With less than 4 weeks left in the Republican primary campaign to replace Jim Bridenstine as Oklahoma's 1st District Congressman, the 5 candidates have been invited to a debate this Tuesday.
  Russell Mills of KRMG News will once again be the moderator of this forum.  This is the 2nd in a series of debates produced this year by a consortium of conservative groups in the Tulsa area.
  The Tulsa Republican Assembly, Tulsa County Republican Mens Club, and Tulsa 912 Project are inviting the public to attend and bring their questions along with them.
  Mills will be presenting his questions of the candidates during the 1st segment. The 2nd segment will feature questions that the candidates wrote for each other. The 3rd segment will consist of questions written by the audience.
  Last February the 3 local civic groups held Tulsa's first debate of the Republican candidates for governor.  That event brought out several hundred attendees.
  This event will be held at the Lemley Campus of Tulsa Technology Center, at Memorial Drive & the Broken Arrow Expressway.
​  Come early for best seating and to visit each of the candidates.

  The month of May signals new beginnings for the former Democrat Legislative leader. Scott Inman was just hired on at First Oklahoma Bank's OKC new branch. He also just ended his marriage to Dessa, the mother of his two kids.
  What started a year ago as a wild ride in a race for Oklahoma's next governor, became a trainwreck in October when a marital crisis became an ugly confrontation in the capitol rotunda.
  Inman eventually got Dessa to leave, but he immediately went to his capitol office to write his press statement, resigning his campaign for governor, immediately. He also announced his intention to resign from his legislative office. He immediately was replaced as Minority Leader by Steve Kouplen, who was slated to be his replacement in the 57th Legislature.
  Inman was absent for weeks, but came back briefly to cast a vote against a special session tax increase package. Later last fall he announced that he would serve out the final of his 6 terms, in 2018.
  Yes, there are rumors of moral failure, and they will one day be written with clarity. But Inman attempted to restore his broken marriage. In mid April his wife officially filed for divorce. Two weeks ago he and Dessa asked the judge to expedite the dissolution, forgoing the 90 statutory waiting period.

  In an all-too-common scenario, there was a tragic loss of life, this past week. A young man with intelligence, physical health, and a family who needed real assistance to get real help for a real solution.
 Alexander Tilghman is now dead. Dead because he was using deadly force to harm several others. He had to be stopped that night.
  But he really didn't surprise anyone who knew him or his long battle with many manifestations of serious mental illness. We call it serious because it crossed the line into psychosis. All you need to establish that point is to watch his Youtube channel. He deleted far more videos than he left as a memorial to a broken system.
  He describes his family as fragmented and calls his father "a hoarder". He's gone back and forth from his mother's home to his father's.
  His conflicts with others are often described as "..they're taken over by demons".
   Yes, Oklahoma's state mental health agencies are a pathetic joke. That's a problem caused by the state budget process(where a handful of politicians in a cloistered room make the budget decisions and the rest of the legislature claims no responsibility for the resulting mess). All the more reason that many of us are working to empower families to deal with these challenges. 

  We've had years to get to know Matt Pinnell & Dana Murphy. Here are 3 other candidates you may not have heard as much from.

  Two of them, Dominique Block, & Eddie Fields are also on the Republican Primary ballot.  Eddie Fields is a rancher who has spent 20 years in local and state govt.  Dominique Block has been a private investigator.  Anna Dearmore is retired having worked in marketing and real estate.

  Block believes that the teachers were 'striking' against the wrong govt. He believes that the local school districts and school boards were the ones holding back real education resources.

  Eddie Fields wants to lower the constitutional emergency clause so that the legislature no longer has to present tax increases to a vote of the people.

  Fields seems to completely agree with the orthodox Democrat party spending agenda. 

  KFOR hosted the conversation on Flashpoint. Tell us what you think, of what you heard from them?

  Last friday, Oklahoma's Lt. Governor, Todd Lamb, started his day with an interview on The Pat Campbell Show, on Tulsa's KFAQ Radio. He spoke is strong and absolute terms about the rock solid commitments we can expect from his service as governor (if only we would elect him to that office).
  Campbell asked him some specific questions about current conditions and where he stands on issues which are very important to conservatives in the Republican party.

1. Will you help bring about a special session to override the Fallin veto of "Constitutional Carry" (the bill which changes Oklahoma, so free people are no longer prosecuted for bearing arms in public)?
2. Will you further support a legislative call to amend the Teacher Pay Raise bill so that it is no longer dependent on HB1010xx (the largest tax increase in state history)?
3. Will you oppose HB1010xx and vote to rescind it, on the election ballot, this fall?

  Lamb failed all 3 points.  What Pat Campbell was unaware of, at that time; was that Gov. Mary Fallin was traveling out of state on last Friday. 

  Two polls were released this week in the race for Oklahoma Governor. The results were significantly different, This is usually explained when you look at the samplings and assumptions about who will actually cast a vote, vs who sorta intends to... but usually doesn't.

• Oklahoma Strategic Solutions provided a poll for an undisclosed client. They sampled exclusively Republicans and reached out to 500 participants.  
• SoonerPoll did a poll for Oklahoma TV stations. They had a base of just over 600 voters, but only 380 of them were self-identified Republicans.

  There is quite a bit of uncertainty in the SoonerPoll, of which answers were provided by the only voters who count in a Republican Primary (party members).
  SoonerPoll did breakdown the male/female support for each Republican candidate. O.S.S. did not.
OSS sampled a large group of 65+ year old voters than did SoonerPoll.
  We have no idea whether the Republicans whom SoonerPoll interviewed were as conservative as the OSS pollsters were interviewing.

  Sooner Politics is officially endorsing the candidacy of Linda Murphy, an education hero. She  has been one of the most trusted voices in Oklahoma when it comes to sensible public education leadership. She has the sense to know that Oklahoma parents want to, and need to be, partners with a local education provider.  She has seen the silly fads and whims from Washington social engineers, East Coast Academic theories, and Silicon Valley new age nonsense.
​ She will bring trusted and proven solutions for solid education outcomes, while celebrating the local character of the independent school district. 
​  Here's a recent press release with some of her thoughts.

  SoonerPoll was commissioned by local TV media to gauge the voter support on Oklahomans, with just 5 weeks left until the party primary elections. Here's their statement.

  The federal govt. has generously spent vast of millions of federal dollars to clean up a disastrous environmental tragedy in Picher, OK. Much of that money was given to state agencies to secure competent contractors and inspect the work done.
  One very small part of that task raised many suspicions. A Carpet cleaner with no heavy equipment or traditional resume' was awarded a $3.4 million contract to bulldoze the condemned homes after the owners were bought out and resettled in safer areas. Industry experts say that the bidding process should have settled the rate at around $600k.
​  As State Auditor, Gary Jones, characterized it, The Federally requested audit of the Superfund disaster site known as Tar Creek, has many odd actions and behaviors by Oklahoma Attorneys General (past & present). For many years the Democrat Attorney General, Drew Edmondson, refused to call for the audit, insisting (without looking) that "there's nothing to see here, move along, now..."

There is a political 'chess match' going on in Oklahoma electoral politics, this summer. And seemingly unrelated issues are now very likely to impact each other, perhaps even deciding the life or death of major proposals. Timing is everything.

  It started with legislative leaders passing Rep. Scott Inman's Democrat-sponsored tax rate increase package. The Republican legislative leaders conceded that they could not raise taxes without a vote of the people (whom they never want to give voice to), unless they get the Democrats to support the plan. The Democrats stood their ground and prevailed.

  Tulsa Radio Personality, Pat Campbell , has recently interviewed two Republican candidates for governor. Tulsa Businessman, Kevin Stitt and Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb both expressed support for a teacher pay raise but neither of them are asking the legislature to reconvene to fix a crucial sticking point in the legislation which authorized the latest teacher pay raise. Namely, the author of the bill tied the pay raise to another massive tax increase.
That tax increase is being challenged by a large group of citizens who insist that the state has a record budget surplus which renders the tax rate hike as extremely unnecessary, punitive, and repressive.
​
  When the petition drive is complete and certified by the Secretary of State, the tax bill will be frozen and will remain so until the matter is voted on at a statewide election (probably this November).

  This morning, Pat Campbell asked Todd Lamb if he, as president of the Senate, would call for the legislature to come together for several matters. Among them are the vetoed Constitutional Carry bill, The Medical Marijuana regulations, ​

  The Multicounty Grand Jury investigating wrongdoing at the Oklahoma Dept. of Health has wrapped up their efforts to uncover criminal activity. Surprisingly, the grand jury decided that the leadership of the agency is just plain incompetent. Prosecutors with the state Attorney General's office say that they were utterly shocked that a major state agency could be run so ineptly for so long.

  The Grand Jury members and the state prosecutors say that major reforms and oversight are desperately needed, in order to avoid further failures and false economic reports.
​
   The good news, if it's true; is that the state of Oklahoma is not in violation of federal laws and will not be sanctioned in the way that the State of Kansas was for misdirecting federal funds while Kathleen Sebelius  was governor (she later became Obama's Health Dept. Secretary and orchestrated most of the regulatory policies of ObamaCare.

  Some are expressing skepticism of this outcome.  A theory suggests that Oklahoma political forces influenced the AG not to confirm the worst fears of those who are loudly calling for more oversight, audits, and accountability.

  Tonight Senator Nathan Dahm Issued a statement at the Tulsa Republican Assembly. He announced a petition of the legislative members, calling a special session for later this summer. He was joined by Rep. Sean Roberts who is joining the effort as the House sponsor.
  The two said they already have reached out to some colleagues and are getting strong support.  This kind of move bypasses the Governor and denies her the opportunity to set the agenda of such a session.  
  Senator Dahm plans a formal press briefing Wednesday morning, where he'll detail the scope of the session.  He told SoonerPolitics; "We know that the likelihood of a special session is high already, given the issues of a veto referendum of the massive tax package just passed. The teachers do not want their pay raise held up by a constitutional stay of the enacted tax increase."
  There is fear that schools will be unable to properly  budget for the upcoming school year and teachers don't believe the state should have made that raise contingent on the tax increase because the tax revenue collections are set for a massive surplus of more that double the total price of the raises. The legislature can detach the raise from the tax very easily, allowing schools to get on with the new school year.

Oklahoma's legislature is traditionally in session until Memorial Weekend. This year they clocked out 3 weeks early. And already we see 3 serious failures from that bad behavior. In the next two weeks the legislature could have prudently assessed some key developments and given the people of Oklahoma a better year ahead.

1. Teacher Pay Raise Detachment From HB1010xx. 
State Treasurer Ken Miller did his best to get out the great news of Oklahoma's massive increase in tax revenue collections in April. He published that news just 24 hours before adjournment. In that news he shows a projected budget surplus far above $1 Billion dollars. Given that, the the teacher pay raise can fully be funded for the 2019 fiscal year without a dependency on the massive tax increases from the disputed bill which is set to be blocked when the Veto Referendum is certified, in mid July.