Sending a Message: Oklahoma Teachers Purged State GOP of Their Enemies

No one expected the 2017 elections to see such a rout of Republicans as Democrats swept all statewide offices and 15 Republicans lost their seats in the House of Delegates, including anti-gay extremist Bob Marshall who lost to a transgender Democrat.  What was the secret?  Loathing of Trump played a role, but so too did disgust with Republicans who have for decades made low taxes for the rich and deference to Christian extremists their main agenda.  People - including public school teachers - had simply had enough and took out their wrath at the ballot box. Now, Oklahoma seems to be seeing the beginnings of similar revolt.  Between the primaries and run off elections 12 anti-public education Republicans went down to defeat.  If the teachers and supporters continue the momentum into November, shock-waves could extend beyond Oklahoma and set an example of how to send the GOP into minority status.  Here are highlights from New York Magazine:

For nearly a decade, Republican officials have been treating ordinary Oklahomans like the colonial subjects of an extractive empire. On Governor Mary Fallin’s watch, fracking companies have turned the Sooner State into the earthquake capital of the world; (literally) dictated policy to her attorney general; and strong-armed legislators into giving them a $470 million tax break — in a year when Oklahoma faced a $1.3 billion budget shortfall.

Between 2008 and 2015, Oklahoma’s slashed its per-student education spending by 23.6 percent, more than any other state in the country. Some rural school districts were forced to adopt four-day weeks; others struggled to find competent teachers, as the GOP’s refusal to pay competitive salaries chased talented educators across the border into Texas. Students who were lucky enough to have both five-day weeks and qualified instructors still had to tolerate decaying textbooks.

Polls showed overwhelming public support for raising taxes on the wealthy and oil companies to increase investment in education. GOP lawmakers showed no interest in those polls.

But then, Oklahoma teachers decided to give their state a civics lesson. Inspired by their counterparts in West Virginia, Oklahoma teachers went on strike to demand long-overdue raises for themselves, more education funding for their students, and much higher taxes on the wealthy and energy companies — to ensure that those first two demands would be honored indefinitely.

They won one out of three. Despite the fact the teachers had no legal right to strike — and that the Oklahoma state legislature requires a three-fourths majority to pass tax increases of any kind — the teachers galvanized enough public support to force [GOP Governor Mary] Fallin to give an inch.. . . Oklahoma state lawmakers passed a tiny increase in the tax on fracking production (one small enough to leave Oklahoma with the lowest such tax rate in the nation), so as to fund $6,100 raises for the state’s teachers.

The strikers were pleased, but unappeased. They promised to make lawmakers pay for refusing to finance broader investments in education with larger tax hikes.

Last night, Oklahoma’s GOP primary season came to an end — and the teachers beat the billionaires in a rout. Nineteen Republicans voted against raising taxes to increase teacher pay last spring; only four will be on the ballot this November. As Tulsa World reports:

Republican voters handed out more pink slips to House members Tuesday.  Six of 10 GOP incumbents involved in runoffs were turned out and a seventh narrowly survived . . . Between the first round on June 26 and Tuesday’s final results, a dozen incumbents — all Republicans, and all but one of them House members — lost primary or runoff races. . . . Each of those defeated Tuesday had, in some manner, earned the wrath of public education supporters during last spring’s occupation of the state Capitol.

Last spring, state representative Jeff Coody told students in his districts that their teachers’ demands were “akin to extortion.” On Tuesday night, GOP voters returned Coody to the private sector. His colleague, Bobby Cleveland — who scolded teachers for whining at the Capitol instead of teaching in their classrooms — will now be taking a hiatus from politics.

Representative George Faught of Muskogee had won five terms in the statehouse on the strength of his unwavering support for minimizing Harold Hamm’s tax bills. He lost his bid for a sixth to a political neophyte who credited the teachers’ strike for inspiring his campaign. “I walked with the teachers every day during the walkout — I worked to find out what issues they faced,” the new GOP nominee for House District 14 told the Muskogee Phoenix Tuesday night. “I think if you want to fix issues, you have to talk to the people on the front lines.”

Oklahoma’s historic primary season was no aberration. Last year, Democrats in the Sooner State won a series of special election upsets by speaking to popular outrage over disinvestment in education. In Kentucky this past May, a public school teacher defeated the state’s Republican House Majority Leader Jonathan Snell in a GOP primary. Snell had been considered a rising star in his party, and a protegé of Mitch McConnell. But he decided to spearhead a push to slash teachers’ pensions. So Kentucky teachers expelled him from office.

In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is facing the toughest challenge of his tenure — from the Democratic superintendent of the state’s schools. As the Koch brothers’ favorite governor falls behind in the polls, Walker has rebranded himself as “the pro-education” candidate. Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma, Mary Fallin’s 19 percent approval rating is giving Democrats a serious chance of reclaiming the Sooner State’s governor’s mansion this fall.

One could attribute these developments to the demonstrable failure of “the red state model.” The GOP promised voters in states like Kansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma that “small government” would bring them extraordinary economic growth, and effortlessly balanced budgets; instead they delivered four-day school weeks, crumbling roads, and slightly larger McMansions in the gated-off parts of town.

Eventually, something was going to give. . . . . And last night in Oklahoma, teachers left the GOP’s House caucus covered in debris.

The Oklahoma teacher just gave a lesson that needs to be replicated all across the county.