What's To Hide?

If the great ethicist in the sky annually graded states for transparent, pristine, above-reproach government, Oklahoma likely would have earned a series of big fat Fs in recent years.

Consider: Epic Charter Schools’ co-founders and chief financial officer are facing racketeering, embezzlement of state funds and other charges related to the alleged looting of $22 million in taxpayer treasure.

The attorney general and state crime agents have been busy investigating the Swadley’s-Tourism Department debacle that cost the state at least $12 million more than expected.

And just last month, state Auditor Cindy Byrd warned Oklahoma could be on the hook to repay about $30 million in misspent federal COVID-19 emergency relief funds for education.

But – wait! – there’s more.

Oklahoma Ethics Commission Executive Director Ashley Kemp is quitting, citing frustration that lawmakers, in effect, are financially straight-jacketing the agency set up to monitor campaign finance and special interest funny business.

With the “record budget year,” she wrote in her resignation letter, “there seemed every reason to expect an investment in the Commission to restore its education program, build upon its administrative compliance program, and devote resources to combatting the increased and exponential use of ‘dark money’ in Oklahoma campaigns.

“Unfortunately, that did not occur despite what appeared to be a significant amount of support for the Commission’s request.”

Let that sink in. The People’s Watchdog isn’t just being muzzled, it is being defanged by statehouse leadership that clearly wants as little scrutiny as possible of donor money pouring into campaigns and lobbyists’ wining-and-dining.

Why the resistance? What’s to hide?

Obvious questions with no single answer. Hubris? Yes. Contempt for the taxpayers who voted in 1990 to create the good-government agency? Maybe [though it may be better explained as “indifference”].

What’s clear is the Legislature doesn’t want too much independent poking around at the confluence of big money, politics and policymaking. After all, there are 149 legislators and hundreds more registered lobbyists, representing thousands of special required to file reports with an Ethics Commission whose staff currently consists of five. Yes, only f-i-v-e!

This year’s Legislature sat on an estimated $4 billion in various state savings accounts. Not all, of course, was available legally to be spent on vital operations like the Ethics Commission. Yet, lawmakers were willing to cough up a paltry $687,950 for the agency for the next fiscal year?

That’s the very definition of political malpractice.

How so? Well, consider this: The very first Ethics Commission budget more than 30 years ago was about $700,000. Anything cost less today than it did in the early 1990s? Anything?

Even amid a dreadful state budget crisis five years ago, the Legislature made sure the agency got more than in FY’24 – albeit by forcing it to make-do with what it collected from candidates, special interest lobbyists, political action committees and political parties required to register with the state: $710,351.

The agency never has received adequate funding, yet it’s managed to stop some of the nonsense legislators are tempted to engage in. Recent examples: Former Sen. Kyle Loveless agreed to pay more than $100,000 for misusing campaign funds for personal purchases, including from Victoria’s Secret, and former Rep. Gus Blackwell paid more than $25,000 for collecting mileage reimbursement from the state and his campaign accounts for the same trips.

To be clear, there is no direct connection between Kemp’s resignation and the three potentially criminal matters involving Epic, Swadley’s and COVID-19 education relief funds.

But her departure after seven years – and the primary reason for it – underscores the need for Oklahoma taxpayers to demand better of their elected leadership.

That starts with giving the Ethics Commission the tools necessary to ensure all state officials play by the rules.