Ryan Walters on a serious losing streak
Ryan Walters on a serious losing streak
Contrary to his ridiculous tweets, it's being fueled by Republicans, the courts
It’s not the old does-a-falling-tree-in-the-forest-make-a-sound-if-nobody’s-there-to-hear-it question, but it’s in the ballpark.
If Ryan Walters, as state superintendent of public instruction, leader of the state board of education, chooses policy the state constitution and courts won’t allow him to implement, is he really state superintendent at all?
Sadly, yes, though it’s fun seeing him kneecapped.
Such a decision was handed down only this week when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Edmond Public Schools, not Walters, the state board of education, nor the state education department, has the authority to determine which books may appear or not appear in the district’s libraries.
The court was serious.
Unanimously, as described by the reporting of The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans, it said …
… state statutes give local school boards — such as the one for the Edmond Public Schools district — “power and a type of statutory discretion to supply books for a school library that meet local community standards.”
Also …
“no statute” gave the state board, state agency or state superintendent “the authority to supervise, examine, and control a local school board’s exercise of this discretion when the local school board applies local community standards” for school library books.
And …
The court also issued a “writ of prohibition” that prevents the state board from taking action against the district and ordered the state board to “dismiss their enforcement proceeding” reviewing the district’s selection of library books.
Whoa!
It is the latest shoe drop in Walters’ latest losing streak, which is long.
Another one?
The outing of Matt Langston, Walters’ political strategist and alleged chief policy advisor, who’s managed to pull down a six-figure salary from the state department of education, benefits included, despite having no contract, sometimes working part-time hours, sometimes working full-time hours and not living in Oklahoma, but in Texas instead, where Langston’s real job is owning and operating a right-wing political consulting firm near Austin, and here is Evans’ reporting on that:
According to public records, Langston is the chief executive officer of a Georgetown, Texas-based company known as Engage Right LLC, which its website describes as “a boutique consulting shop that specializes in telling your story to voters.”
The outing occurred in the wake of state house representative Mark McBride and speaker of the house Charles McCall, both Republicans, issuing their second subpoena in the space of six months to Walters, seeking a laundry list of records explaining Langston’s employment.
Still more, and this is a doozy, on their way out of session, state house lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, via Senate Bill 1122, shut down Walters’ ability to spend taxpayer money on self aggrandizement with this precise provision.
No funds appropriated to the State Department of Education in Enrolled Senate Bill No. 1125 of the 2nd Session of the 59th Oklahoma Legislature or under the control of the State Department of Education shall be encumbered or expended for the purpose of securing media interviews, public relations, or other public promotional purposes unless expressly required to participate in a federal grant program.
Walters, of course, on X, formerly Twitter, blamed “the LGBTQ+, radical democrats, the teachers union and [Mark] McBride” for silencing him, which is rich, given the individuals who played the biggest role in Senate Bill 1122 passing were 40 Republicans in the house and 31 Republicans in the senate.
Another loss could well be on the horizon.
Remember when the state board of education gave its rubber stamp to a bunch of new rules, 53 in all, the not following of which could put school districts in danger of losing their state accreditation?
Among the rules are a tying of accreditation to student testing (without regard to each districts’ challenges, as though socioeconomics play no role, because the Norman, Edmond and Broken Arrow districts are pretty much exactly like the Oklahoma City and Tulsa districts, which is patently absurd), mandating teacher behavior and an everyday moment of silence, too.
As it happened, state attorney general Gentner Drummond issued a binding opinion the state board can’t do that, can’t act unilaterally, but must first be directed by the legislature to address a particular subject … which put the ball back in the legislature’s court to strike down or approve the new rules, a ball the Republican super majorities in the house and senate didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, thereby leaving them to the governor to decide.
“We have, I think, 20 or 25 days to decide,” Kevin Stitt told The Oklahoman the beginning of the month. “We’re still reviewing all those. But I know that we all want to improve education. We believe in accountability. But as far as the details of those bills, I’m still going through those. Our teams are going through them.”
Will Stitt fall back in line with Walters as he’s done so many times before, or throw him overboard, at least this once, knowing Walters is unpopular in the state and that letting him have his way does him no favors, not to mention make it harder for the next Republican gubernatorial candidate, even if it’s Walters himself, to win the next election?
Morals of the story?
There are a few.
If McBride, McCall and the rest of the Republican legislature really wanted to get to the bottom of things with Walters, it could do more than send him an embarrassing subpoena once every six months.
Though Walters has paid out-of-state firms with state money to book him for national interviews and appearances, charging the state for his travel, too, made a Texas-based political consultant his farcical chief policy advisor, and played big roles in umpteen other scandals that must have included the breaking of laws, the only comeuppance he ever seems to get is embarrassment at the hands of the courts and his fellow Republicans, which is not nearly enough, leaving righteous Oklahomans to hope an avalanche may drop out of the attorney general’s office on the back end of November’s elections.
Oh, yeah, Walters remains a reprehensible politician, office-holder and human being, entirely in it for himself.
Leaving us to take solace what we can, like his current losing streak.
Nobody deserves it (and so much more) than him.
Indeed, the good news is he’s radioactive to everybody and everybody knows it, even if a portion of one side of the aisle must keep him standing, lest it torpedo itself.
It’s clear, thankfully, the ballad of Ryan Walters bends toward a whole lot less of Ryan Walters.