Oklahoma Election 2022: Do Republican legislative leaders want Stitt to lose?

Do Republican legislative leaders want so badly for Gov. Kevin Stitt to lose his bid for re-election that they're willing to accept half-measures on child mutilation in the name of "gender confirmation"? That's the question posed by a recent report by Harry Scherer in The American Conservative, "The Fight Over Child Mutilation in Oklahoma." Scherer asks why Oklahoma, with a Republican governor and Republican supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, has not seen a comprehensive law against gender reassignment surgeries on minors in Oklahoma.

Scherer notes that State Sen. Warren Hamilton (R-McCurtain) filed such a bill, HB 676, in early 2021, cosponsored by Senators Shane Jett (R-Shawnee) and David Bullard (R-Durant). The bill was assigned to the Health and Human Services and Appropriations committees, chaired by Paul Rosino (R-Oklahoma City) and Greg McCortney (R-Ada) respectively, never heard the bill.

The legislature did address the issue in a limited way during a recent special session to allocate federal funds:

On October 4, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 3XX into law, which grants approximately $109 million to the state's University Hospital Authority. Some $39 million of those funds were appropriated for "behavioral health care for the children" of Oklahoma under the condition that the health system's facilities refuse to perform gender reassignment surgeries for minors.

Four conservative Republican State Senators voted no: Nathan Dahm, Hamilton, Jett, and Merrick.

Hamilton said he thinks Bill 3XX doesn't go far enough in some places and is wrong-headed in others. The law, which does nothing to regulate gender reassignment surgeries for minors at hospitals outside of the University Hospitals Authority and Trust, earmarks funds for the continuation of the health system's behavioral health care services and mental health counseling. These services are delivered through what Oklahoma Children's Hospital calls the Adolescent Medicine Roy G. Biv Program, which provides an "interdisciplinary team of highly trained specialists who serve the mental health, nutritional and medical needs of all LGBTQ youth." The program's "gender-affirming treatment & services" includes "discussing concerns or questions about gender" and "assisting with legal name or gender marker changes."

Oklahoma taxpayers shouldn't be funding any "gender-affirming" or "LGBTQ-affirming" care, which is grounded in unscientific and dangerous concepts of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." We've elected Republican legislative supermajorities with the expectation that our tax dollars won't be paying for that garbage.

Dahm speculates on the reluctance of legislative leaders to take aggressive action:

"For them to promise that we'll do something next year when we've had the opportunity to do it for three years, and having served with them, with most promises that have never actually come to fruition, I don't put any credence behind their word that they'll get it done next year."

The senator was part of a failed effort to extend the special session of the legislature so that the more aggressive legislation could be taken up before this year's gubernatorial election. Dahm had a noteworthy theory for why his party's leadership has been kicking the can down the road: "I think that Senate leadership actually is trying not to give [Stitt] any more wins, because they'd rather have a Democrat that they can do veto overrides on so that they get the victory and they get the publicity, rather than having a strong governor lead the charge that steals their thunder and steals their potential media spotlight."

A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat denied Dahm's theory.

If legislative leaders want Stitt to lose, my guess is that it has more to do with the forces that are spreading political money around Oklahoma, working against conservative values and undermining the Republican platform. Groups with plenty of money and well-known grievances against Gov. Stitt include the teachers' unions, Big Pot, and tribal governments, all of whom have governmental priorities at odds with conservatives.

The chamberpots and RINOs have had no problem backing Democrats against Republicans they fear may be too principled to be manipulated. For a couple of examples, see Melissa Provenzano vs. Dan Hicks in HD 79 in 2018; Jo Anna Dossett vs. Cheryl Baber in SD 35 in 2020. It happened in my own race for Tulsa City Council in 2002; RINOs were angry at the successful defeat of a city sales tax increase by a shoestring campaign that Jim Hewgley, Mike Slankard, and I led, and they raised money for my Democrat opponent.

It may be time for conservative voters to purify the caucus by dumping the most compromised Republican legislators. Eight years ago, I encouraged Republican voters not to give a supporter and enabler of National Popular Vote a seat at the table in the majority Republican caucus.

Of course, we don't want to give the legislature to Democratic control, but if a few of the worst Republicans lost because conservatives didn't vote for them, it might have a salutary effect on the rest of the caucus. Probably too late to have an effect in this election, but worth considering for the future. A comparison of the campaign contribution and expenditure filings of the Republican and the Democrat in your district would give you a pretty clear picture of whether your GOP nominee is likely to vote with the lobbyists and the RINOs. (Go to the Candidate Search page on the Oklahoma Ethics Committee Guardian website, then select Committee Status Active, 2022 Election, State Representative or State Senator, and then the district. You can also visit this page and search for expenditure information for specific PACs.)

Warning signs would include a low conservative rating by the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper, funding by tribal governments, funding by donors in George Kaiser's network, endorsement and funding by teachers' unions and their allies. I've been noticing contributions from PACs associated with pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson and Merck, which could be an attempt to buy support for future vaccine mandates.

If the local GOP candidate has CAMP on his mailer's bulk mail permit or "CAMPAIGN ADVOCACY MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS, LLC" on his expenditures report, remember that CAMP's principal, Fount Holland, helped Joy Hofmeister convince Republican voters that she was a pro-life conservative instead of a teachers' union tool ("can [the OEA] be quiet and stomach our right wing rhetoric long enough to get what they really want"), which got her the 2014 GOP nomination as State Superintendent and ultimately the platform to run for governor this year as a pro-abortion Democrat.

With new polls from Emerson College and WPA Intelligence showing Stitt leading Hofmeister by 9 points and 15 points, some legislators may wish they had been more vocal and generous in support of the governor's re-election effort.