The Oklahoma Observercast

Who's afraid of state Superintendent Ryan Walters?

The quest to obliterate Oklahoma's strict constitutional prohibition against spending public tax dollars for religious purposes goes to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. State courts ruled the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would violate the Oklahoma Constitution's strict church-state separation that was enshrined at statehood and reaffirmed by a 2016 statewide […]

There are good bills. Bad bills. And bills best described as, well, Grade A cow patties, flies buzzing all around them, the stench wafting across the state. On today's Observercast, Oklahoma City Rep. Mickey Dollens helps unpack one of the 2025 legislative session's worst – SB 1027 – in which a power-hungry Republican supermajority seeks […]

The 2025 Legislature's final eight weeks begin today with a daunting list of constitutionally mandated tasks and of...

Across the land, Democrats are engaged in soul-searching. On a national level, it's the fallout from Donald Trump reclaiming the White House. In Oklahoma, it's the party's superminority status in the Legislature and the fact not a single Democrat holds statewide office. What can – indeed, what must – Democrats do to get back in […]

Gov. Kevin Stitt rode into office in 2019 having rarely voted and with little idea how government worked.

Oklahoma's public health infrastructure worked hand in glove with the first Trump presidency's public health response, complete with the botched unemployment software and rollout as well as preemptively reopening businesses in the spring of 2020. But we might consider something else is going on with the state government's poor oversight of our public health systems: […]

To say Donald Trump is obsessed with immigrants would be an epic understatement. From the moment he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his 2016 presidential campaign through his 2024 bid to reclaim the White House, The Donald hasn't hidden his racism and bigotry and devotion to white nationalism. As he prepares […]

It's official: Oklahoma recorded the nation's lowest age-eligible voter turnout in the November general election – a Code Red warning that our body politic is on life support, if not in a death spiral. Can anything be done to restore the patient to health? One citizens' group, Oklahoma United, thinks it has identified the antidote: […]

In a reality where the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare protections has been rolled back or eliminated nationwide by the disastrous Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision, Oklahoma legislators still manage to work overtime to reduce women's rights from every angle possible. When the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women picked two of the hardest rightwing state […]

It's difficult, if not impossible to keep up with state Superintendent Ryan Walters' antics these days. But we know this much for certain: He's doing everything he can to dismantle the State Department of Education and straight-jacket Oklahoma's K-12 schools with his non-stop social media gaslighting and right-wing media appearances in which he uses public […]

If nothing else, the Oklahoma Legislature's Republican supermajority has proven itself world-class at one thing: virtue signaling. Any piece of legislation they can remotely link to DEI or ESG … anything they can tar-and-feather as “Woke” … anything they think undermines the historical, patriarchal, white status quo … they attack like buzzards feasting on roadkill […]

It took 13 years, but the chickens finally came home to roost for legislative Republicans, who handed Oklahoma governors absolute power over the State Board of Education in response to push-back from Democratic appointees against then-newly minted and wholly unqualified superintendent Janet Barresi. At the time, GOP lawmakers were warned their fit of pique could […]

With the new school year just weeks away, state Superintendent Ryan Walters is busy lobbing one Molotov cocktail after another into Oklahoma's classrooms in pursuit of his Christian Nationalist agenda. For this week's Observercast – A Six Gun Or A Fountain Pen – former social studies teacher-turned-state Rep. John Waldron of Tulsa joins us to […]

When lawmakers adjourned sine die late last month, it wasn't just the end of the 59th Oklahoma Legislature. It was the end of a leadership era, too. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat and House Speaker Charles McCall are two of the longest serving top dawgs in their respective chambers in Oklahoma history – Treat […]

If the 59th Oklahoma Legislature is remembered for anything, it will be its preoccupation with 2SLGBTQ+ folks, especially transgender Oklahomans. This session, more than 50 bills were introduced that the American Civil Liberties Union identified as anti-2SLGBTQ+. Fortunately, few got so much as a hearing. What did gain traction was open hate speech – remember […]

The Oklahoma Legislature's 2024 session has had plenty of headline-grabbing moments: thwarting an attack on judicial independence, undermining The People's initiative powers, embracing a show-me-your-papers expansion of police powers that could target almost anyone who's not lily-white. But it's often the legislation that flies beneath the radar that ends up with the potential to have […]

With the recent death of Owasso High School student Nex Benedict, The Observer is re-posting the August 2023 Observercast in which therapist/counselor Paula Sophia and Freedom Oklahoma's Nicole McAfee call out bigotry and hatred aimed at our 2SLGBTQ+ friends — and offer ways forward to support them. Sophia's and McAfee's powerful, illuminating conversation was recorded […]

Oklahoma legislators have 16 weeks to get it right during the legislative session — to concentrate on the concerns and issues that our state honestly, truly faces — but, if history is any indication, there's a next to zero chance they will. For an overview of the filed legislation and what we might see in the […]

Higher education in Oklahoma took it personally in December when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to “review” all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state's public sector. Never mind DEI programs attract business and position Oklahoma students for global competitiveness, Stitt still made his move in the continuing Culture War on so-called “woke ideologies” […]

What will be remembered about 2023? Way too many lows and too few highs politically? Former Senate President-turned-Observer columnist Cal Hobson joins us for this week's Observercast – '23 In A Rearview Mirror – to unpack the good, bad and ugly of it all – and to offer up fearless predictions for 2024.

Michelin's recent announcement it is closing its manufacturing plant in Ardmore sent shockwaves through southern Oklahoma and the statehouse. The Senate quickly assembled a “select committee” to consider where Oklahoma's gone wrong in its efforts to lure major economic expansions and investments and to keep major employees from skedaddling and leaving towns high-and-dry after cashing […]

When it comes to workforce development, Oklahoma has huge opportunity: finding ways to get more of the 614,000 Sooners with disabilities employed. During this interim study season at the state Capitol, OKC Rep. Ellyn Hefner explored why only about 40% of adults with disabilities have jobs and why 30% who do are paid below the […]

Earlier this month, for the first time, survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre brought their case for reparations to the state Capitol – thanks to an interim study pursued by state Rep. Regina Goodwin, whose family survived the carnage. Goodwin, who's now in her fourth term representing the area once hailed nationally as Black […]

In their quest to create a Top 10 state, statehouse leaders seem to think it's a better bet to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at corporations that promise a few thousand jobs than to invest in building Oklahoma from the grass roots up. In this week's Observercast – The Burdens On Everyday Oklahomans […]

The rightwing Republican love affair with trickle-down economics endures. Though the state Senate turned its back this week on a new round of tax cuts, there's little doubt tax-cutters will try, try, try again. For this week's Observercast – Cutting Revenue, Harming Ourselves – the Oklahoma Policy Institute's Emma Morris helps us cut through the […]

Wrecking Ball Ryan Walters is at it again. He's cut a deal to slip rightwing propaganda from the so-called PragerU into Oklahoma public school classrooms. Prager's videos and lesson plans are full of revisionist history, extolling America's virtues while ignoring its underbelly. For this week's Observercast – Prager WHO? – former classroom teacher-turned-Norman state Rep. […]

Top 10? Heck, state Superintendent Ryan Walters may be the No. 1 litigation target ever among statewide elected officials. At last count, in less than eight full months on the job, Walters has been named a defendant or respondent in seven lawsuits – the most recent filed by a former state department school counselor specialist, […]

If legislatures were to compete on Dancing With The Stars, Oklahoma's would have an excellent shot at winning, given lawmakers' exquisite tap dancing when it comes to oversight of state Superintendent Ryan Walters. Privately, supermajority Republicans – at least the sanest ones – are choreographing impeachment; publicly, they make like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, pirouetting […]

You never know what could happen during a session of the Oklahoma Legislature but one thing is a sure bet: The supermajority will zero in on a bogeyman to help whip up the culture wars. This year's target is trans Oklahomans, with at least a half dozen bigoted bills threatening gender care and individual liberty. […]

The 59th Oklahoma Legislature kicks off Feb. 6 with Republican supermajorities in both houses threatening to widen the state's already massive gulf between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich. Vouchers that further starve underfunded public schools. Book bans. More restrictions on what can and can't be taught about history […]

An important subplot in this year's elections involved the extraordinary tension between Oklahoma's sovereign tribal nations and Gov. Kevin Stitt. Now that Stitt has been re-elected, how will the governor, tribes and state lawmakers navigate the next four years? And what will it mean for workaday Oklahomans and the state's economic, social and political future? […]

Two post-election questions linger for beleaguered Oklahoma Democrats: How did a seemingly tight governor's race end up in lopsided defeat? And how can D's get more competitive in statewide races? For this week's Observercast – What's It All Mean? – Joy Hofmeister's campaign manager Brigette Zorn helps dissect the disappointing results and chart ways to […]

Last week's midterm elections were expectations breakers – both nationally and in Oklahoma. State Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn joins us for this week's Observercast – State Races, National Rhetoric – to give her take on the state's Red Wave and what it portends for the 2023 Legislature and beyond.

House Democratic Leader Emily Virgin, former Senate President Pro Tem Cal Hobson and former House Democratic Leader Scott Inman join us for Observercast's deep dive into Tuesday's Oklahoma elections — arguably the most consequential ever.

In this week's Observercast – From One Governor To The Next – former Gov. David Walters makes the case for Democratic nominee Joy Hofmeister in her battle to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt in what arguably is the most consequential Oklahoma gubernatorial race this century.

In the midterms four years ago, Kendra Horn shocked the political world, unseating an incumbent Republican congressman who thought he could coast to victory in Ruby Red Oklahoma. This year, Horn hopes to recreate the magic and become the state's first Democratic U.S. senator in 28 years. For this week's Observercast – the latest in […]

This year's gubernatorial and state superintendent elections will determine Oklahoma's commitment to public education. Will privatizers and profiteers finally get their way, spelling the end of K-12 schools as the Founders envisioned? Democratic Superintendent nominee Jena Nelson joins us for this week's Observercast – The Future of Public Education On The Ballot – to discuss […]

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Madison Horn hopes to unseat a well-funded Republican incumbent, Sen. James Lankford, with strong ties to Southern Baptists and an endorsement from former President Trump. In this week's Observercast – In Conversation With Madison Horn – the political newcomer discusses her non-traditional campaign that's planted seeds in all 77 counties and hopes to […]

For Oklahoma educators, the culture wars fanned by the far right are making an already tough job even tougher. Just ask former Norman High School English teacher Summer Boismier, who quit recently after getting in hot water for daring share with her students a QR code to the Brooklyn, NY Public Library – giving them […]

Oklahoma is anything but family-friendly. One in five kids doesn't know where their next meal will come from. Nearly half the women of child-bearing age live in maternity deserts – not a single birthing facility in their home counties. Twenty percent of Sooners remain uninsured. Child care remains unaffordable and inaccessible for far too many. […]

The last two-decades-plus have been tough for unions in Oklahoma, but organized labor is enjoying a renaissance thanks to Starbucks' baristas. For this week's Observercast – Brewing Up A Union – Alisha Humphrey, who helped organize her fellow workers at the Nichols Hills' Starbucks in Oklahoma City, joins us to discuss how the union movement got started […]

Starting this week, as many as 25 Oklahoma death row inmates are scheduled to face lethal injection over the next two years – despite persistent questions about whether the state's killer cocktail violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. State Rep. Jason Lowe, a criminal defense attorney, joins us for this week's […]

Next week, in the Aug. 23 statewide runoff, Oklahoma Democrats and independents will decide who gets to take on incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford in the November general election – Madison Horn or Jason Bollinger. For this week's Observercast, the first-time candidates join us to discuss why they entered the race, what they're hearing […]

Oklahoma's K-12 schools teeter on the brink – underfunded and undermined by venal politicians pandering to deep-pocketed special interests whose goal is to replace the current system with private for-profit or religious education. This year's elections – especially the races for governor and state superintendent – could well determine the fate of our constitutionally-mandated system […]

Top 10 state? Not when it comes to spending the once-in-a-lifetime federal infusion of $1.87 billion in taxpayers' capital from American Rescue Plan Act. One national ranking puts Oklahoma's allocation at 40th. Why the holdup? For this week's Observercast – ARPA Dollars, Where Art Thou? – state Rep. Meloyde Blancett, who serves on the Legislature's Joint Committee […]

For 50 years, the rightwing has used Roe v. Wade as the main talking point in their culture wars. But now, the United States, and states like Oklahoma that were waiting with baited breath to ban abortion, will have to confront the reality of what it means to live in world without legal access to […]

All but lost in the regular session's acrimonious final hours was a massive change in Oklahoma's health care for the working poor. The Legislature passed and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed legislation that outsources management of Medicaid, even though the current state-run system, administered by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, is widely heralded as one of […]

The list of slaughters grows – Tulsa, Taft, Buffalo, Uvalde, and Philadelphia now among the American towns plagued by mass shootings. Yet in OKC's and Washington's halls of power, elected Republicans resist even modest firearms regulation, considering it an affront to the 2nd Amendment. For this week's Observercast – It's The Guns, Stupid – state Rep. Monroe Nichols, […]