa County Court Clerk Don Newberry and Sheriff Vic Regalado have been re-elected without opposition. County Clerk Michael Willis was renominated without opposition but will face Democrat Don Nuam in the general election.

MORE INFORMATION:

CANDIDATE FORUMS:

The Republican Party of Tulsa County Facebook page has video of the candidate forums it sponsored:

• Tulsa County Commission District 2
• Senate District 25 (moderated by yours truly)
• Senate District 33
• Senate District 37
• House District 67
• House District 68
• House District 79

OTHER CONSERVATIVE VOICES:

Here are some blogs, endorsement lists, candidate questionnaires, and sources of information for your consideration.

• Muskogee Politico news, questionnaires, and analysis
• Muskogee Politico primary picks
• OCPA Legislative Scorecard
• Oklahoma Conservative PAC meeting videos, including candidate speeches
• Oklahoma Constitution Index: Scores incumbent legislators on voting record
• iVoterGuide surveys of Oklahoma statewide, federal, and legislative candidates
• City Elders Tulsa speakers' videos, including candidate speeches
• Oklahomans for Life candidate surveys
• Oklahomans for the 2nd Amendment (OK2A) endorsements
• NRA-PVF endorsements
• Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights (OKHPR) endorsements

ANTI-CONSERVATIVE VOICES:

Here are some endorsement lists that are negative indicators:

• Oklahomans for Public Education: OPE advocates for higher taxes, opposes school choice, and opposes efforts to keep leftist advocacy out of the classroom. They work to defeat principled Republicans. A yellow warning mark from OPE is a badge of honor for a conservative candidate.
• Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition appears to be just another front for the leftist education establishment. The founder of the group, Erika Wright, opposed State Department of Education rules to keep obscene materials out of public school libraries and to keep parents informed of important mental health matters involving their children.

If you appreciate the many hours of research that went into this guide and into the rest of my election coverage, and if you'd like to help keep this site online, you can contribute to BatesLine's upkeep via PayPal. In addition to keeping me caffeinated, donated funds pay for web hosting, subscriptions, and paid databases I use for research. Many thanks to those generous readers who have already contributed.

Some final thoughts in the wee small hours of election day. Don't forget to have a look at my main election day post with my list of endorsements and links to information from other reliable sources.

Fifty years ago, filing for office happened in early July, with the primary at the end of August and the runoff three weeks later. When the candidate filings for 1974 were printed in the Tulsa Tribune, I cut the list out and pinned it to my bulletin board.

Of 520 candidates statewide who filed for county office this year, 470 are Republican, 43 are Democrat, and 7 are independent. In the 9-county Tulsa-Bartlesville-Muskogee Combined Statistical Area, 62 of the 68 candidates for county office are Republicans. Three Democrats and one independent are running for Tulsa County Commission District 2, and there's one Democrat running for that seat in Pawnee County. I recall that the proportion on my 1974 list was the exact opposite. In July 1974, registered voters numbered 991,928 Democrats, 326,167 Republicans, 19,603 independents, and 3,511 with the American Party.

In 1974, the important electoral battles happened in the Democratic primaries. Today, the real battle for control of the state legislature happens in GOP primaries across the state.

While Oklahoma Republican legislators are generally reliably conservative on social issues, the majority departs from professed Republican platform principles anytime a lobbyist with access to campaign cash strolls past their offices. They may take strong stands on social issues with immediate impact, but they let themselves be rolled by lobbyists fighting the strategic measures that will ensure a conservative future in Oklahoma.

That's why a left-leaning private organization still has legal standing as a gatekeeper to the legal profession and judicial offices in Oklahoma. It's why we can't move public school board elections to a time of year when more voters are apt to be paying attention. It's why the legislative leadership keeps trying to undermine the first effective conservative serving as State Superintendent. These people are happy to use taxpayer dollars to lure businesses without regard to whether the people they bring may turn the state "blue" over time.

Chad McCarthy, who is challenging Judd Strom in House District 10, put together an 8-page newspaper detailing the incumbent's votes for cronyism, higher fees, more spending, more regulation, less transparency, more centralized control by legislative leaders. McCarthy provides bill numbers and a paragraph on each explaining why Strom's vote violates conservative principles. I suspect there's a strong correlation with the key votes tracked by the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper and OCPA Legislative Scorecard, and you'll probably find many of the incumbents who are backed by massive campaign warchests. McCarthy calls these people the Speaker's Lemmings and notes "their love of the Capitol nightlife."

They often wine and dine with lobbyists and other politicians at night, funded on the lobbyists' dime.

This allows the lobbyists to exert sway over the legislator, and it leaves the legislator much less time for actually reading the bills and knowing what they are voting on the next day....

State records show that Strom has attended more than 175 lobbyist-funded events, a sure indicator that he's likely a card-carrying lemming.

This lazy lawmaking results in the enactment of many bad laws, and that's why, as the reader reviews the audit on the following pages of this publication, they will see so many shocking votes that are complete betrayals of our Republican values.

In 2022, Tim Brooks, my pick of four good candidates in the Senate 33 primary this year, created a bullet-point summary of House District 76 incumbent Ross Ford's six years of bad votes at the State Capitol.

The incumbents who are part of the Favor Factory at the State Capitol (and the open-seat candidates seeking to join them) have plenty of PAC money to spend on big color postcards, billboards, robocalls and robotexts, and, more recently, radio and TV ads, telling you how wonderfully conservative they are. There was a time when there were trusted voices on local radio who could dissect these ads and evaluate their claims against the actual record. Those voices are all gone now. (As happy as I am to hear Michael DelGiorno's voice in the mornings on 1300, he doesn't fulfill the need for a local talk radio host; he isn't going to be giving air time to this year's Tulsa City Council elections.)

I have a few handy heuristics for evaluating the veracity of candidates and campaign materials. I'm willing to entertain proof of exceptions, but if any of the following are true, I assume the campaign flyer is shading the truth to mislead or deceive me:

• Has the acronym "CAMP" on the bulk mail permit.
• Was paid for by a dark-money group that has no online information about its founders, leaders, or funders.

And likewise, I make a rebuttable presumption that a candidate is not going to be looking out for our interests and may already be corrupt, or on a slippery slope to that condition, if his campaign finance reports show:

• Large sums of money paid to Campaign Advocacy Management Professionals (CAMP)
• Large contributions from large numbers of special-interest PACs
• Large contributions from tribal governments

As I said, there may be and have been exceptions, but the purpose of a heuristic is to give you a good starting point for further evaluation.

MORE: I've added a last-minute update to my Corporation Commission post, remembering Brian Bingman's betrayal of conservatives on the State Senate's 2014 passage for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

To quote myself from a few years back:

There's one statewide race that ought to matter more than any other to Oklahoma voters. That's the race for a seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC). In addition to overseeing Oklahoma's oil and gas industry, the OCC regulates public utilities like PSO, ONG, and AT&T (formerly Southwestern Bell).

Considering the amount of money at stake in the OCC's decisions on utility rates, the commission is ripe for corruption. And indeed, in the late '80s and early '90s, the FBI investigated bribery allegations involving the OCC. Corporation Commissioner Bob Hopkins, a Democrat, was convicted of bribery and sent to jail, as was utility lobbyist Bill Anderson. The culture of corruption at the OCC was cracked open because, in 1989, a newly-elected commissioner went to Feds when Anderson offered him cash.

That commissioner was Bob Anthony, a man of honesty and fairness. In Anthony, Oklahoma's utility ratepayers have someone who is looking out for their interests. Regulated companies, whether large or small, get a fair shake from Bob Anthony.

Now Bob Anthony has been term-limited after 36 years looking our for the interests of Oklahoma residents and scrutinizing the claims of our monopoly utility companies on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Three Republicans, a Republican-turned-Democrat, and a Libertarian are running to replace him.

I'll refer you to Oklahoma Constitution's thorough story on the race and the candidates and add a few more links and comments.

Bob Anthony has endorsed Russell Ray, a journalist who spent decades covering the energy industry for newspapers and industry publications. He is currently director of communications for the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education. Ray shares Anthony's concerns over the way utilities passed costs related to 2021's winter storm on to consumers.

The front-runner in terms of fundraising is PAC-backed Brian Bingman, former State Senate President Pro-Tempore. Bingman ran against Bob Anthony in 2018. His failure (along with Gov. Mary Fallin and leadership in the State House) to use political capital to reform state government and abolish and consolidate obsolete agencies and cut wasteful spending brought the state to the fiscal crisis of 2018. Bingman's backers put up enough money to force Anthony into a runoff, which Anthony won handily. 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.

As of the June 3, 2024, pre-primary contributions and expenditures report, Bingman had raised $399,096.21, of which $60,500.66 came from PACs. By contrast, Russell Ray has only raised $1,575.00, all from individuals, and covered another $1,127.50 from his own pocket.

The Oklahoma Constitution story notes that Bingman "was one of the more moderate Republicans in the Legislature with a cumulative average of 59% on the Oklahoma Conservative Index published by the Oklahoma Constitution. He scored only 40% in his final session in 2016." [Link added.] That's a polite way of saying that Bingman bent over backwards for corporate welfare.

OK Energy Today has an informative interview with Russell Ray from April, in which Ray discusses the problem with the OCC becoming an extension of legislative leadership (which, although Ray leaves it unsaid, is owned and operated by lobbyists).

"Quite frankly I think the credibility of the commission is at stake and I think adding another member of the political establishment to the commission will make things only worse."...

Some have suggested the Corporation Commission is becoming a retirement home for former legislative leaders. Chairman Todd Hiett is a former Speaker of the House and commissioner Kim David was the Oklahoma Senate Majority Floor Leader during her last years before being term limited. If Bingman were elected, it would mean three former legislative leaders would make up the commission.

"I am my own man," declared Ray in the interview with OK Energy Today. "I do think the balance between the concerns of consumers and the concerns of business is out of balance. I think right now, the balance favors the business over the consumer--that's not good."

He went on to indicate he believes the Corporation Commisson needs to do a better job of striking the right balance betwen those two concerns and be more fair to both sides.

Russell Ray's deep knowledge of the oil & gas and power industries means he'll be able to ask incisive questions of the businesses who come before the OCC.

Ray spent his career as a journalist who covered oil and gas for the Tulsa World for 8 years and was a business reporter for the Tampa Tribune and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He also spent 9 years as Chairman of POWER- GEN International, which is the sponsor of the largest trade show for the power sector in the world. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of Power Engineering magazine.

Power Engineering is the world's largest business-to-business magazine for the power sector, serving more than 70,000 readers. Ray was responsible for all editorial content, including a regular column he wrote on energy policy, pricing and technology.

Ray was also editor of the Journal Record in Oklahoma City.

"I've written about everything, I've covered everything. I understand the trends in technology, trends in pricing and trends in policy--my point is, I think someone with that kind of knowledge and skillset is more qualified than a career politician."

Ray addresses a threat to public transparency that is backed by the two ex-legislative leaders on the Commission:

"This bill would allow commissioners to meet behind closed doors to talk about public business--I've got a big, big problem with that and every Oklahoman should have a problem with that--the risk for abuse is great."

The candidate raised the question--if HB2367 becomes law, what will stop the legislature and others from doing the same thing for every city council or school board? As written, the bill only applies to the Corporation Commission, but questions have been raised that other three-member agencies might want the same power and lead to more legislative leniency.

"This would set a dangerous precedent for the entire state when it comes to open government."

County Commissions also have only three members. I'd rather see the number of commissioners increased than for them to be exempt from the Open Meetings Law.

You'll want to read the whole article for a discussion of 2021's Winter Storm Uri and the costs that utilities have palmed off on consumers, but here's the pull quote:

"The Commission has passed on billions of dollars in higher fuel costs and higher rate increases to consumers over the last three years I think with little or no scrutiny," he declared on the same day that Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony filed more objections to the one-page audit of PSO's storm costs.

A vote for Brian Bingman is a vote for total regulatory capture. A vote for Russell Ray is a vote for at least one voice on the OCC in favor of public accountability and transparency in the regulation of our utility rates and the oil and gas industry, with a hope for a majority on the side of accountability and transparency after the 2026 election.

UPDATE:

I had forgotten one very significant betrayal of conservative principles by Brian Bingman. In 2014, as Senate President Pro Tempore (leader of that chamber), Bingman allowed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to reach the floor of the State Senate, but he voted for it, and it passed with considerable Republican support. Under Brian Bingman's misleadership, the Oklahoma Senate was the first Red State legislative chamber to back the Left's plan to let Blue Cities (and their fraud-prone electoral practices) dominate presidential elections.

Justin Hornback, the other Republican in the race to replace Bob Anthony, reached out to me via Facebook, politely asking why I endorsed Russell Ray, despite Hornback receiving the endorsements of OK2A and OKHPR. He certainly would be preferable to Brian Bingman, and Hornback says that he has power generation industry experience as well as oil and gas experience, but I put a lot of stock in Bob Anthony's endorsement.

Karen Keith is running for Mayor of Tulsa, and seven candidates are running to replace her as Tulsa County Commissioner for District 2, three Republicans, three Democrats, and one independent.

The three Republicans are Tulsa District 2 City Councilor Jeannie Cue (sister of Keith's predecessor Randi Miller), District 68 State Representative Lonnie Sims, and small business owner Melissa Myers. The three Democrats are former Tulsa District 4 City Councilor Maria Barnes, Karen Keith's chief deputy Jim Rea, and public relations agent Sarah Gray. Josh Turley, who was the Republican nominee in 2016 and 2020, is running as an independent this year.

In the Republican primary, I'm voting for Melissa Myers. She is a graduate of Berryhill High School, married with two children, and with her husband and another couple owns Christ Centered Lawn and Landscape. The company provided Christmas lighting this year for the rooflines of Sand Springs' historic downtown buildings.

While all three GOP candidates live within some city's limits, Myers lives in the Prattville section of Sand Springs, the closest of the Republican candidates to the large unincorporated regions of the district, where residents are entirely dependent upon county government for road maintenance and law enforcement.

Myers has been endorsed by Oklahomans for the Second Amendment (OK2A) and Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights. KRMG's Russell Mills interviewed Melissa Myers in February after she announced her candidacy.

Myers got her political feet wet when she advocated for keeping at least part of the Gilcrease Turnpike free. While she wasn't successful in the effort, it gave her experience in the conflict between local needs and the priorities of government agencies. One of Myers's priorities is transparency in the county commissioner's office and the operations of the budget board.

As a city councilor, Jeannie Cue devotes a great deal of time to being attentive to the needs of the neighborhoods in her district, and I'm sure that would carry over to the County Commission. Where she falls short is as a watchdog.

(Here is Jeannie Cue's interview with KRMG.)

A prime example is when the Tulsa City Council approved federal COVID recovery grant money to fund a sex survey targeting teenagers as young as 15. When I raised the issue at a meeting of the Tulsa Area Republican Assembly where Cue was present, she was very concerned to hear that the survey was being promoted on the Tulsa Parks Facebook page, and she made some phone calls the following day, resulting in the deletion of the Tulsa Parks Facebook post. She was kind enough to follow up with me as well.

Here's the problem: Jeannie Cue was a member of the four-member council committee (with Phil Lakin, Lori Decter Wright, and Vanessa Hall Harper) that "vetted" the non-profit applications, including that of Amplify Tulsa. She had the opportunity to flag this grant as a misuse of public money, particularly money intended to help Tulsans recover from the COVID shutdowns, but there's no indication that she raised an objection. Her shocked reaction when I discussed the grant at the TARA meeting suggests that she didn't exercise due care and attention when it had been before the committee.

When we elect someone to a seat at the table in government, it's reasonable to expect her to use her position to investigate and scrutinize government on our behalf, through the lens of the priorities and values of the voters who elected her. Councilor Cue has demonstrated that she's not very good at that.

The third Republican candidate is State Rep. Lonnie Sims, whose House district covers much of the County Commission district west of the Arkansas River. Sims is the big-money candidate in the race, and he has an abysmal voting record at the State Capitol. In the Oklahoma Constitution's Conservative Index of 10 key votes for the 2023 legislative session, Sims scored 40%, a failing grade, and his career average was 61%, reflecting his support for corporate welfare. (Does a billionaire-owned NBA team really need special tax breaks?) Sims has a lifetime average of 59% on OCPA's Legislative Scorecard, which records Sims's support for the interests of tribal officials over the general public and his backing of bills to undermine Oklahoma's anti-SLAPP law. He's using the same campaign consultants that are supporting Democrat Karen Keith's bid for mayor.

I encourage Democrats in Commission District 2 to vote for Maria Barnes. As a city councilor for four years in my district, Barnes represented the interests of homeowners and neighborhoods over special interests; that's why she was targeted for defeat in 2008 and again in 2011, by means of big money and (in 2011) Dewey Bartlett Jr's gerrymander. I've described her as a neighborhood servant whose years in the trenches with the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Association and the Midtown Coalition of Neighborhood Associations shaped her into an effective elected official, a true public servant. Although we disagree on many national political issues, Maria and I share many concerns about the way local government bodies treat their citizens. I appreciate her frankness. She's willing to take a principled stand and not back down under pressure. As a county commissioner, she would not be anyone's fool.

Jim Rea, Karen Keith's chief deputy, bought a house in the district barely in time to meet the six-month residency requirement, and his candidacy was challenged by his Democrat opponents on the basis that ownership alone doesn't constitute residency. The state law defining residence is fairly loose, so the county election board had to allow him to remain on the ballot, but voters may and should take his short tenure in the district into account. Rea's LinkedIn profile indicates that he's only been back in Tulsa for about five years, serving for the last two as Keith's chief deputy.

Sarah Gray's website gives the impression that she's a caring person who doesn't understand the duties and powers of the office she seeks.

BatesLine endorsed Josh Turley during his two attempts to unseat Karen Keith. Turley has a doctorate in organizational leadership, had a distinguished 24-year career at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, serving as the TCSO's first civilian crime scene investigator and developing the department's first Risk Management program, which succeeded in reducing car accidents involving deputies and tort claim payouts. Turley independently developed policies and procedures to be used by smaller sheriff's offices and county jails to improve performance and minimize risk. As an independent candidate, Turley will not be on the ballot until November.

Here are the campaign finance reports filed by the candidates to date with the Tulsa County Election Board. Note that only Sims and Rea filed the pre-primary contributions and expenditures report that was due yesterday. Cue and Myers filed contributions and expenditures reports covering the first quarter of 2024. Barnes and Gray have yet to file a contributions and expenditures report.

• Jeannie Cue: Statement of Organization, Continuing Report of Contributions
• Melissa Myers: Statement of Organization, Contributions and Expenditures
• Lonnie Sims: Statement of Organization, Contributions and Expenditures
• Maria Barnes: Statement of Organization
• Sarah Gray: Statement of Organization
• Jim Rea: Statement of Organization, Contributions and Expenditures

MORE: Cheryl Wilburg recorded and posted most of the county commissioner debate sponsored by the Tulsa County GOP, after the live feed started having problems.

UPDATE 2024/05/29: Brent VanNorman has announced that he is running for mayor and will be holding a campaign kickoff Thursday evening, May 30, 2024. And see below for his comment regarding his business and ESG.

This past Wednesday, Jayme Fowler, 65, City Councilor for District 9, announced his withdrawal from the race for Mayor of Tulsa. Fowler is a registered Republican who entered the race last September. In an interview with KRMG, Fowler cited polling data and difficulty raising money and said that he didn't see a path to victory.

Fowler plans to complete his term but will not switch to running for re-election to his council seat. Former state representative Carol Bush and Julie Dunbar have both filed campaign contribution and expenditure reports for the District 9 seat with the Tulsa City Clerk. Dunbar is the wife of former Tulsa District 8 City Councilor Todd Huston. Both candidates are registered Republicans.

In his first quarter campaign filings, Fowler reported raising $126,865 through March 31, 2024, lending $119,500 to his own campaign, and carrying over $29,585 that he had lent his previous city council campaign, and spending $145,230 to that date on his mayoral campaign. Maximum donors in his latest report included Robert Zinke, Aaron Dillard of First Pryority Bank, Sanjay Meshri, Tom Bloomfield, and Robert Austin.

Unusually, Fowler had actually paid himself back $45,500 of his September 10, 2023, $50,000 loan to the campaign, making repayments through December 28, 2023. The typical pattern is that an unsuccessful candidate never gets paid back, while a successful candidate expects to raise money after the election from donors who hope to get into his good graces.

Fowler spent his campaign funds with Tomahawk Strategies ($61,141.92) for campaign management and consulting, Jacob Parra ($12,884.85) for campaign management, Zack Lissau ($6,000) for social media management, Patriot Reporting ($4,750) for campaign treasury services.

By contrast, Democrat County Commissioner Karen Keith raised $522,173 through March 31, but had only spent $137,043.96. Her major campaign vendors are James Martin Co ($43,997.59) for fundraising consulting, Campaign Advocacy Management Professionals LLC (CAMP) ($28,726.34) for strategic consulting, printing, website, and social media, CMA Strategies ($25,700.00) for polling, and Corey Abernathy ($16,000.00) as campaign manager.

Democrat state representative Monroe Nichols, 40, raised $318,097.19 through the 1st Quarter, and spent $278,381.83. Major vendors include Management Personnel Xchange LLC of Merrifield VA ($100,470.39) for campaign management, New Blue Interactive of Bethesda MD ($50,192.50) for digital fundraising, William H. Blanton, Jr., ($34,674.00) for fundraising consulting), Interak Corporation ($7,200.00) for office rent, Campaign Technology Professionals ($4,380.00) for bookkeeping & ethics compliance), HIT Strategies of Washington DC ($5,575.00) for polling services.

Two candidates have not been in the race long enough to have filed campaign contributions and expenditures reports.

Casey Bradford, 32, Army veteran and owner of Shady Keys Dueling Piano Bar,
entered the race in late April. He registered to vote in Tulsa County in May 2023 and is registered at an address in Sun Meadow that, according to Tulsa County Assessor records, is owned by Affluent Allianz Realty and does not have a homestead exemption.

Bradford is a member of PPE Supplies, LLC, which was formed on March 23, 2020, and contracted with the Oklahoma State Department of Health to supply N95 masks. In April 2021, the state sued Bradford and PPE Supplies. According to filings in the case, OSDH paid PPE Supplies a deposit of $2.125 million for purchase orders totaling 1.9 million masks; PPE Supplies only supplied 10,000 masks, and reimbursed the state $300,000, claiming that the remaining funds had been paid to vendors and was due to be reimbursed. Bradford and PPE Supplies filed a third-party petition against companies based in Kuwait, Cambodia, China, and Washington State, with documents showing that $1.74 million had been wired by PPE Supplies to these companies. Documents attached to the third-party suit indicate that PPE Supplies learned on May 6, 2020, that the promised masks had instead been sent to Mongolia, and PPE Supplies began to work through its attorney to recover the funds from the international suppliers. The COVID-19 March 2020 panic led many states to go outside of their normal purchasing processes to acquire N95 masks, ventilators, and other medical and protective equipment. An order by U. S. District Judge Claire Eagan in a related federal case contains a narrative of the controversy and sheds some light on the connections between the parties.

Brent VanNorman, 63, who had previously declared for District 2 City Council, is expected to announce a switch to run for mayor. Although he registered as a Republican voter in Tulsa County in September 2021, he is president of TriLinc Global, an investment company based in Manhattan Beach, California, which uses Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) screening for its investments. Leftists have used ESG investing to place financial pressure on oil and gas companies and manufacturers of personal firearms and ammunition and to force companies to adopt woke approaches to hiring and promotion. Where leftists have failed to get laws and regulations passed to enforce their agenda, they have had some success with pressure via large institutional investors pushing ESG. Basically, ESG is an indirect way for the Left to attack access to affordable energy and the freedom of movement that goes with it and our exercise of our Second Amendment rights.

UPDATE 2024/05/29: Brent VanNorman reached out with this information on his company: "I can assure you I am a solid conservative. The ESG that TriLinc uses is nothing similar to the likes of BlackRock. We simply use it as a negative screen to ensure that we are not investing in companies that are involved in pornography, gambling, illegal drugs, child labor, etc. TriLinc was founded and is run by people that are very conservative."

VanNorman's voter registration address as of 2022 was at an apartment at The Enclave at Brookside. His current address is near Tulsa Hills, which, according to Tulsa County Assessor records, was sold to the VanNorman Revocable Trust on March 1, 2023; no homestead exemption is shown.

Candidates for mayor, all 9 city council seats, and city auditor will formally file to be on the 2024 ballot Monday, June 10, through Wednesday, June 12, at the Tulsa County Election Board, 555 N. Denver Ave. For races that draw more than two candidates, a primary will be held concurrent with the Oklahoma primary runoff election on August 2024; the city general election will coincide with the federal and state general election on November 5, 2024.

Several Tulsa County legislative seats are open because of term limits, so the Tulsa County Republican Party is hosting a series of debates for contested primaries for State House and State Senate. I will be moderating the Senate 25 debate on May 30th. (Debates for HD 67 and SD 33 have already taken place.) All debates will begin at 6 pm and end at 8 pm.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024, 6 pm - 8 pm
House District 79
Hicks Park Community Center

Candidates:

• Jenifer Stevens
• Paul Hassink

Thursday, May 30, 2024, 6 pm - 8 pm
Senate District 25
Hardesty Library

Candidates:

• Jeff Boatman
• Brian Guthrie

Monday, June 10, 2024, 6 pm - 8 pm
Senate District 37 & House District 68 (Separately)
The Hive (Jenks)

Candidates (SD37):

• Cody Rogers
• Aaron Reinhardt

Candidates (HD68):

• Mike Lay
• Jonathan Grable

Published February 29, 2024. Postdated to keep it at the top of the page until the polls close.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024, is Oklahoma's presidential primary. On election day, polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. You'll be able to cast an early ballot at one or more locations in each county at the following times, which includes Saturday as it's a federal election:

• Thursday, February 29, 2024: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Friday, March 1, 2024: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday, March 2, 2024: 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Tulsa County will have early voting at Fair Meadows, 4609 E. 21st Street. This is a brand new location for early voting. Wagoner County, which will be voting on eight propositions affecting a total of 1.8 cents in county sales tax as well as a 5% lodging tax, has two early-voting locations: NSU Broken Arrow Campus, 3100 E New Orleans St., and First Baptist Church, Wagoner, 401 NE 2nd Street.

If you need help finding your polling place, or if you'd like to study a sample ballot before you go, the Oklahoma State Election Board has a one-stop-shop online voter tool. Put in your name and date of birth, and they'll look you up in the database, find your polling place and show you a photo of it and a map, will let you see a printable sample ballot, and, if you're voting absentee, it will show you when your ballot arrived at your county election board. Many precinct boundaries have changed since the last presidential cycle, and precinct locations may have changed very recently, so double-check before you head for the polls, and don't forget to bring your photo ID.

The presidential preference primary is the only thing on the ballot in Tulsa County. Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians all have a presidential primary, and Democrats have invited independent voters to vote in their primary.

By party in order of filing:

Republican:

• Donald J. Trump, 77, Palm Beach, FL, former President
• Nikki Haley, 51, Kiawah Island, SC, former Governor of South Carolina and Ambassador to the United Nations
• Ron DeSantis, 45, Tallahassee, FL, Governor of Florida and former congressman
• Chris Christie, 61, Mendham, NJ, former Governor of New Jersey
• Ryan L. Binkley, 56, Dallas, TX, pastor and entrepreneur
• David Stuckenberg, 42, Tampa, FL, founder and CEO of tech company
• Asa Hutchinson, 73, Rogers, AR, former Governor of Arkansas
• Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, Columbus, OH, pharmaceutical company founder

Democrat:

• Dean Phillips, 54, Wayzata, MN, congressman
• Joseph R Biden Jr, 81, Wilmington, DE, current resident of the White House
• Armando Mando Perez-Serrato, 47, Orange, CA. Mando doesn't say much about himself, but has strong opinions about his Democratic opponents.
• Marianne Williamson, 71, Washington, DC, novelist
• Stephen Lyons, 62, Damascus, MD, plumbing company owner
• Cenk Uygur, 53, Los Angeles, CA, blogger and podcaster

Libertarian:

Jacob Hornberger, 73, Broadlands, VA, lawyer, president of the Future of Freedom Foundation
Chase Oliver, 38, Atlanta, GA, self-described activist

Joseph "Joe Exotic Tiger King" Maldonado is running for president as a Democrat from federal prison in Texas, but he is not on the Oklahoma ballot.

The Green Papers has the nitty-gritty of delegate allocation rules for Oklahoma Republicans and Democrats. In a nutshell, Democrat delegates are allocated proportionally for each congressional district and statewide, but a candidate must have at least 15% of the vote to receive any delegates. Republicans use a semi-proportional method in each congressional district (3 delegates each): If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, he gets all the delegates in that jurisdiction. If two candidates get more than 15%, the one with the most votes gets 2 delegates and 2nd place gets 1. If three candidates get more than 15% all three get a delegate. The 28 statewide at-large delegates are allocated proportionally among candidates who have at least 15% of the vote, but if any candidate gets more than 15% of the vote, he gets all 28. It's possible, if a big enough proportion of the vote goes to candidates with less than 15% of the vote, for some number of uncommitted delegates to be allocated.

I will be voting for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary. More about that in another entry. I encourage Wagoner County voters to defeat the eight tax proposals on their ballot and demand that their county commissioners consult with the public before putting a massive tax increase on the ballot.

In my pre-presidential primary post, I provide a detailed explanation of the delegate allocation process for Oklahoma. As I mentioned in the same post, I am voting for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Oklahoma Republican Primary.

A BatesLine reader asked me why the names of so many candidates are still going to be on the ballot, even though some dropped out weeks ago. The ballot was set in stone shortly after the end of the filing period in early December. It takes time to design and print ballots and to program ballot scanners to correctly tabulate that ballot design. Absentee ballots have to go out early, particularly for Oklahomans serving in the military. There's no time to reprint ballots. Ever year we've had a presidential primary, we've had no-longer active candidates on the ballot, and we often have barely- or never-active candidates running for city, county, and state offices. Even if a candidate isn't sending mail pieces or doing robocalls, you're still allowed to vote for him or her.

You might think that all this is moot. We appear to be headed for a Trump-Biden rematch. All but three of the Republican candidates (Trump, Haley, Stuckenburg) have suspended their campaigns. There hasn't been a serious primary challenge to an incumbent president since 1992, and only in the unusual circumstances of 1976, with an unelected incumbent, did a challenge have a real shot at succeeding. The Oklahoma County Republican Party is hosting an Official Trump Victory Party tomorrow night, a significant departure from the mandatory neutrality expected of party organizations during an active primary campaign.

But in the grand sweep of American history, the idea that you must actively campaign for president is a relative novelty. In 1952, within living memory, Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't give his first campaign speech until June 4, after the last primary had already been held. Eisenhower couldn't engage in partisan political activity until then; he was still on active duty as commander of NATO forces in Europe until May 31.

Democratic Party rule changes after 1968 began the movement toward binding primaries that put a premium on expensive mass media spending, but it wasn't until the advent of Super Tuesday in 1988 that the weight of the nominating process shifted definitively from caucuses and conventions to primaries. It was not unreasonable, as recently as 1968, for the incumbent president not to bother filing for primaries or to actively campaign.

Recently, Tara Ross wrote of the reluctance with which George Washington accepted his election to the presidency. Electors were elected in some states by popular vote and were appointed by the legislature in others, and each elector, at that time, cast two ballots. Every elector cast one of his ballots for Washington, with John Adams winning a majority of the remaining ballots, scattered among 11 candidates. None of the candidates actively campaigned for office. Electors cast their ballots for Washington not knowing if he would accept.

The vision of the Framers of the Constitution was that citizens would choose a trusted and knowledgeable neighbor from their city or region to represent them in the Electoral College, and that electors from each state would deliberate and cast ballots for the public servant best equipped to head serve as Chief Executive of the federal government. No campaigning would be necessary, because the electors would have the solemn obligation and privilege to research possible candidates, their successes and failures, their strengths and flaws. Ideally, ambition-driven campaigning would be viewed as unseemly and disqualifying.

But now presidential candidates must raise tens of millions of dollars and begin campaign efforts as soon as the midterm elections are over. To win the nomination, you must win primaries, which means you must reach a vast number of primary voters who are barely paying attention, and to get their attention you need money for TV ads, direct mail, robocalls and robotexts, and people to manage all of that, plus the ground game. Underperforming expectations in an early state means the money dries up; donors are no longer willing to invest in your future prospects.

In 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis managed to win re-election by 20 percentage points in what had been a purple state (remember 2000?), while the expected "Red Wave" failed to materialize anywhere else. DeSantis used his power as governor effectively to accomplish a conservative agenda, removing two Soros-backed district attorneys who refused to prosecute crimes, dismantling DEI bureaucracies at the state's universities, re-creating the state's New College as a classical liberal arts college with a governing board filled with conservative thinkers like anti-woke campaigner Christopher Rufo, and defied the mighty Disney Corporation. While Trump was celebrating the vaccine he fast-tracked, DeSantis's appointed state Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, issued a caution for young men because of a higher risk of heart-related adverse effects.

At the heart of all of these DeSantis successes was a focus on results: understanding and wielding the authority that the voters had granted him to accomplish the priorities that he had promised the voters, hiring and appointing people with the intelligence, diligence, and character to accomplish the goals he set. You do not hear DeSantis or his fans making excuses for failure, mainly because he hasn't had many failures; DeSantis just gets things done.

DeSantis's polling lead began to disappear as partisan prosecutors began filing case after case attempting to put former president Donald Trump in prison or at least off of the ballot. Understandably but mistakenly, many Republican voters felt that the only way to defy politically motivated misuses of the justice system was to rally behind Trump. Trump and his allies attacked DeSantis's admirable record, minimizing his achievements and even making wild and ridiculous false claims (e.g., the guy who ousted two Soros DAs is somehow Soros's puppet). Trump ran to DeSantis's left on abortion, transgenderism, and woke Disney.

Trump and his followers asserted that Trump did not need to earn the 2024 GOP nomination but was owed it. DeSantis was accused of what seems to be the greatest crime in the opinion of too many: Being disloyal to Trump. To these people, it doesn't matter who would be the most effective Republican nominee and conservative chief executive: Loyalty, not to principle, not even to a party, but to one man, is the supreme virtue and disloyalty the unforgivable sin.

I rarely take time to watch movies -- I tend to unwind with a classic sitcom episode -- but a couple of months ago during a business trip, I took the time to re-watch a film I had seen and enjoyed, The Death of Stalin, Armando Ianucci's dark comedy about the power struggle around the demise of the murderous Soviet leader, starring Jeffrey Tambour as Gyorgy Malenkov and Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev. I followed it up with Downfall, a German-language dramatization of the final days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker, based in part on the account of the young woman who was the genocidal dictator's personal secretary.

Shortly after the latter film was released, there was a frequently recurring video meme that repurposed the scene where Hitler has a conniption after the generals tell him that the remaining armies are unable to come to the rescue; new subtitles were added to adapt the scene to imagine various famous people reacting to bad news, for example, Hillary Clinton learning that she is about to lose the 2008 Democratic nomination for president to Barack Obama (language warning). Hilarious adaptations aside, Downfall is an enthralling, thought-provoking film.

The common element in the two movies is that, despite the terminal weakness of Dear Leader -- Stalin has had a stroke and lost control of his bladder and bowels, Hitler reigns over less than a square mile of territory and will soon kill himself -- his minions fall all over themselves to affirm their loyalty. These appear to be men of intelligence and leadership, they see that Dear Leader is leading the nation to disaster, there are enough of them to band together and push him out of power -- and yet they cannot break free. In Death of Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov (played by Michael Palin) loudly denounces his wife for crimes against the state and justifies dead Stalin's decision to imprison and presumably execute her, right until the moment she walks back through the door of their flat.

Now, Donald Trump is no genocidal autocrat, and he did a great deal of good during his term of office, but these movies brought to mind the cult of personality that has surrounded him and which he actively encourages. Nothing Trump does is ever a mistake. It may seem like a mistake that he appointed numerous cabinet members whom he now denounces as disloyal idiots, but really he is playing 10-dimensional chess and only seeming to fail in order to expose the swamp. Elected officials, hoping for a share of the public adulation Trump enjoys, fall all over themselves to praise Trump, to claim his endorsement, and to make excuses for him. Trump made many unforced errors, but he does not show any indication of having learned from his mistakes to become a more strategic, focused, and self-disciplined leader.

The November election may very well end up as a rematch between Trump and Biden (or more likely, the Democrats will replace Biden after Trump is officially nominated by the Republican National Convention), but for now we have a much better choice on tomorrow's primary ballot.

If enough of us who understand that Ron DeSantis is the best choice vote for him, he can win delegates to the national convention. Maybe God will bless us, as He has blessed Florida, with better leadership than we deserve.

In addition to Oklahoma's presidential preference primary on March 5, 2024, a small number of local jurisdictions will have propositions: Haskell, Norman, Oilton (2), Dewey County, Logan County (3), McIntosh County, Major County, and Sharon-Mutual Public Schools (Dewey & Woodward Counties). One school district, Mannsville in Carter & Johnston Counties, has a special election for an unexpired board seat.

The longest ballot will be in Wagoner County, which has eight propositions relating to county sales taxes:

• Proposition No. 1: Make permanent the temporary 0.80% for operations and road and bridge improvements, originally approved in 2017
• Proposition No. 2: Make permanent the temporary 0.10% for Sheriff Office capital outlay and operations, originally approved in 2017
• Proposition No. 3: Make permanent the temporary 0.10% for General Fund purposes, originally approved in 2017
• Proposition No. 4: Repurpose half of the permanent 0.30% fire tax approved in 2004 to establish and provide ambulance service.
• Proposition No. 5: 0.125% for 30 years for courthouse facilities
• Proposition No. 6: 0.25% permanent for jail facilities and operations
• Proposition No. 7: 0.125% for 30 years for fairgrounds facilities
• Proposition No. 8: 5% lodging tax in unincorporated areas for parks and recreational facilities

Proponents call the package "Half a Penny for Wagoner County," referring to the new taxes in propositions 5, 6, and 7, but not considering the increase in taxes resulting from making a penny in temporary taxes permanent. The Wagoner County website has a PowerPoint with details on each proposition "for educational purposes only... does not imply an endorsement."

Some opposition has arisen, pointing out that this amounts to a 38% increase in the county's sales tax rate, from 1.3 cents to 1.8 cents on the dollar. That's on top of the state 4.5% sales tax and any city sales taxes. A group called Taxed Enough Already (TEA) points out that this will push total sales tax rates in the cities of Coweta and Wagoner up to 10.3%. Compare that to the combined 8.417% we pay in the City of Tulsa. While Gov. Stitt just signed a bill eliminating the state sales taxes on groceries, to go into effect in August, city and county sales taxes will continue to be imposed on necessities.

John Dobberstein of the Broken Arrow Sentinel has a detailed report on the Wagoner County propositions, specifically on a presentation made by Wagoner County Engineer Rachael Cooper to the Broken Arrow City Council. "Cooper admitted no public hearings had been scheduled about the tax proposals but they would be forthcoming in the next 60 days." The same article has links to the ballot resolutions approved by the Wagoner County Commission and notes the haste with which the propositions were moved forward.

District 1 Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning said information was given to him about the propositions the morning of a recent County Commission meeting and he was asked to vote to whether approve the language with no prior knowledge.

Hanning said he didn't know how the numbers were created but he was unsure 0.8% would be satisfactory or even enough to maintain roads in the county.

"We all, as well as Broken Arrow see the destruction of our roads and how much more it's costing us to fix them. So I don't know where the numbers came from. I'm simply telling you they were never presented to me," he told the Broken Arrow City Council after Cooper's presentation to them.

Firefighters in rural fire districts are unhappy that their permanent earmarked revenue stream is going to be cut in half (emphasis added).

Everyone agrees Wagoner County needs an ambulance service, and service should be improved across the county, but firefighters say taking away funds their departments rely on would hurt their ability to maintain equipment, attend training, or recruit and retain firefighters.

On Monday night, firefighters asked County Commissioner Christina Edwards about what data supports the cut.

Edwards, who supports the ballot measure, was unable to answer the question.

The community also asked County Commissioner Tim Kelly, who also supports the proposal, the same question in a separate meeting.

His response was, "I get it. That's all you need to know."

Kelly was asked if he could provide the statistics and he said he could if he wanted to....

Another concern firefighters have is the county acknowledges never consulting any of the fire departments before proposing the idea.

I don't live in Wagoner County, but I would be reluctant to approve a permanent earmarked tax or any temporary tax longer than 5 years duration, as it eliminates opportunities for rebalancing revenues and priorities as costs and needs change. The need for Proposition No. 4 illustrates the hazard: Those who believe that the 0.30% fire district sales tax is generating more revenue than needed for that purpose now have to fight the holders of the concentrated benefit to repurpose the tax.

It's sketchy, to put it mildly, to schedule a sales tax election on a low-turnout date, with no hearings prior to the vote to put the propositions on the ballot and even one of the County Commissioners apparently kept in the dark. That kind of behavior by elected officials shouldn't be rewarded by the voters.

MORE:

KTUL: Wagoner County's 'half a penny campaign' draws debate over real cost of tax propositions
KOTV: Special Election In Wagoner County Could Impact Sales Tax
Group of Wagoner County residents holds rally against proposed sales tax increase

ELECTION RESULTS: Tulsa County school district bond issues all passed by a wide margin, each proposition exceeding 80% in favor. School bond issues fell short of the 60% threshold in Canute, Krebs, Silo, and Tupelo. In Boswell, Tuttle, and Weleetka school districts, a majority of voters voted against the bond propositions.

Worst turnout: Nobody -- zero of 21 registered voters -- in the Billings Public Schools district in Garfield County showed up to vote on adding themselves to the Garfield County 522 Ambulance Service District in the Billings Public Schools district. According to the Enid News, there were four propositions across the county relating to the ambulance service: Voters in the existing ambulance district cast two separate votes to annex into the district the parts of the Billings and Pond Creek-Hunter school districts in Garfield County, approving by 132-6 and 128-7, respectively. Voters in the affected part of Pond Creek-Hunter voted 11-5 in favor. Presumably annexation needed approval from both the existing district and the area to be annexed; with a tie 0-0 vote, it appears that the Billings annexation (about 32.25 sq. mi. in the northeast corner of the county) will not go forward.

In the entire state of Oklahoma, with over 400 school districts, each with at least one seat up for election this year, there were only 22 seats that required a primary because more than two candidates ran. In 13 of those 22 seats, a candidate received more than 50% of the vote and was elected; a runoff between the top two candidates will held for only 9 seats.

This coming Tuesday, February 13, 2024, is Oklahoma's annual school board primary election. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. A list of all of Tuesday's elections across Oklahoma can be found on the Oklahoma State Election Board website. You can access your sample ballot on the election board's Oklahoma voter portal.

As one of 10 election days authorized by law this year, Tuesday is also host to some municipal elections and special elections, including several school district general-obligation bond issues. As in all non-Federal Oklahoma elections, early voting is available the Thursday and Friday before election day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at designated locations; in Tulsa County and most counties, that's at the county election board headquarters.

Only a small percentage of Tulsa County voters will have a reason to go to the polls. The only school board races on the ballot this Tuesday are those that drew three or more candidates. If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote this Tuesday, he or she will be elected; if not, the top two candidates will advance to the school board general election on April 2, 2024, which is where you will find school board elections that have only two candidates.

There are several contested school board seats in Tulsa County, including three in the Tulsa Public Schools district, but all of them drew only two candidates, so you will see them on the ballot in April.

In Tulsa County, there are general obligation bond issues in Bixby, Sand Springs, and Jenks school districts, and a single city council seat each in Collinsville and Sand Springs.

Bixby school bond issues:

• School district web page on the bond issue
• Bixby bond issue Bond Transparency Act disclosure: The district has $192,440,000 left to be paid off from the 2022 and 2016 bond issues.
• Proposition No. 1: $11,500,000 "for the purpose of constructing, equipping, repairing and remodeling school buildings, acquiring school furniture, fixtures and equipment and acquiring and improving school sites"
• Proposition No. 2: $500,000 "for the purpose of purchasing transportation equipment"

Jenks school bond issues:

• School district web page on the bond issue
• Jenks bond issue Bond Transparency Act disclosure: "The School District has 49,945,000 in unissued building bonds authorized at an election held on the 10th day of February 2015." The disclosure lists specific bond expenditures from each election going back to 2019.
• Proposition No. 1: $18,180,000 "for the purpose of constructing, equipping, repairing and remodeling school buildings, acquiring school furniture, fixtures and equipment and acquiring and improving school sites"
• Proposition No. 2: $820,000 "for the purpose of purchasing transportation equipment"

Sand Springs school bond issues:

• School district web page on the bond issue
• Sand Springs bond issue Bond Transparency Act disclosure: The disclosure lists specific bond expenditures from each election going back to 2009. Sand Springs district has $23,308,959 in outstanding bond debt, including principal and interest.
• Proposition No. 1: $111,875,000 "for the purpose of improving or acquiring school sites, constructing, repairing, remodeling and equipping school buildings, and acquiring school furniture, fixtures and equipment; or in the alternative to acquire all or a distinct portion of such property pursuant to a lease purchase arrangement"
• Proposition No. 2: $2,625,000 "for the purpose of acquiring transportation equipment and auxiliary transportation equipment; or in the alternative to acquire all or a distinct portion of such property pursuant to a lease purchase arrangement"

For each candidate, ballot name is followed by full voter registration name in parentheses, if different, then age, party of voter registration, social media profiles and websites.

Collinsville city council, Ward 1:

• Brad Francis (Orville Brad Francis), incumbent, 76, R. LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile.
• Gary Cole (Gary D Cole Sr), 68, R. Facebook profile.

(Larry Shafer was the only candidate for mayor and has been re-elected.)

Sand Springs city council, Ward 4:

• Brian Jackson (Brian Michael Jackson), incumbent, 41, I. LinkedIn, Facebook profile. Jackson ran in the Republican primary for State House District 66 in 2018. He finished 2nd in the primary then lost to Jadine Nollan in the runoff. He changed registration from Republican to Independent sometime between the primary and November 2.
• David B. Parker, 61, R. LinkedIn profile, real estate Facebook page, personal Facebook profile.

(Beau Wilson, Ward 5, and Jim Spoon, at-large, were the only candidates in their respective races and have been re-elected.)

Here's a brief introduction to the six candidates running for three seats Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education, drawing on public information, including filing information, voter registration records, and social media accounts. All addresses are in the City of Tulsa. Because there are only two candidates in each race, each seat will be decided on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. I will add links to this page as more social media accounts are discovered and campaign websites are stood up, and this page will have a link to detailed candidate profiles later in the campaign season.

A brief panic during the filing period suggests nervousness by Tulsa's educational establishment about the outcome of these elections, in the form of letters from Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV, City Councilors Vanessa Hall Harper and Lori Decter Wright, State Rep. Monroe Nichols, and others urging the school board to waive board policy requiring a national search and public input in hiring a replacement for ex-Superintendent Deborah Gist and to hire Interim Superintendent Ebony Johnson to fill the permanent position immediately. The letters claimed to be concerned about local control, which appears to mean foundation control, as opposed to control by a board where three members had been recently endorsed by the voting public.

Following the process set out in board policy would have placed the hiring of a new superintendent after the seating of two or three new board members, resulting in a board that could well have a majority of four or five members who are independent of the private foundations that steered TPS policy during Gist's tenure. As Tulsa Parents Voice has documented, nearly all of the alumni of the Broad (rhymes with "road") Center for the Management of School Systems that populated the upper levels of the TPS org chart have departed this year. (The Broad Center involvement in public education has received criticism across the political spectrum; see these two 2018 articles by Betty Casey in Tulsa Kids. Eli Broad's controlling approach to "venture philanthropy" strongly resembles that taken by certain Tulsa philanthropists.)

Those executive vacancies would have been filled by a new superintendent under a new board majority, but now they can be filled by a long-time TPS administrator with a board majority of four favorable to Gist's failed policies and private foundation direction. Letters from community leaders allowed the current board majority to pretend to be responding to public demand in discarding board policy, bypassing public input and a thorough search for a new district leader. The two elected African-American women on the board, Rev. Jennettie Marshall and E'lena Ashley, voted against making Johnson permanent superintendent. Ms. Ashley commented after the vote on Facebook:

As I commend and congratulate our Dr. Ebony Johnson for her new 'permanent role' as TPS Superintendent, I am conflicted. I consider Dr. Ebony an excellent communicator and she certainly appears to have what it takes to make change.

It also saddens me that we now as the Tulsa Public Schools board have...

• set precedent for Tulsa Public Schools by throwing away the rules in which the board established to ensure we performed our due diligence and ensured we in fact did all in our powers to find the best, most qualified person to lead TPS as Superintendent.
• set precedent to 'Circumvent the Rights' of the very students we are promising to Teach and Protect.

What we're teaching our young children is that when the rules don't fit our needs or agenda, we simply ignore them or find the best most expedient solution to get around them.

That's not how our students should expect their life's decisions to be made and they most certainly shouldn't see the leaders of their schools acting in such nefarious ways.

Here are brief profiles of each of the TPS school board candidates:

TPS Office No. 2:

This is a special election to fill the seat for the remaining year of an unexpired four-year term. Judith Barba Perez was elected to this seat in 2021, winning a three-way primary with 201 votes out of 379 cast. Barba Perez resigned in 2023 after she moved out of Oklahoma, and Diamond Marshall was appointed by the board to replace her until a special election could be held. Diamond Marshall declined to file for election.

Calvin Michael Moniz, 38, 2607 E. 6th St., Independent, Voter ID 720718072. Voted 11 times in the last four years. Did not vote in the February 2021 school board election. Social media: Campaign website, LinkedIn, personal Facebook profile, campaign Facebook page, campaign Instagram, personal Instagram (private, with 1,850 followers and 2,382 posts), campaign Twitter. A personal Twitter account @CalvinMoniz is no longer online. Moniz supported bypassing board policy to make Ebony Johnson permanent superintendent without the required nationwide search and public input.

KanDee N. Washington, 56, 2211 N. Xanthus Ave., Independent, Voter ID 720570162. Voted 5 times in the last four years. Did not vote in the February 2021 school board election. Social media: Campaign Facebook page.

TPS Office No. 5:

This is a regular election. John Croisant won the open seat in 2020, finishing first in the February primary with 44% in a field of five, then narrowly winning the postponed general election in June, 52% to 48% over Shane Saunders, thanks to an 834-vote advantage in absentee ballots and early voting.

John Thomas Croisant, 62 E. Woodward Blvd., Democrat, Voter ID 720699462. Voted 12 times in the last 4 years. Voted in the 2020 primary and general school board elections. Social media: Campaign website, LinkedIn profile, campaign Facebook page, personal Facebook profile, business Facebook page. Croisant voted to bypass board policy and make Ebony Johnson permanent superintendent without the required nationwide search and public input.

Teresa Ann Peña, 1127 S. College Ave., Republican, Voter ID 720206476. Voted 4 times in the last 4 years. Voted in the 2020 general school board election. Social media: Campaign website, LinkedIn profile, campaign Facebook page, personal Facebook profile.

TPS Office No. 6:

This race is for a full four-year term for the open seat currently held by Jerry Griffin, who is not running for re-election. He defeated long-time establishment incumbent Ruth Ann Fate in 2020.

Maria Mercedes Seidler, 7057 E. 52nd St., Republican, Voter ID 801571311. Voted 10 times in the last 4 years, including the 2020 general school board election. Social media: LinkedIn profile, personal Facebook profile, personal Twitter account. Seidler spoke at the December 11 TPS board meeting in favor of following board policy and conducting a nationwide search with public input for a new permanent superintendent.

Sarah Adrianne Smith, 5431 S. 67th East Pl., Democrat, Voter ID 720429536. Voted 9 times in the last 4 years, including the 2020 general school board election. Social media: Campaign website, LinkedIn profile, campaign Facebook page, personal Facebook profile, campaign Twitter account. Smith applauded the school board's decision to bypass board policy to make Ebony Johnson permanent superintendent without the required nationwide search and public input.

UPDATE: At the close of the filing period, we have three contested races for Tulsa school board, and contests for single seats in Berryhill, Owasso, and Union. The remaining 13 seats (including two each in Keystone and Liberty and the Tulsa Tech Center seat), are uncontested. Maria Mercedes Seidler filed for TPS Office No. 6, making that a two-woman contest for the open seat. Alan Staab filed but withdrew for TPS Office No. 5, so there are no Tulsa County contests with more than two candidates, and there will be no February 13 primary; all of these races will be settled on April 2, 2024. (Backup copy of candidate filings.candidatefilings_12082023.pdf)

Today, Wednesday, December 6, 2023, is the final day of filing for school board races in every public school district across Oklahoma. Candidates may file at the county election board until 5 p.m. today.

K-12 school districts will have a single seat, Office No. 4, up for election to a five-year term. K-8 dependent districts (Keystone is the only one in Tulsa County) have three seats that rotate through three-year terms, and also have a single seat on the ballot. Each year one of 7 Technology Center seats is on the ballot for a 7-year term; this year that is Office No. 1.

Tulsa, with 7 board members, has two seats up for a four-year term (No. 5 and No. 6) and the one-year unexpired term of Office No. 2.

After the second day of filing in Tulsa County, 13 seats have drawn only one candidate, 2 seats (Berryhill and Owasso) have drawn two candidates, and in Tulsa Office No. 5, incumbent John Croisant has drawn two challengers. No one has filed for Liberty Office No. 4.

Nor has any candidate filed for the Tulsa Technology Center Office No. 1, not even incumbent Rev. Dr. Ray Owens, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church and a board member of several non-profit organizations. This district mainly covers North Tulsa, from 11th Street South to 86th Street North, mainly west of Yale, plus Gilcrease Hills and neighborhoods just west of downtown.

Filing is also open for a number of municipalities; candidates have filed for city office in Collinsville, Owasso, and Sand Springs.

(Here is the a link to the latest list of candidates for Tulsa County school board and city council seats.)

School board filing always comes at a busy and distracted time of year. As I've written before, it's almost as if school board elections were deliberately scheduled to escape the notice of potential candidates and voters.

The school board primary election will be held on February 13, 2024, for those seats where there are three or more candidates. If no one wins a majority of the vote in the February election, a runoff will be held on April 2, 2024. If a seat draws only two candidates, the election will be held on April 2, 2024.

The Tulsa district, largest in the state, has two out of seven seats up for election to a four-year term, Offices No. 5 and 6, plus the remaining one-year term of Office No. 2, previously held by Judith Barba-Perez, who resigned earlier this year. As mentioned, incumbent John Croisant, first elected in 2020, is being challenged by retired TPS teacher Theresa Pena and Alan Staab. The Board appointed Diamond Marshall to serve District 2 until this year's school elections; the winner of this election will serve just one year. Marshall has not filed for election, but Calvin Michael Moniz has, and Candee Washington is expected to file as well.

Jerry Griffin, the incumbent in District 6, is not expected to run for re-election; he upset 24-year incumbent Ruth Ann Fate in 2020. So far Sarah Smith is the only candidate for that seat. Based on the age (45) listed on the filing, this is Democrat Sarah Adrienne Smith, registered to vote at 5431 S 67 E PL. (I don't know why the filing list omits addresses, which help to disambiguate names. There are 21 Sarah Smiths in Tulsa County, 9 in the Tulsa Public School District, 2 in Election District 6.) Her campaign kickoff was co-hosted by former Tulsa County Democratic Party chairman Keith McArtor. Here is Sarah Smith's personal Facebook profile. She is using the left-wing ActBlue platform for campaign donations.

You'll find a map of Tulsa Public Schools board districts here. District 2 is mainly between Admiral and Pine, with a bit of territory south to 11th Street around TU and Will Rogers High School. Booker T. Washington High School is also within District 2's boundaries. District 5 is mainly midtown west of Yale, around Edison High School, and District 6 is midtown from roughly Yale to Mingo.

Back during the 2019 filing period, I wrote at length about why school board races are so important, why they deserve much more attention than they receive, and why it's a shame that so few candidates run and so few voters turn out. During the pandemic school closures of 2020, parents and the general public began to learn more about what their children were being taught (and often how little they were being taught). More people are alert to what's at stake, and Tulsa has had some very contentious elections in recent years. We're hoping that trend will continue, but with more victories for school board members who will ask tough questions of the administration, who will represent the community's values and priorities, and who will stop the use of schools as missionary outposts for the Gramscian Left.