Amazing What a Little Logic Can Do

Not mine, but I wish it was. I want to give an 'Amen' at the end of every paragraph. This week's MUST READ!!
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WE’RE DOING FINE, OKLAHOMA!

Earlier this week you may have received an email in support of moving Oklahoma Republicans back to a caucus system of choosing which presidential candidate receives Oklahoma’s delegate votes to become the Republican nominee for President.

Most knowledgeable Republicans who have studied the caucus proposal being promoted feel passage would be extremely devastating to our party and could set our party back over 20 years.

The information provided in support of this change to the caucus is extremely misleading and comes from individuals whose goal is to create a system that would allow a very small, well-organized minority to manipulate the process to promote their own political agenda.

Let’s analyze each statement made in support of the Caucus.

“In 1976, 1980, and 1984 the Oklahoma GOP supported Ronald Reagan for President - through a caucus system instead of a "Presidential Preference Primary".

Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa Caucus in both 1976 and 1980. He then came back and won the New Hampshire primaries. So using that logic, if New Hampshire had a caucus Ronald Reagan may have never become President. How can we empower the grassroots to support conservative leaders like Reagan in the future? Answer: Restore the Oklahoma GOP to the Caucus System?

Back to the Reagan example. In 1976 Gerald Ford won the Iowa caucus. One week later Ronald Reagan won the New Hampshire primary. In 1980 George H.W. Bush won the Iowa Caucus. The following week Ronald Reagan won the New Hampshire Primary. I don’t know of anyone who would argue that Ford and Bush 41 were more conservative than Ronald Reagan.

Counties across the State, including Oklahoma and Tulsa counties, have already passed a proposal known as "Caucus OK!" that would restore the Oklahoma GOP to a caucus system, and it will soon be heard at the State Convention, Saturday, April 18. I would invite you to visit the Caucus OK website http://caucusok.org/to learn more!

While it is true the proposal was passed in a few counties it was soundly defeated 52-28 in Cleveland County, which was perhaps the only county to have a full and open debate on the issue. Cleveland County even suspended its own convention rules to allow the principal proponent of the caucus proposal to debate for the measure. It was still soundly voted down. (I was there. It was the ONLY county in which debate was allowed, and the only county where the caucus failed, even with authors of the proposal speaking in its defense.)

"An enlarged , invigorated , and empowered grassroots volunteer and donor base will result from the restoring of the caucus system."

There is no evidence that this would be the case. Iowa has been the example given to support this assertion, claiming Iowa gets more attention and activity because of their caucus. Truth is, Iowa receives attention because they are first in the process. New Hampshire receives an equal amount of attention and they have a primary. Current RNC rules do not allow Oklahoma to conduct their selection process earlier than it is currently held, either primary or caucus. Changes are currently being discussed by the RNC and will more than likely be put into effect before the 2012 elections.

"A caucus system is a nomination process that truly reflects a consensus of the Party grassroots."

Again, there is no evidence to support this claim. In 2008 over 345,000 Oklahoma Republicans turned out to vote in the Republican Presidential Primary. If the proposed caucus were to be approved we would be telling those Republicans that we didn’t care about their opinion and that their votes didn’t matter.

"Moving to a caucus system will increase fundraising opportunities for the Party."

The change as proposed would not generate additional revenues; in fact, it would be extremely costly to the Oklahoma Republican Party, as it requires the party to furnish ballots, including absentee ballots, to all Republicans at no cost. The OKGOP would also be responsible for conducting the voting process, including having to verify whether those showing up or mailing in ballots were indeed eligible to vote.

"Moving to a caucus system will save Oklahoma tax-payer dollars (up to $3 million)."

This is not true, as the change to the caucus does not eliminate the primary. The Democrat party will still conduct their voting via a primary. It does not change the law.

"Moving to a caucus system will increase Oklahoma's influence and attention in the national election process."

Since 1988 when Oklahoma moved from the caucus to the Primary, Republicans held 32 seats in the Oklahoma House; we now hold 61. In 1988 Republicans held 15 seats in the Oklahoma Senate; we now hold 26. All in all, Oklahoma Republicans have done quite well under the current system.

CONCLUSION
The truth is a caucus system would empower a few influential activists who believe they know better than the general population what Oklahoma needs. A caucus system would establish an oligarchy which is a form of government where power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society- aka Political Pharisees. That is never good and goes completely against the principles of the U.S. Constitition which is inclusive and protects us from the establishment of an oligarchy.

Oklahoma Republican activists should be about the business of educating Oklahoma voters and encouraging more conservatives to become involved in the process. Moving to a caucus system would be a step backward in Oklahoma. We have accomplished too much with a Presidential Primary! While not a perfect system, it is infinitely better than moving back to a Caucus system. Vote No at the State Convention!

Bill to Require Full Disclosure of Adoption Fees Heads to Full Senate

HAT TIP to Okiecampaigns.

A measure to create more uniformity in adoptions and ensure full disclosure of fees has cleared its first major hurdle in the Senate. Senate Bill 1029, by Sen. Steve Russell, was approved by the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Russell, R-Oklahoma City, said that as an adoptive parent, it was an area of law of special concern to him.

In Oklahoma, prospective adoptive parents can utilize public and private agencies as well as attorney-assisted adoptions. Russell said while those are all good options, a 2006 grand jury investigation uncovered a number of abuses that need to be addressed, including some cases of “adoption” fees being used for personal vehicles, computers and other items.

“My legislation requires full disclosure of all fees, so that adoptive parents know exactly what is required up front and what all the fees are for,” Russell said. “We need to make sure we have a uniform standard for adoptions. Under current law, some things, like home studies, can be waived. Procedures aimed at ensuring the safety of the adoptive child should be enforced.”

SB 1029 would also ensure parents have a full disclosure of all state laws dealing with adoption as well as regulations impacting the adoption of children of Native American ancestry.

“Making sure all adoption laws and fees are completely transparent will improve the process and help eliminate the potential for abuse,” Russell said. “This is simply good public policy.”

Russell’s legislation now moves to the full Senate for further consideration.

UPDATED: Hiatus

Please don't mistake my recent absence for a lack of interest or for red-state flu. Life has just been very busy since Nov. 4.

In case you haven't heard it enough, Oklahoma had a great night last Tuesday. Dana Murphy won the Corporation Commissioner position in one of the most key races in the state against nationally-funded gay activism poster boy Jim Roth, another one of Aubrey McClendon's failed investments. It's always a great feeling when the candidate who was outspent 4-1 wins.

We took a majority in the State Senate for the first time in forever, which involved Nancy Riley getting burned for costing us the majority last time. That felt good. And Sally Kern was also re-elected against a nationally-funded candidate. Grassroots conservatism is alive and well in Oklahoma, thank God!!

Right now, we've still got one battle being fought. State Senator Jim Reynolds is facing an ACORN travesty. His challenger, David Boren (no relation to that David Boren), also nationally-funded, is requesting multiple recounts of ACORN-tainted votes. Right now, the recount is in progress and Jim is still ahead. I'll update when we get final word. UPDATE: Jim gained 2 votes in the recount, winning the election. However, a hearing has been scheduled to investigate "voting irregularities on both sides." (I'm sure.)

We didn't lose any Republican US seats, which is also a huge win, considering our guys haven't been behaving well recently. However, they're still doing better than any liberal would in their positions, so I am thankful they retained their seats. And, in part because of their wins, the Democrats were kept from their super majority in Congress. Huge, huge victory.

And yes, Obama won. The first half-black man in the history of the United States to become President. Congratulations. Now let's see if he can manage to solve more problems than he causes.

Now we shoot for 2010 to take back Congress like we did in 1994 and elect a Republican governor in 2010. (There is an underground effort to recruit JC Watts. I doubt he'll go for it, but we can dream.)

Prop. 8 passed in California, a huge win for traditional values. And as usual, the crowd who preaches "tolerance" the loudest is assaulting the elderly and stomping on crosses, trying to get the courts to yet again overturn the will of the people. Good luck with holding the public's sympathy on that, guys.

So now, life goes on. And I am letting you know now, my activity on here may be less than before. I am turning my focus to larger projects, and as such need to limit dividing my mind. Or, to usa an analogy, I'm starting to train for a marathon, and while the sprints have been good, I need to start aiming a bit higher.

I know you don't know how you'll get on without reading my posts every few days. Don't worry. You'll be fine. And I'll be back whenever there's something noteworthy, which there will be. OK Legislative session starts soon, so there will be plenty to talk about!

See you then!

Feminists against Palin - shame on you

Phyllis Schlafly

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is a big step forward for women, but a long backward step for the movement we have been taught to call feminism.

That is obvious from the anguish, indeed the fury, of feminist commentators. They are so intemperate in their criticism that they are incoherent. Men who are clueless about feminism naively think all women should be cheering. Sarah Palin is a woman who has done it all; she has a successful and even more promising career, five children and a supportive husband.

She crashed through the ultimate layer of the feminist fiction -the "glass ceiling" - and she joined those very few women destined to be known only by their first names. What more could any woman want?

The denunciations of Sarah can't be only because she appears to be a conservative Republican, and the feminists want only liberal Democrats to win. In this era of independent voters and respect for a maverick, surely the milk of bipartisanship should soften feminist angst about Sarah.

But, no. Feminist anger against Sarah has exposed the fact that feminism is not about women's success and achievement. If it were, feminists would have been bragging for years about self-made women who are truly remarkable achievers, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, or even Margaret Thatcher. Feminists never boast about these women because feminism's basic doctrine is victimology. Feminism preaches that women can never succeed because they are the sorry victims of an oppressive patriarchy. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman may be, she's told that success and happiness are beyond her grasp because institutional sexism and discrimination hold her down.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get the Democratic nomination for president or vice president, she and her allies rained a torrent of tears all over the media about the injustice of it all, ranting that rampant sexism denied her the nomination she was due. The aging Gloria Steinem opined on CNN that it is "clear that there is profound sexism." She whined that Hillary couldn't crack the "glass ceiling" because there are "still barriers and biases out there."

Oh, the unfairness of it all! Steinem bemoaned that women find it so "difficult to be competent and successful and be liked." Au contraire, Hillary and women like her are not disliked because they are competent and successful, but because they are chip-on-the-shoulder feminists, living in an unhappy world of their own making and spreading their discontent like a virus. Feminists convey a notion of entitlement, as though they deserve special privileges today because of wrongs in past years that no one any longer can remember, such as women not having the right to vote. The bad attitude of victimhood is indoctrinated in students by the bitter feminist faculty in university women's studies courses and even in some law schools. Victimhood is nurtured and exaggerated by feminist organizations using their tactic called "consciousness raising," i.e., retelling horror stories about how badly some women have been treated until small personal annoyances grow into societal grievances. The feminists resent Sarah because she's the exact opposite of Hillary Clinton. When the liberal media sharpened their knives against Sarah, some chivalrous McCainiacs cried foul about media unfairness, but we didn't hear any whining from Sarah. Sarah has been successful because of hard work and perseverance, not because she's a woman, and she's not going to pull any crybaby act now. Sarah didn't need any Equal Rights Amendment, which Hillary is still promoting even though it was declared dead by the Supreme Court 26 years ago.

The feminist tirades against Sarah are mostly so tiresome, but one line of their complaints is really funny. After 40 years of telling wives and mothers to get out of the home (which Betty Friedan called "a comfortable concentration camp"), put their children in day care (tax-funded, of course) and join the workforce, these same feminists now tell Sarah to stay home with her children.

Sarah doesn't need feminist approval for her lifestyle; the only person whose OK she needs for her double career as mother and politician is her husband's, and he seems very happy with Sarah.

Sarah Palin is an exemplar of a successful, can-do woman, and the feminists simply don't know how to deal with her. I hope she will usher in a new era where conventional wisdom recognizes that feminist negativism is ancient history and American women are so fortunate to live in the greatest country on Earth.

Phyllis Schlafly is president of Eagle Forum, an attorney, and the author of 20 books, including "Feminist Fantasies." Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/21/IN5U13026F.DTL

This article appeared on page G - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

The Pitbull With Lipstick

Sarah Palin has done for women what liberal feminism has failed to do for the last 40 years. Sarah Palin is what women like Hillary Clinton only hope to be.

Palin worked her way up through the ranks, serving on the PTA, city council, as a mayor, and then as a governor. Most people would call that "multi-level experience." It's what the late, great Peggy Carter called "trenchwork."

And unlike Hillary Clinton, she did it all without the benefit of riding on her husband's name.

Palin saw the flaws in her local and state government, and started at the beginning - her local PTA. Sarah Palin understood that political effectiveness isn't measured by how many people know your name, but by how many people benefit by your efforts and think that it just happened that way.

Rather than wait for someone else to fix Alaska's Republican party, or whine about the corrupt elected officials in her state to her neighbors, Palin took on the system and went to battle for her fellow Alaskans. And it worked – she's the only governor in the United States with an 80% approval rating.

And now she is running for the chance to go to battle for us, her fellow Americans. We should be so lucky as to have her serve us as Vice President of the United States.

The condescension coming from both the MSM and the uninformed men-on-the-street here in our state shows a complete lack of understanding of what grassroots conservatism is.

In one sense, we have no one to blame but ourselves for this predicament. We have allowed the voters in Oklahoma and America to remain apathetic and rely on the MSM to think for them. We talk amongst ourselves about ballot initiatives and legislative actions without bringing the information to the people en masse. We only are at their doors and in their mailboxes during major election cycles. We are now seeing the result of this.

People by and large seem to think that a qualified politician is someone who wakes up one day and says, "Hmm, to bring to fruition my life's aspiration of being the youngest governor elected in my state, I'm going to run for State Representative and start to make a name for myself." Or else, they were recruited by the evil political machine that is oozing its way through our state government, and therefore they are assumed to be qualified because they have recognizable names and large PAC donations backing them.

Sarah Palin does not fit this profile, and so people feel comfortable calling her "inexperienced."

Palin didn't wait for someone else to fight the corrupt, embedded Republicans in her state. And she didn't wait for a high-profile opportunity to come available. She didn't join the corrupt Republican power brokers in her state to make her political road easier.

She didn't care about the notoriety. She didn't care about the difficulty. She knew she would be fighting against her own Lance Cargills and Chris Benges and Jeff MacMahans and Gene Stipes and Brad Henrys and Aubrey McClendons and Clay Bennets, and that they would fight dirty.

And she did it anyway.

That is grassroots politics, and grassroots Conservatism. Sarah Palin has real experience, not drummed-up politicized "experience" based on who her political connections are.

She put in the time on lower levels because she cared more about making a difference than about making a name for herself. She moved up the political food chain as duty called her, not as ego drove her. Sarah Palin was willing to do the work that elitist Republicans wouldn't do.

Sarah Palin came from a "small town" to become Governor of one of the largest states in our union because she is effective. She is accomplished.

She has experience.

To say otherwise is to be willfully ignorant of the facts. I pity the fool.

The Winning Formula: Palin-McCain ’08!

Just to be clear, I was pulling for Mitt Romney.

The McCain camp has made a fabulous choice in Gov. Sarah Palin as the VP pick. (And it's 'Palin' like 'whalin''…like hunting whales. I know, gross, but the best Alaska analogy I could come up with.)

The only way this could be any better would be if the RNC were to completely ignore the will of the people and make McCain-Palin into Palin-McCain. Okay, I'm being a little sarcastic. But only a little.

Of course, the Dems, the MSM and their mindless minions are furious and disappointed. Their comments toward Palin (aside from the asinine lies, like that her Downs son Trig isn't really her son…yeah, I know) can pretty much fall into two basic groups: "She's too inexperienced" and "She's an unknown."

Both of these are pretty easy to shoot down, if one is willing to analyze the data in an objective way.

To say she is inexperienced betrays a flawed concept of what "experience" is. She's "too inexperienced" because she hasn't served 100 years in the Senate like Biden or McCain?

She is the ONLY person anywhere near the Presidency right now who has served in the executive branch of government, rather than the legislative. This is far more significant than even Conservative pundits are acknowledging. Having a legislator jump from a legislative position to an executive position automatically inserts a learning curve the candidate would face between the two branches of government.

A Governor is merely a President on a microcosmic level.

Legislators (Senators) have never had to actually balance a budget. A governor has.

Legislators have never had to function as the Commander in Chief of a military. A governor has (State National Guard, FYI).

A Legislator doesn't have veto power (don't they wish). Legislators cast votes, but they don't sign bills into law.

Legislators have very limited realms of responsibility compared to governors. They sit on committees and pontificate in the legislature. They don't have to sit behind a desk with the knowledge they may one day have to push the button.

And what has Palin done with her time in office?

She decimated Alaska's budget by over $200 billion dollars.

She has stopped, canceled or repealed many wasteful projects through the state, saving Alaska millions.

She lived up to every one of her campaign promises, including that of reducing her own salary.

She was a major player in stopping the Bridge to Nowhere pork-barrel project (along with our own Sen. Tom Coburn).

She is fiercely Christian and pro-life (both proved by her accepting her teenaged daughter's pregnancy and choice to keep her child rather than abort it), pro-Second Amendment, and has already started America toward energy independence by getting Alaska to build a pipeline to America's oil reserves, all while raising a family, including her oldest son Track, about to be deployed to Iraq.

Of course, when the extremely biased members of the MSM (I'm talking to YOU, Bill O'Reilly) hear these facts – not opinions, facts – they dismiss them by saying, "Well, but she's an unknown."

That happened to me recently. After trying to outline Palin's accomplishments (and getting cut-off before I was able to finish my first sentence), the person I was talking to gave me a "talk to the hand" gesture and said, "You're just trying to justify her as a choice because you're a Republican. I'm a Republican, too, but I'm not going to try and make the best of this when no one knows who she is."

Translation: "She doesn't work because I've never heard of her." The bottom line in this argument is arrogance. That makes you feel special, doesn't it? If YOU haven't heard of this woman, then obviously she can't be any good.

Of course, following that same line of thought, that must mean Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman would have been a better choice, eh? Hey, don't let the facts get in the way of my opinion!

No objective Conservative can be disappointed by the choice of Sarah Palin, unless it's that she's up for veep rather than actual President.

Help us, Sarah Palin. You're our only hope.

Open Letter to Joe Lester

Dear Joe Lester,

I am writing to tell you I will not be voting for you. I will be recommending to any Cleveland County voter I encounter that they do not, either. Please let me explain why.

Early in the primary race, I met you and heard you speak at the Frontier Country Republican Women’s meeting. During your speech, you mentioned that your most recent “law enforcement” experience was that of 12 years of involvement in Campus Security at the University of Oklahoma.

Being the only female at the meeting having attended college within the last decade, that piece of information was deeply troubling to me. As a recent college graduate, I know first-hand that the term “Campus Security” is an oxymoron. As omniscient as campus security officers are about parking violations, never once in either of the campuses I attended was a campus security officer personally involved in protecting a student, though students’ cars were broken into, students were held up on campus, and there was even a girl randomly and brutally attacked in her dorm, which Security didn’t respond to for hours.

This is why I am a strong advocate of Students’ Right to Carry. Aside from the fact it is clearly a Constitutional right, without it, students like me – unarmed female college students - are what’s known as “prey” on college campuses. Even at OU, unless she is lucky enough to be assaulted while already using a callbox, a female student’s chances of walking away from an encounter unscathed are basically nil. So, I’m sorry, but no one who has ever been involved in “Campus Security” has any business being anywhere near real-life law enforcement.

Secondly, you made a point of emphasizing that you were being supported and endorsed by David Boren. That’s right – that David Boren. Oklahoma’s most liberal Governor in the last 30 years, maybe more. Now, I realize you have no control over who donates to your campaign or makes a statement of support. And I also realize that you have a good personal relationship with David Boren through OU. But the fact that you would stand in the middle of a room of Conservative Republicans and proudly state that he is behind you concerns me. This gives me cause to doubt your own stated Conservative principles.

Both of these reasons are why I did not vote for you in the primaries. And honestly, that would have been enough to turn me away at the run-off vote. But, you’ve made the decision even easier with your recent campaign behavior.

Back several years ago, Mark Hamm was involved in a car accident. He was cited at fault, and received a ticket. His insurance company was supposed to pay off the ticket prior to the date he was to appear in court. The insurance company did not act in time, but did not notify Hamm of their lapse. Therefore, he was not aware he still needed to appear in court. Years later, someone noticed the ticket hadn’t been paid and issued a warrant. Once notified, Hamm paid the ticket.

But is that how you represent the story, Joe? No, it isn’t. I know, because I have gotten your mailer regarding it. And just the other night, I received a phone call from a supposedly “bipartisan” polling place trying to retell your distorted version of this story, implying that Mark Hamm had been issued a warrant for a deliberate, recent conflict with the law. This is false.

As a candidate running against another Republican, negative campaigning is unacceptable. Ronald Reagan told us to never speak evil against another Republican. After the particularly nasty primary races that I and many other Cleveland County Republicans were involved in that involved similar gross smear attempts, mailers and phone calls of this nature leave a particularly bad taste in my mouth and in the mouths of many other voters.

Joe, as a Christian who emphasizes his missions background, openly engaging in smear campaigning by deliberately misrepresenting another Christian’s background to other Christian voters is not only damaging to the Republican party but to the Body of Christ. I realize now, after the primary races, that not all Christians take that seriously. But I do. And many others do. And you should.

Now, I realize that I’m not a very important person, and my opinion doesn’t matter any more than any other person’s opinion. But I am a voter. And I will not be voting for you tomorrow.

What Does an Effective Leader Look Like?

By Jaci Greggs, Cleveland County Precinct 50 Republican Vice-Chairman

I’ve heard the word “effective” thrown around a lot this election cycle, from the national level all the way down. And rightly so. We have had our fill of seat-warmers in the Republican Party, doing nothing for the Conservative cause and being only interested in self-promotion. A discussion of an effective leader is definitely warranted. Here are some examples of an effective leader:

An effective leader is someone who will go to bat for taxpayers. In honor of the State’s Centennial celebration, the Centennial Commission decided to spend $15 million in various projects across the state. However, most of these projects were sponsored by venture capitalists that would have directly profited from this $15 million taxpayer expenditure, and were not required to account for the money they received. A leader would say that the taxpayers deserve to know exactly where and how their money was going to be spent. Someone did, and filed a lawsuit to that effect. Also, when the legislature got away from the constitutionally mandated process of bringing every new bond and tax issue to a vote of the people, someone took a stand to hold the legislature accountable so they would not pass bond issues without a vote of the people.

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/CentennialPork.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/Stopgoingintodebt.pdf

We want a leader who will stand up for our Christian beliefs in the public arena. Governor Brad Henry created an Ethnic Advisory Council, comprised entirely of Muslims, refusing to appoint a Middle-Eastern Christian Pastor. While this may not seem like a big deal, the real story is that this Council was able to distribute Qurans at taxpayer expense, supposedly in honor of Oklahoma’s Centennial. A leader would be brave enough to tell the Governor that the taxpayers are not obligated to fund Islamic proselytizing, and that Islam and the Quran have not played any significant role in the history of our state, while our country and subsequently our state have been guided throughout history by Judeo-Christian values. Someone did just that. Someone also co-authored a bill protecting Christian students’ rights to be able to pray openly and discuss their beliefs in schoolwork without fear of censorship or biased grading. The bill passed both the House and the Senate, but the Governor vetoed it on the last day of legislative session.

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/EthnicCouncilQuran.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/RenameMuslimCouncil.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/ReligiousFreedom.pdf

A leader is someone who should stand up for us in any arena, even when it means facing down the State Regents and a former Oklahoma governor. When Oklahoma seniors in 2005 were being abused by OUs Housing and Admittance policies, a leader would have thought that it was worth taking a public stand against a beloved Oklahoma institution when it was in the wrong. Someone did take a stand, and created a precedent so that Oklahoma universities couldn’t require students to live on campus, forcing them (or really, their taxpaying parents) to pay housing fees whether they really lived there or not.

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/CollegeEducationnotHousing.pdf

A leader will work to maintain an open government that is accountable to the people. Oklahoma has to abide by the Open Records Act, making official documents available to the public. The City of Norman was infringing on the Open Records Act by charging exorbitant fees for access to public documents. Someone took the City of Norman to task, and authored a bill to keep them from profiting off of the openness of public documents.

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/Openrecordsmustbefree.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/Openrecordsmustbefast.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/KeepOpenRecordsFree.pdf

Of course, there are also examples of those we don’t want in positions of political power. One of my favorites is Gene Stipe. Among other endeavors, Stipe created non-profits and then legislated government money into his non-profits, which were kept unaccountable to the state (thanks to Jeff McMahan, but that’s for another time). My favorite particular story involves a train engine. The city of Guthrie has a historic train depot that is one of the city’s landmarks. Gene Stipe thought it would be a great idea if Guthrie bought a train engine and cars to sit on the tracks next to the station. He legislated $300,000 to the company that owned the train and cars, Phipps Enterprises. Guess who owned the company? Businessman Steve Phipps – and Gene Stipes. A leader should be someone willing to make sure that crooks like Gene Stipe are punished for their crimes. Someone was, and investigated independently and consequently was able turn over evidence to the FBI that destroyed Gene Stipe’s false mental incapability claim to avoid jail time after being prosecuted for acts such as the one described above. Someone also fought to keep Stipe from collecting his legislator’s retirement – which equaled more than his legislator’s salary – while he is in prison as a result of the felonies he committed using his legislative power.

http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=125762

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/Stipe_Cogs.pdf

http://www.okdata.net/house91/NewsClippings/StipeRetirementRipoff.pdf

The “Someone” in every situation I described was State Representative Mike Reynolds. This is a small sampling of Mike’s legislative service on your behalf, protecting your Constitutional right to vote on new taxes, your rights to express your beliefs, and routing out corruption to prevent more waste of your hard-earned tax money (For more examples, you may refer to the recent legal troubles with Jeff McMahan, Drew Edmondson, and the exposure of Brad Henry’s illegal campaign donations).

So now that we have answered the first question - what an effective leader looks like - I’ll leave it to you to answer the next one:

What are you doing to help us keep this Conservative warrior fighting for you at the Capitol? This was not created with the knowledge, cooperation or approval of Mike Reynolds. Totally on my own. Please forward or repost.