The Real Victims Of Political Cowardice

Just over a month ago, Oklahoma House Democrats urged Speaker Charles McCall to create a special bipartisan committee to determine whether state Superintendent Ryan Walters’ conduct warranted a formal impeachment inquiry.

Politics as usual? A routine, partisan broadside? Hardly.

True, it was the minority party pressing the issue, but some House Republicans also were pondering the idea – rankled that Walters’ white-hot rhetoric triggered bomb threats against a Tulsa elementary and that his bungled oversight of Covid emergency funds could force the state to repay hundreds of thousands, if not millions of federal relief dollars.

It took two weeks, but McCall finally rejected the Democrats’ proposal, saying, “Until somebody puts forth an allegation of something criminal [in] nature, I don’t see the House of Representatives just weighing in and trying to overturn the election results of the state of Oklahoma.

“All of us get a report card from the people of the state of Oklahoma,” he added, and are “accountable to the people at the next election.”

Or to a legal system that sometimes lowers the boom on corrupt uses of tax dollars.

We don’t know, of course, whether Walters is culpable for the fact public money, earmarked to help children learn at home during the pandemic, was used instead to purchase TVs, Apple watches, gaming systems and Christmas trees.

What we do know is a federal Inspector General’s audit revealed the state misspent $31 million out of $39.9 million in Governor’s Emergency Education Relief – taxpayer funds supervised by Walters, who at the time was Gov. Kevin Stitt’s education secretary.

We also know Walters blamed the trouble on ClassWallet, the Florida vendor that handled the transactions; that the state, under former Attorney General John O’Connor, sued the private company; and that new AG Gentner Drummond dropped the lawsuit this year after concluding it was “almost wholly without merit.”

We further know Drummond subsequently asked Oklahoma Auditor Cindy Byrd to undertake a more thorough, investigative audit, which is not yet complete.

“It is clear,” Drummond noted, “that a number of state actors and other individuals are ultimately responsible for millions in misspent federal relief dollars.”

And finally, we know all the smoke billowing around the federal and state investigations provides cover for McCall and other legislative Republicans who would rather punt than take on Walters directly.

They correctly point out that Walters hasn’t been charged formally with anything. But there’s clearly more to this hands-off approach than a high-minded, innocent-until-proven-guilty principle.

Statehouse Republicans, you see, are reluctant to upset their party’s activist primary voters, many of whom seem to be buying Walters’ demagoguery that “government” schools have become anti-American, anti-Christianity indoctrination centers.

They also are wary of the deep pockets of anti-public ed, out-of-state special interests that helped create Walters and threaten anyone believed to be resisting his efforts to undermine public ed and replace it with for-profit, religious schools.

Have your doubts? Well, you might consider the case of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The GOP-controlled Texas House recently voted to impeach Paxton, whose venality is breathtaking by even Lone Star State standards. Senate Republicans, however, overwhelmingly voted to acquit him, even though he faces state securities fraud charges and has been linked to a federal bribery investigation.

As Texas Monthly reported, honest, ethical government was steamrolled by billionaires – “Midland oilman and Christian nationalist Tim Dunn foremost among them” – that already are “lining up primary challengers to take down wayward Republicans” in next March’s primaries.

For Sooner Republicans, it may be a safer bet to leave Walters to the feds, Drummond and Byrd. But Oklahoma’s 700,000-plus public-school students, their parents, teachers and administrators end up paying a terrible price for the political cowardice.