Oklahomans Paid Ryan Walters’ Campaign Manager $45,000 in Q1 2024
If you’re following the saga of Ryan Walters’ self-promotion at taxpayer expense and the Legislature’s disapproval thereof, you’ll want to read Andrea Eger’s story in the Tulsa World.
Last week, the Legislature clipped Walters’ PR wings with Senate Bill 1122, which specified none of the department’s money could go to public relations unless required by a federal contract. As Oklahoma Watch first reported last year, Walters signed up Vought Strategies to get him national television and newspaper coverage for $60,000 per year — or substantially more, as much as $260,000 per year, if you read the attachments to the poorly executed March contract. Read the history of that contract here.
Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, and House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, subpoenaed employment information regarding Walters’ chief advisor, Texas resident Matt Langston, who also ran Walters’ 2022 campaign. They asked for a copy of Langston’s employment contract, application, employment offer and job description. They said the subpoena was necessary because Walters did not respond to the original request.
He did respond to the subpoena, saying none of those documents exist.
Here’s the upshot: Oklahoma taxpayers gave Langston more than $113,000 last year and more than $45,000 in the first quarter of 2024. Walters said Langston became a part-time employee last summer, which means he’s on track to earn $180,000 for a part-time Oklahoma job while working in Texas running campaigns for Republican politicians.
“I wanted them to tell me they didn’t have anything. I suspected it all along,” McBride told the World. “I don’t think it’s right or fair to the people of Oklahoma that this guy’s got carte blanche, making over $100,000 with full-time benefits and not showing up for work.
“Walters made everybody quit working remotely except Matt Langston, who sits at home in Texas doing campaigns,” McBride said. “It’s obvious we are paying him for nothing. He does not do work for the OSDE — he’s promoting Ryan Walters as a politician.”
As Jennifer Palmer reported, Langston has longstanding ties to Mary Vought, the recipient of the national public relations contract. Vought has been pitching Walters to television networks to talk about hot-button political issues such as book bans and drag queens, even though Walters claimed publicly the PR campaign was intended to recruit teachers to Oklahoma. No pitches or appearances have been about teacher recruitment.
Walters claimed he was under a direct political attack by McCall and McBride. Both are fellow Republicans.
More worth reading:
Lawmakers Approve $4.1 Million to Resolve Mental Health Lawsuit
A $4.1 million appropriation was quietly tucked away in the state budget in anticipation of resolving a lawsuit alleging Oklahoma’s mental health agency is not providing timely treatment to county jail inmates. [Oklahoma Voice]
Another Death at the Oklahoma County Jail
The death of an Oklahoma County jail inmate is under investigation. About 1:40 p.m. Sunday, officers discovered Jeremy Birchfield, 45, unresponsive in his assigned cell, jail officials said in a news release. [The Oklahoman]
Muscogee Supreme Court To Decide Creek Freedmen’s Fate
After her argument failed to convince Judge Mouser to deny citizenship to Freedmen, Muscogee AG Wisner immediately appealed to the MCN Supreme Court. Her new argument for denying Freedmen takes a different approach that risks upending tribal sovereignty entirely, Freedmen supporters warn. [Oklahoma Eagle]
“One of the evils of democracy is, you have to put up with the man you elect whether you want him or not.”
— Will Rogers
Ciao for now,
Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org
