Tulsa City Hall: August 2015 Archives

Back in September 2010, BatesLine first looked at Tulsa City Councilor G. T. Bynum's lobbying practice and the obvious concerns that arise when a local official is acting as a paid agent for an organization actively engaged in local political issues. I mentioned Bynum's lobbying for the George Kaiser Family Foundation again in 2011, when he appeared to be cruising toward re-election without opposition. Shortly before that year's primary, an ethics complaint was filed against Bynum mainly regarding his votes to waive competitive bidding on bond issues, resulting on bond contracts being awarded to the Bank of Oklahoma. Bynum's grandfather, former Mayor Robert J. LaFortune, served at the time on the board of BOK Financial Corporation and owned shares of stock in the corporation worth over $2 million.

Now four years later, journalist Theodore King has a story on the Okie Blaze taking a look at Bynum's current roster of lobbying clients and noting Bynum's work in 2010 lobbying in Washington on behalf of the George Kaiser Family Foundation for federal funding for low-water dams in the Arkansas River and his current advocacy on the Council for a plan to fund the dams.

King notes the silence in local media (BatesLine excepted) about Bynum's work as a lobbyist, specifically his work in the past for GKFF. While news stories occasionally identify Bynum as "managing partner at Capitol Ventures, a government relations firm" (for example, this June 17, 2015, Tulsa World story), I was only able to find one story, from September 4, 2011, in which the word lobbyist was used in reference to Bynum:

[Robert] Pinney also is critical of Bynum's lobbying work for the city of Miami, Okla.

However, the City Charter does not prohibit councilors from working as lobbyists.