I still vividly remember the day, in the spring of April 2014, getting that text message. It took a moment to realize its significance — a significance that wouldn’t fully set in until years later: in the dawn of the era of dark money, following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision, I would be patient zero, as the Oklahoma monied special interests set about to defeat grassroots conservative office holders, purging the House of the People from those who consistently voted according to deeply held conservative values, thought, and principle.
The sender was a knowledgeable insider named Robert, whose identity I have until now never publicly disclosed, operating deep inside Oklahoma’s political scene, and he was letting me know that I was the target of the first round of Oklahoma special-interest purge of conservative thought and principle from the Legislature.
Today, for the first time, I am publicly sharing that story, to expose the big excuse often told by those who hold office touting a conservative platform, but who want to serve two masters whose goals are in complete conflict: the conservative people of Oklahoma, and the monied special interests.
That excuse?
It’s the excuse incumbent politicians and candidates offer when the grassroots ask them to raise the standard — to adopt a basic ethical rule common in the real world: don’t take money from people whose financial interests depend on how you vote. In plain terms, refuse contributions from those the state officially labels “special interests.”
Of course, politicians live by a very different standard. They routinely take and benefit from this money — a fact that best explains the big grift. Most Oklahoma politicians campaign one way when needing the voters, and then they govern a very different way.
It’s a phenomenon best explained through the wisdom of the following quote: Motivation is the master of reason.
An office holder will often twist their brain into a pretzel, attempting to justify their many bad votes, attempting to convince themself that
(1) the bad vote isn’t in fact a betrayal of conservatism, and
(2) it isn’t motivated by the money that comes with it.
Though more candidates than ever before have made the commitment to raise the standard — to refuse this money — there are, of course, still a vast majority who insist on the old way: playing the game and taking the money.
Those who refuse to raise the standard — how do they explain this refusal to the determined grassroots who know that this is the solution that restores the balance back in favor of the people? They explain their refusal using the following logic: “I will not be able to win re-election without taking this money.”
Is that true?
Is it possible for a state representative to refuse the thousands of dollars of lobbyist grift, raise the standard, and still win election?
What should you think, as a member of the grassroots who asks your incumbent or candidate to raise the standard and embrace the abstinence-from-impropriety approach, only to be met with this particular line of resistance?
Allow me to illustrate by referring back to my story, the first time I have told this story in public.
After being tipped off by an insider whistleblower that I was one of two grassroots legislators the powerful State Chamber of Commerce intended to defeat — using, after the recent Supreme Court ruling, an until-then unimaginable amount of money — I had the forewarning needed to immediately activate my re-election effort.
I had taken the no-lobbyist pledge, and so on paper I looked like a prime target for the special interests, because I simply didn’t have a cache of thousands of lobbyist dollars designed to deter any challenges and ensure that those foolish enough to challenge me would be easily defeated.
I didn’t even have a consultant.
I was simply a citizen legislator, in the truest and classic sense of the word — like in the days long gone, before money ruled the day — simply casting votes in accordance with the campaign platform I had espoused, my contract with the voters.
But could I survive in the modern world — a world in which there were suddenly no longer any limits on how much the special interests could spend?
Yes. I sure could.
That’s because The State Chamber faced a big obstacle: could they find a candidate who would surrender their integrity to become the agent of Darth Vader — the tool of the special-interest dark money empire attempting to strike back against one who would not take their money?
Over the next few days, time and again, I received reports of the Chamber and their agents attempting to recruit a candidate.
While I was activating my campaign, due to the courage of that insider, they were stuck in neutral, as their recruiting agent toured the district, House District 31, he struck out, time and again. In fact, not only were those being solicited not taking the bait, they were either telling me or a common contact about the recruitment.
The Chamber’s delay in getting a candidate, combined with my pre-knowledge due to that whistleblower, allowed me to activate my door-to-door campaign and get on the ground while the forces of the special interests were still trying to find a flag bearer.
But the question is: what was it that was causing those being recruited — even when likely being made aware that tens of thousands of dollars would be spent on their behalf — to refuse all of that money and say, “No thanks?”
I would suggest that it was due to the fact that, on even cursory review, they realized that they were in fact going to be the tool of dark forces, and few people want to carry the flag of dark-money forces against an incumbent who has taken the exceptional commitment of refusing that money.
But it was more than that. In one case, word reached me that one of the Chamber’s targets had refused to run after he asked around and found out that I was writing regular weekly updates back to the constituents. These weren’t the weekly updates that most legislators release — likely written by the same House staffer ghostwriter, full of boring, self-serving, unreadable details that send the eyes to glazing — but unique content describing actual insider happenings that the constituency needed to, and appreciated, knowing. I had been giving the local constituent, the opportunity to become the best informed constituency in the entire state, and they appreciate it.
That individual, upon finding this fact, quickly realized what was going on: a hardworking legislator had been doing a job that was far above and beyond the lazy work product of most institutionalized legislators.
The articles, written each and every week, both in session and out, were just one component of an ongoing effort to create a new standard for constituent contact and interaction. Other components included town-hall meetings — one of which had hundreds in attendance — and constant and conscientious door-to-door visits, even when there wasn’t an ongoing primary campaign, bringing them, their state representative, to where it mattered most, where the voter lived.
In short?
Yes, I was able to win re-election, each and every time, while bypassing tens of thousands in special-interest contributions, because I put in the sweat equity of governing the old-fashioned way: hard work and constant contact with the voters.
It’s a formula that can be replicated in most Oklahoma districts.
So when a candidate or politician tells you that, “I can’t win re-election without that money,” what they are really telling you is, “I am taking the lobbyist money so that I can buy the election, and I won’t have to earn it through hard work.”
And that’s the problem: laziness.
As this story illustrates, refusing the dirty money means having to work harder and to actually stay consistent with the values of the people. When a legislator refuses this commitment — even those who have a foundational set of conservative principles — they are willing to put all of that at risk, to live dangerously, in order to avoid the hard work of leading the right way: as a true citizen legislator, of the mold envisioned by our Founding Fathers.
As a reader of this publication — and as someone whose hopes and aspirations are rooted in those foundational values — my strong advice is this: except in the rarest of circumstances, your time, money and efforts are best invested in those courageous candidates who are willing to raise the standard and represent their constituents the right way — through hard work, not dirty money.
And when you find one of those courageous candidates, provided that they are working hard to build that support within their district, by going door-to-door where the people live, then it’s here where you should invest your efforts.
Oh — and that insider . . . Robert?
He was the owner of the state’s foremost political consultancy, a consultancy that was set to make many thousands of dollars in the age of dark money.
But, on that day, he was the one who quietly chose principle over profit, to warn a friend of danger.
The one who was willing to watch many thousands of dollars in Chamber political money slip through his fingers rather than be used to take down one of the Legislature’s foremost conservative office holders.
The one who, at the very dawn of the dark-money era when the new rules had barely dried on the pages of Supreme Court precedent, decided that warning the target mattered more than protecting his own business model.
The one whose experience would have informed him that in a dark, unseemly, political world increasingly governed by calculation and self-interest, acts of conscience can carry a very real cost.
And yet . . . he still made that call.
Because sometimes history turns on the actions of individuals who simply decide that right is right.
You might know that man today by another name.
Fount Holland.
And that, my friends
— in a political age so often portrayed in stark lines of heroes and villains
— is a reminder that not everything is so neatly drawn.
That even in the dawn of dark money, someone was willing to risk thousands in personal benefit to do what they believed was right.
And now you know . . .
. . . the rest of the story.
Exposing the Great Excuse: Do Politicians Really Have to Take the Dirty Money?
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog
March 16, 2026 at 11:25PM - J Murphey
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