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We Regret to Say, Goodbye

I came here almost 7 years ago, driving in on I-40 from Arizona in my 1965 vintage motorhome. It was quite the adventure to be here when the long drought was broken. Having grown up near Wichita Falls, Texas, I’d heard tornado sirens before, but after living in Central Texas and Arizona for 35 years, I was unaware of the new radar technologies and just how weather reporting during storm events had evolved. As I listened to AWACs head for Arizona, I felt more vulnerable in my motorhome than I actually was as sirens sounded all around me and my RV neighbors. I came here specifically to work for a startup state-level think tank called the 1889 Institute. For three years I toiled mostly all by myself with only some direction from our Senior Fellow, to build a body of high-quality research. Funding was made available for some expansion, and eventually our team included as many as seven total individuals researching issues and government programs in an effort to make it as easy as possible to earn a living in this state, to make government efficient, and to maximize individual freedom. I’ve had the honor to work with dedicated individuals whose motives were selfless, only wanting to...

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Why the “Fear” of School Choice in Rural School Districts?

Throughout decades of advocacy for school choice, a major impediment has been rural legislators. Republicans and Democrats alike, they are led to believe by the superintendents of rural school districts that school choice will financially destroy, or otherwise somehow irreparably damage rural schools. Whether they should be or not, rural schools are often the lifeblood of rural communities. In addition to usually very good educations, rural schools provide entertainment, community cohesiveness, and what many call “culture” to small communities. People who come from small rural communities are almost always intensely proud of their roots (author included) and strongly identify with the public school in which they grew up, often having never attended school outside of a one-block campus for twelve full years. It’s understandable that rural citizens will resist anything that might harm their cherished rural schools. But is it true that school choice programs will harm rural schools? Could it be the case that superintendents of rural schools, who have an outsize influence on legislators, could be selling a false bill of goods? And if, indeed, rural superintendents are being dishonest...

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THE God’s Honest Truth: We Don’t Elect Dictators

Vice President Kamala Harris was recently asked by the host of “Tha God’s Honest Truth” (not surprisingly for Comedy Central, a blasphemous show name since the host often deals in falsehood) who the president was, Joe Biden or Joe Manchin. Obviously, our current President of the United States is Joe Biden. So why the question? It’s because of the rules of our republic. The President of the United States is not a dictator. He can’t borrow and spend with abandon unless he has the permission of at least a bare majority of both Houses of Congress, and Joe Manchin happens to be a Democrat willing to say no. But it’s clear that the host of “Tha God’s Honest Truth” wants a dictator. Many on the left want a strongman leader who will run roughshod over the rule of law, over our constitutional republic’s norms, and over basic freedoms to get whatever it is they want. They wanted Joe Biden to ride into Washington, twist arms, break legs, issue edicts, pack courts and, otherwise do whatever it took to get his (their) way. Would that only the left desired that one central office run everything. Fact is, in one Republican-led state after another, governors think of themselves as the CEO of...

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Without Principled Originalism, Judges Become Lawgivers

Recently there have been calls in conservative quarters to move away from a commitment to originalism in constitutional interpretation. Often these missives do not call for a total abandonment of originalism, merely for relegating it to one tool of many. Whether these calls arise from a frustration with recent applications of originalism (or its close cousin textualism), from opportunism now that six nominally conservative justices control the court, or from a more principled view that other interpretive methods are better in some way, is immaterial. Those who argue that other principles should sometimes take precedence are missing an important piece of the puzzle; originalism is the bulwark of one of America’s first principles, that of self-governance. When a court interprets a single party legal document, for instance a will, the whole enterprise is intended to suss out the subjective intent of the individual writing the document. While the beneficiaries of a will might have a great deal at stake in the interpretation of the will, what they want is unimportant to the court. They had no authority over the estate. If it is well established that a deceased eccentric millionaire...

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If Corporate Welfare Is So Great, Why Hide It?

Last week, the Oklahoman published an article discussing Governor Stitt’s increased use of a business incentive called the Quick Action Closing Fund. A recent 1889 blog addressed some of the fiscal pitfalls of the program (and other corporate welfare schemes like it), such as their redistributive nature and their tendency to take from the general public to subsidize the rich. In this piece, I would like to focus on another worrisome aspect of the program - its utter lack of transparency. There simply isn’t any good information available concerning the Fund’s recent usage. Any available information is either outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete. In March of 2020, the Department of Commerce published a detailed report on the Quick Action Closing Fund that (among other things) listed payments made from the fund since its inception in 2011. The title of the report, Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund Annual Report 2019, is ironic considering that (to my knowledge) it is the only such report. The year 2022 is now only a few weeks away and there still hasn’t been an update. Anyone desiring current information on the Fund will need to look elsewhere. A helpful tip to the Department of...

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A Few Unhappy Reflections On One Semester of Traditional Public Elementary School

Reflecting on one semester in Oklahoma’s traditional public school system, with two kids in the same grade but different teachers, I can definitively say it’s been a mixed bag. Our experience has been tolerable for one child and completely unacceptable for the other. The experience has reinforced my view that Oklahoma needs to dramatically expand school choice and parent empowerment. When I first moved to Oklahoma from Arizona, Arizona having the most robust school choice in the nation, I was concerned with the lack of choice available to my children. I know my children and their needs. Going into this school year, I suspected that one child would perform well in the current system while the other would likely need something completely different than what a traditional public education would offer. Cognizant of my children's different needs, in Arizona I could have chosen from hundreds of charter and private schools offering diverse approaches to education, based on anything from classical education to agriculture and equine studies. Even traditional public schools were getting in on the action. For example, Phoenix Union High School District offered a diverse, innovative...

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Oklahoma’s Quick Action Economic Extraction Machine

Although Governor Stitt is politically conservative and has done a pretty good job so far of controlling the temptation to spend more money at the state level, there is one area where he appears to wish to considerably increase spending. The Governor is a staunch supporter of tax subsidies and cash incentives for businesses, otherwise known as corporate welfare. One prominent example is the state’s Quick Action Closing Fund. Last year, the governor asked the legislature for an additional $20 million infusion, and they obliged. The Quick Action Closing Fund was first created in 2011 as a means for then-Governor Fallin to dangle grants as lures for companies to locate and expand in Oklahoma. One way the closing fund’s creation was justified had to do with other states having similar funds, supposedly putting states without them at an economic disadvantage. According to a recent article in The Oklahoman, Governor Stitt has spent from the closing fund at about the same rate as Fallin, but he has spent the money differently. Stitt’s spending has generally been spread out to more companies at smaller amounts. But recently, a $1.2 million grant was made to Limco Airepair and a $0.75...

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If Licensing Worked, Wouldn’t Lawyers Be Liked?

Being an attorney, even one who doesn’t actively practice, requires thick skin. It’s best to embrace the litany of lawyer jokes, like this one.            Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy. The jokes may be innocuous, but they come from an authentic dislike of the profession as a whole. Sure, there are good and honorable lawyers. But there are enough scumbags that the reputation seems at least partially earned. Lawyers are among the most thoroughly vetted professionals in the nation. In most states one must (take a breath): obtain a bachelor’s degree, achieve a decent score on the Law School Admissions Test, be admitted to an American Bar Association-approved law school, pass the Multi-state Professional Responsibility Exam, graduate from an ABA-approved law school, pass a state bar exam, and run the gauntlet of the state’s character and fitness committee, who can inquire into any and all past employment, academic irregularities, minor legal infractions, and the failure to disclose any of the above. The process takes some effort just to describe. Successfully navigating it is grueling. And yet legal practice is one of the most reviled professions in the nation....

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Covid Policies Are about Power; It’s a Joke to Pretend Otherwise

On Monday, Merriam Webster chose “vaccine” as their word of the year for 2021. According to their website, the word of the year is determined by what words are searched on the Merriam Webster online dictionary, but also on the “words that are significant for that particular year because of the frequency with which they were looked up compared to previous years.” Last year, the word of the year was “pandemic.” These selections should come as no surprise to anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past two years. The pandemic has shaped our lives, and the development of and debate regarding vaccines has come to the fore this year. Had I been involved in the selection process, I might have offered a different word: “mandate.” The past two years have been full of mandates regarding masks, social distancing, vaccines, and other virus-related measures that have only gotten worse as time passes. In October, California governor Gavin Newsome stated his intention to require children to be fully vaccinated in order to attend in-person school. The Biden Administration recently attempted to mandate vaccines for government workers, federal contractors, and employees of any private...

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Federal American Recovery Plan Act: Brewster’s Billions

"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money."                    -P.J. O'Rourke In the movie Brewster's Millions, a minor league baseball pitcher (Monty Brewster) finds out he has inherited $300 million as long as he can spend $30 million in 30 days. The money cannot all be gambled or donated. Monty has to spend the money and acquire no new assets, making him spend the money quickly and without much concern for future financial problems. Much like Brewster's money, though it would have to be called Brewster's Billions, the federal government gave Oklahoma 1.9 billion in America Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds with some conditions in how it could be spent attached. The most severe limitation for the ARPA funds is they cannot help reduce taxes or make deposits into pension funds. There must also be plans to spend the funds by the end of 2024 or use them by year-end 2026. If Oklahoma violates these limitations, the federal government will request reimbursement. Like Brewster's Millions, the ARPA funds are subject to a short time frame. Both the...

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Freedom from Socialism: A Thanksgiving Lesson

What follows is a true story – actually, two true stories, or the same story that occurred in two different places in very different times and circumstances. Read on to find out where. (Originally published November 27, 2019). The farmers had been discussing amongst themselves in pairs and small groups for months, concerned with their poverty and lack of progress in improving crop yields, so important to feeding themselves and building a thriving community. What they’d been doing, it seemed, should have succeeded. They all worked the same fields together – clearing, tilling, sowing, weeding, and reaping – everyone in the same fields at the same time. Anyone who might be weak in one skill should have had that weakness made up by others working beside them, with everyone benefitting from everyone else’s unique abilities. They all had a common purpose. But for the occasional troublemaker, present in every community, they liked each other, helped each other, and took care of each other when some among them fell ill. And, everybody got an equal share of the yearly harvest, accounting for family size. But something was amiss. Their harvests were meager, more meager than the farmers...

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Despotic Governmental Power Perpetuates Injustice

Conservatives and progressives can find common ground when it comes to eminent domain. Libertarians generally abhor it as a violation of private property rights while civil rights groups recognize its disproportionate impact on people of color and low income. We argue that the two sides should come together and urge the Oklahoma legislature to join 44 other states in restricting the oppressive abuse of eminent domain. Enacting eminent domain reform can be a win across the political spectrum. Eminent domain authorizes the government to seize someone’s property even when the owner objects. While eminent domain can have a legitimate purpose, forcing landowners to relinquish their property in the name of economic development, urban renewal, and eradicating urban “blight” tends to disproportionately displace the cultures, families, and neighborhoods of the poor and powerless, often racial minorities. In a lawsuit that culminated in a landmark Supreme Court decision, Susette Kelo and several other residents of New London, Connecticut, fought to keep their homes. Their properties were taken, not because anything was wrong with the homes, but because poor homeowners occupied old houses...

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Inflation: The Invisible Tax

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.  -John Maynard Keynes Despite current inflation rates, the United States economy appears to be doing well when looking at the stock market indexes and GDP. The Dow Jones Industrial and S&P 500 are nearing or breaking record highs. Growth in the stock market has also spilled over into a growing gross domestic product (GDP). But these high points are in contradiction to other economic indicators. The labor participation rate is at its lowest in nearly 40 years, which has led to a shortage of workers. This shortage of workers has exaggerated global supply chain issues. How can Wall Street be doing so well, and Main Street be doing so poorly? To understand this predicament, we must first look at what caused the inflation in the first place. The money supply has increased due to expansive government spending and Federal Reserve policies intended to restore the pre-COVID-19 economy. However, instead of bringing the economy back to prior levels, these government responses have exaggerated the problems Covid-19 placed on supply chains. The...

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Lamenting Today’s Lack of Truth Telling

A couple of events lately have dramatically brought into focus the issue of TRUTH, not one’s own personal truth, not the truth as told by the victors, not the truth as understood by where one presently stands, but THE truth. Very recently, it was publicly announced that a new university is in the offing. Called the University of Austin, according to its statement of principles, it will be devoted to the classic purpose of universities, the pursuit of truth. Rod Dreher, author of Live Not by Lies, also spoke in recent weeks in Tulsa, conveying warnings from those who lived in the former Soviet Union that the U.S. is sinking into the sort of totalitarian mindset by which everyone dare not tell the truth for fear of retribution. Working in policy, it can be extremely frustrating to watch as people come to believe lies. Most lies are attractive. One of them was recently voted when rent control was voted into law in St. Paul, Minnesota in the mistaken belief that it’s possible to legislate more affordable housing simply by declaring it to be so. Another mistaken belief, that prosperity for workers can be legislated by imposing a minimum wage, was given a leg up with the rewarding of...

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OK Supreme Court’s Outstanding Opioid Opinion

“This court has not extended the public nuisance statute to the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of products, and we reject the State’s invitation to expand Oklahoma’s public nuisance law.” — Oklahoma Supreme Court, State v Johnson & Johnson The Oklahoma Supreme Court hasn’t been the cause of much celebration in recent years. That changed yesterday when Oklahoma’s highest court overruled the dangerous 2019 judgement that declared Johnson and Johnson’s opioid marketing efforts to be a “public nuisance.” The trial court ordered the company to pay Oklahoma’s state government hundreds of millions of dollars to abate said nuisance. The opioid manufacturers appealed (the 1889 Institute submitted a brief in support of their claims). Yesterday, the original verdict was roundly rejected when the Supreme Court held that the opioid manufacturers did not create a public nuisance. This was no technicality with a chance for a do-over, but rather a square rejection of the lower court’s legal reasoning on the merits of the case. While the outcome of a lawsuit tends to make headlines, it’s the underlying theory that really matters in the long run. In this case, the justices got both the...

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Lawless School Board Fires Teachers Over Illegal Mask Mandate

On Wednesday, six Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) teachers were fired for refusing to comply with the district’s mask mandate. OKCPS Superintendent Sean McDaniel recommended their termination because he considered their actions willful neglect of duty and moral turpitude (the threshold needed to fire tenured teachers). These firings are problematic for multiple reasons. First, as written in a previous 1889 blog, the OKCPS mask mandate was (and still is) clearly illegal. Last session, the legislature passed SB 658, which bars school boards from implementing mask mandates in schools (among other things). Superintendent McDaniel claimed power to implement a mask mandate in the OKCPS district because the law only specifically mentioned school boards and not superintendents. This contention is absurd. In Oklahoma, a superintendent serves at the will of the school board and acts on their behalf. Section 5-106 of Title 70 states that “…the superintendent of schools appointed and employed by the board shall be the executive officer of the board and shall perform duties as the board directs.” So, not only does the superintendent serve at the will of the board and act on their behalf,...

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Reclaiming Higher Education

The widening divide in national politics and the inability to agree to disagree is not only affecting the national discourse but college campuses as well. There is growing concern about the state of higher education today. Many parents see less value in the role of higher education in their children’s future. This is increasingly true as institutions of higher education focus less on graduating students capable of a lifetime of critical thinking, learning, and innovation and instead becoming boot camps for social activism. Where parents once saw higher education as a way for their children to achieve a fulfilling and possibly lucrative career, many now question whether the investment is worth it. As a parent who places great value on education, I count myself among those parents who increasingly view higher education institutions with skepticism. The rapid rise of critical theories as the intellectual orthodoxy on college campuses, the lack of political diversity, and the diminution of free speech are just a few reasons for concern.     In a recent keynote address, James Lindsay, author of Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity...

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Some Old Oklahoma Laws Stink: Legislature Should Take Out the Trash

Imagine a household that never takes out their trash. They shop carefully, only buying things they reasonably expect to make good use of. So, they think that since they only bring good things into the house, they should never need to take anything out of it. The problems are immediately obvious. Some items outlive their usefulness. Food packaging is a wonderful thing to have in your house - assuming there’s food in it. But what happens to that “empty” can of chili when it sits in the trash for a week? The remnants of a tasty meal begin to smell. After two weeks it would become unbearable. The can was good when it entered the house, but it outlived its usefulness. Or what about that trampoline that seemed like such a good idea? The kids loved it for a week, until one broke his arm. Now they’re all scared of it. Do you leave it to kill the grass until the next big storm deposits it in an unsuspecting neighbor’s yard? Or do you sell it online to recoup some of the copay for the kid’s cast? The Oklahoma Legislature has passed many good bills in recent years. Earlier this year they passed laws to prevent Oklahoma schools from indoctrinating our children with neo-Marxist theories on...

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In Addressing Environmental Issues, the Problem is Too Much Regulation, Not Too Little

Contemporary comprehensive plans for municipalities throughout the country often incorporate the pursuit of “green,” or “sustainable” urban places. Nationally, Congress is considering dedicating billions of dollars to support such initiatives in a massive tax-and-spend bill as “environmental justice” and equity advance in lockstep with other progressive policies. As an outdoor enthusiast, I can appreciate and understand the desire to conserve natural resources and find ways to sustain life. Unfortunately, the tendency of government officials toward overbearing control and increasingly despotic power hinders the individual pursuit of innovative sustainability. The relentless rhetoric of environmental activists, bureaucrats, and celebrities is often focused on costly government-imposed solutions. Such initiatives range from renewable portfolio standards and a ban on the sale of gasoline-fueled automobiles to allocating billions of public dollars to planting trees or subsidizing the wealthy who purchase electric vehicles. While the media is replete with calls for big-government programs, notably absent (or intentionally excluded) from the environmental dialogue is the voice of...

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Sorry Oklahomans, Your Legislature Just Doesn’t Have Time for You

In Oklahoma, legislators supposedly do the vast majority of their examination of bills during committee meetings. Theoretically, this is where bills are thoroughly vetted and refined before they are sent before the larger body. There are just a few problems with this in practice. First, as noted in previous 1889 blogs and a report published earlier this year by Oklahoma Watch, bills are often passed out of committee after mere minutes with little discussion or consideration. Second, neither body (House or Senate) allows public testimony on bills in committee. Instead, they have apparently assumed that only the people with the time to meet with legislators individually in their offices – lobbyists – are worth listening to. According to Oklahoma Watch, not a single committee chair responded to requests to testify at a committee meeting, or their request for comment on a potential rule change to allow testimony. Can one seriously claim to thoroughly vet proposed legislation while refusing to allow testimony from the public? Is listening almost exclusively to messages from paid lobbyists the best way to determine policy? Because state legislators set policies for the entire state,...

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