Several weeks ago, we had Peggs Superintendent Dr. John Cox on to talk about his campaign for Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Though I like to make short clips of our interviews, I’ll not be doing that with candidates. ROPE Report will not be endorsing candidates for office, so I fear that creating shorts would run the risk of sounding as though we were attempting to endorse – or knock out – a candidate for office since the clips wouldn’t be seen in the whole context of the video.
Please make sure you watch the video – it’s very instructive. I won’t download the whole video in the blog post, but you can find the full version on either our Rumble or YouTube channels.
Tuesday, April 29th, SB224 – Creating the Oklahoma Education and Workforce Statewide Longitudinal Data System – was brought to the floor for a House vote following passage in the Senate 33 to 13. The bill failed in the House 35 to 56 with 7 absent.
At that time, author Representative Caldwell captured the bill to be reheard at a later time.
Thursday, May 1, the bill came to the House floor again, where it was voted down Ayes: 46 Nays: 37.
Then, a Motion to Rescind THAT vote was adopted Ayes: 51 Nays: 32.
The measure THEN passes Ayes: 51 Nays: 36 without the emergency clause.
Representative Tom Gann – who argued against the bill on the floor – wrote a Press Release concerning the unprecedented THREE votes the bill received on the 1st. That press release was read live on the air after it was sent, but Gann was advised that it would NOT be placed on the House website for publication. Please see below for a copy of that press release.
Rep.-Tom Gann, R-Inola Issues Statement on Bonus Vote of SB224 and Warns of the Dangers of Setting New Policy
Representative Tom Gann released the following statement on the unprecedented bonus vote taken by the house on Thursday on Senate Bill 224.
“On Thursday, May 1, 2025, Representative Kyle Hilbert, Speaker of the House, took actions regarding SB224 that did not align with the House Rules of the 60th Legislature.
House rules dictate that once a bill is defeated it is not eligible for additional consideration. The House vote to defeat SB224 was considered final action under the rules.
However, Hilbert, while presiding over the house allowed an additional bonus vote to occur by which the bill was approved. This breaks with years of clearly established House precedent that prevents never ending bonus votes on failed legislation and opens up a Pandoras box of potential abuse.
What other bills will be allowed a bonus vote?”
The relevant house rule and written precedent are attached to this release.
House Rule 6, Bills And Resolutions,
6.8 – Final Action
(a) The following action shall constitute final action on any bill or resolution:
1. committee recommendation, including any oversight committee recommendation or any policy committee recommendation of “Do Not Pass”;
2. if a motion to reconsider the vote on Third Reading orFourth Reading fails to prevail or expires;
3. if a motion to table the motion to reconsider prevails; or
4. if a vote is taken on Third Reading or Fourth Reading and no notice is served to reconsider the vote.
(b) If final action is such as to defeat a bill or resolution,no other bill or resolution having the same effect and covering thesame specific subject matter shall be considered by the House ofRepresentatives during either session of the current Legislature.
Page 53
On page 209 of Precedents
6.8 – 4 (2010) Motion to Rescind May Not Be Used to Avoid Final Action
Rule – House Rule 6.8, paragraph (a) states in part:
(a) The following action shall constitute final action on any billor resolution:
…a motion to reconsider the vote on Third Reading or FourthReading [that] fails to prevail…
History – Representative Nelson moved to reconsider the vote whereby Senate Bill 2207 failed, which motion failed of adoption. Representative Nelson moved to rescind the vote whereby the reconsideration motion failed.
Representative Reynolds raised a point of order stating that the motion to rescind was dilatory.
Friday, March 28th, Julianne Romanello was our guest on the ROPE Report podcast to talk about REAL ID and the biometric identification methods the government is using to track US citizens in the name of safety. I suggest you watch the full video on our YouTube and Rumble channels, but I’ll include a lot of information in this blog post for you to (hopefully) read and share.
The one thing I want to stress right now is that, the whole, “they’re already doing it right now what are we going to do to stop them” mentality HAS TO END. We human individuals are given BY GOD the ability to think and reason and as long as we can do that, we can effect what happens to us. It may not be easy, but in the end, it will be worth it to stop the government from surveilling our every move. Toward that end, you must be EDUCATED about what is happening and this is the beginning of our attempt to start you on the road toward education on REAL and biometric ID.
In this video clip with Julianne, she tells us that, right now, citizens are not getting the REAL ID and it’s becoming hard for the government to institute it among men (sorry…lol). This is going to be the point at which we have to stop it OR become engrossed in a global biometric digital ID system.
In the clip below, Julianne talks about the biggest problem we have right now – UNEDUCATED ELECTED OFFICIALS! If you are concerned that ‘they’re already doing this’, the best way to get our foot in the door to stop it is to TELL OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS WHAT’S GOING ON AND WHY WE DON’T WANT REAL TIME/FULL TIME DIGITAL BIOMETRIC SURVEILLANCE. Don’t wait. Share this information with your Senator and Representative and educate and involve them. It’s the only way to get any headway on the issue.
Here is an information sheet that was put together a number of years ago in Oklahoma by a group called OK-SAFE. Though it’s an older document it’s a great primer on the topic. Please read it and share it.
This is another article – longer – but great in terms of learning about REAL ID.
One last thing. If you really want to know exactly what the government is expecting to do read the document below. If that doesn’t scare you, I’m honestly not sure what to say. Please, add this to your list of things we IMMEDIATELY need to stop now and get education today.
Our friend, author ‘Mary’ of the V1SUT Vantage Substack joined the podcast at a SPECIAL TIME – at 1pm on Friday, March 21st to talk about some very unsettling things going on in the world of Oklahoma Education Reform. This is another one of those videos (I know…I write that all the time!) for which you’ll want to watch the full video and you can do that here on our YouTube and Rumble channels.
Mary talked about a number of bills, but the one we talked about arguably the most was HB1937, the bill that would change the law passed last year authored by Sherrie Conley, that prevented Oklahoma public school employees from communicating with students without a parent on the call/text/email/etc. HB1937 – a bill by two former public school employees – now allows parents to opt out of the law. Mary talks about what a bad idea that is in the clip below.
We also talked about HB1491 – a horrible bill that I can’t imagine wasn’t a request bill from the Governor. Don’t forget, back in February, Governor Stitt fired three Oklahoma State Department of Education Board members because of ‘political drama’. We found out later that Stitt fired them because he didn’t want anyone counting the number of illegal alien students here in Oklahoma (then we produced evidence that that information is collected for the Oklahoma State Longitudinal Database called The Wave, anyway).
And so the newest installment in the story is that, suddenly, and out of thin air, Representative Ronny Johns and Senator Aaron Rheinhardt gutted HB1491 – already a bad bill because it essentially watered down the requirements for removing teaching certifications from Oklahoma teachers – and inserted language that would allow State Board of Education members to add items to the agenda. Below, Mary explains why this is a very, very bad idea.
Who knows how poorly the state is really doing in educating our youth. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has us as 48th in reading and 45th in math for 8th graders. What’s going on at the state capitol right now is not helping. Let your Senators know that you don’t like EITHER of these bills and you want a big fat NO vote when they reach the Senate. Stay tuned and watch Mary’s substack for more!
So enjoyed having Don Spencer on the program Friday morning! I have to say, once Constitutional Carry passed, I thought there really wasn’t much left for OK2A to do! Boy was I wrong! Catch everything we discussed on the full live video on Rumble and on YouTube.
When I said that on the program, Don laughed and then set me straight!
I have to say, I really enjoyed the history lesson! So, please, don’t forget that Don and OK2A have a few bills that need your attention this session. Go to Don’s channel on YouTube and hear all of them specifically. Also, as I’m sure Don would like to have me remind you!!! You can sign up for an OK2A membership – it’s only $25 – and you can get all his updates via email, video and text! Just navigate to his website to do that!
Before we talked to Don, we talked to Michael’s brother Mark about his recollections of Travis Combs – the guy who was a Branch Chief at the Department of Education who was outed by Project Veritas talking about how he and his group were covering for illegals. In the course of that conversation, Mark – who used to be a Professor at UT in Austin – talked about some of the crazy things that drove him out of teaching. It’s sad. So many people know what’s wrong in college education, but actually getting anything done about it in academia seems to be an absolute non-starter. Here Mark is giving the HATED answer to the liberal talking point that schools/teachers never have enough money.
Finally, at the end of the show, Michael and I talked about some news of the day and I brought up the interview that Governor Stitt gave to Politico – the one I made a video about because it was so contradictory. The one where he basically says that – no matter what Trump says – he’s moving full steam ahead on the green agenda and he needs the subsidies Biden put in place for that to happen. Not. Enough. Eye. Rolls. I also managed to get Gateway in there too for good measure. Someday, I hope to see Oklahoma have a TRUE REPUBLICAN governor, but I wonder – do any of us really know what that means anymore?
So interesting today to see that Governor Stitt has fired three members of the state school board because, “…it’s clear that our education infrastructure has fallen prey to needless political drama.”
Political drama. What does that actually mean? But then the Governor loves to use catch phrases – you know – like political animal – the term he used when he was out in Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, Representative Kevin Wallace’s district, trying to get him re-elected over the grassroots, common family man the people preferred, Jim Shaw?
Seriously. What political drama? Literally. What exactly was the DRAMA the Board was engaging in?
I never saw a one of them talking about their jobs outside the Board in a way that invoked DRAMA. None of them were going before a camera to talk about their jobs or to condemn the Superintendent or the Governor or creating MAGA videos in their cars. SO WHAT DRAMA?
I think he means the DRAMA of removing the teaching certificates of taxpayer-supported public school employees who were preying upon children. THAT drama!
Seriously, does anyone realize that we’ve had a drag queen principal with a drunk driving and child pornography charge – who only went away because of outside pressure by local media outlet V1SUT – and a Superintendent in Shawnee and a coach in Shawnee and incidents in Kingfisher and Ninnekah and Salina and Perry and Wewoka where districts are being sued because NO ONE WOULD PROTECT STUDENTS FROM EMPLOYEES WHO WERE HURTING CHILDREN? THAT kind of drama Mr. Stitt?
Kendra Wesson – one of the removed Board members – is one of the most transparent, hard-working, smart, committed women I know. She was always prepared for a meeting and truly had a heart for kids – a not-so-surprising-fact when you find out that she has eight of her own. Her removal is absolute NONSENSE. She wasn’t engaged in any kind of political drama in any way. All she was trying to do in her position was go over and above to help Oklahoma kids.
WHO IN THE HELL FIRES SOMEONE LIKE KENDRA WESSON????
She and this Board were actively involved in attempting to remove teachers and other public school personnel who were a danger to children – and now all of them but two – Governor Stitt’s attorney at Gateway Mortgage, Sarah LePak – and Zach Archer – who, like Governor Stitt, works in the financial industry – are left. What do they know about education? Apparently, they know how to be an attorney and a financial analyst – but, dang it – that is the kind of person our Governor admires!
So what about these new Board members?
Michael Tinney is the husband of Ginger Tinney of Professional Oklahoma Educators. Mr. Tinney is an oil and gas attorney with Ames, Ashabranner, Taylor, Lawrence, Laudick & Morgan in Oklahoma City. I guess we should be happy that he’s at least CONNECTED to someone who knows about education, ‘cuz at this point, we’re 0-2 there.
If he is from Kingfisher, he is resident of the Kingfisher Public School system where the district was slapped with a $5 million dollar lawsuit over charges of abuse by Kingfisher Football Coach Jeff Myers. Myers, who was banned from any further activity with the team and whose contract was not to be renewed by the Board, was still employed as of December, when Kingfisher had to let go 22 positions to pay the settlement from the suit after the Kingfisher County Excise Board refused to pass the settlement cost on to tax payers.
And then we found this:
Apparently, in the 20-teens Deathridge was associated with the electric ‘car’ tax credit craze. And yes, there were federal income tax subsidies taken for the vehicles.
What an interesting choice for the State School Board. He has no education experience either.
And then there’s Chris VanDenhende who is listed in the Governor’s press release as being from Tulsa. According to VanDenhende’s LinkdIn page, he is from Stroud, Oklahoma, in Lincoln County, where he is Chief Financial Officer at Southwest Fuel Systems, LLC. and Mint Turbines.
Interesting choice Mr. VanDenhende. Apparently, he is friendly with Mr. Stitt’s friend, Kevin Wallace.
In a Lincoln County News Herald “Report From Kevin Wallace” on April 6, 2022, Mr. Wallace says, “I was fortunate to be invited to dinner on the eve of this event with many representatives from the industries. Chris VanDenhende, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer for Southwest Fuel Systems and Mint Turbines in Stroud, also attended. VanDenhende spoke recently at the Stroud Chamber banquet. It was a pleasure to get to see him again and to discuss his company’s growth in our House district.”
But, that’s not all (I feel like Monty Hall). Mint Turbines has been collecting Oklahoma Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2020. In 2024, his company got a ‘shout out’ from the Oklahoma Commerce Department, that included the following text:
Strategic Public/Private Partnerships and Industry Engagement
With nearly 72,000 square feet of factory and warehouse space, Mint Turbines is one of the few certified MRO facilities in North America. Known for its commitment to quality and customer service, the company serves both commercial and military sectors, ensuring top-tier turbine engine performance and reliability. Mint Turbines has partnered with ACES at numerous trade shows to boost their visibility within the aerospace industry and showcase their capabilities to key industry leaders.
They also received about $100,000 in training reimbursements from Department of Career and Technology Education and a 2 MILLION DOLLAR Federal Loan from the Export Bank.
So, no one on the State School Board has ANY EDUCATION EXPERIENCE at all and only attorney Mike Tinney is involved with someone who does. I’m sure that will be SUPER helpful to Oklahoma’s kids and will put us well on the way to improving our NAEP scores.
What’s even more interesting, is that Senator Julia Kirk put out THIS press release shortly after the “shake up” occurred.
Followed shortly by Senator Mark Mann.
Well thank God the DEMOCRATS are happy! That’s certainly why we elected another Republican Governor – to make Democrats happy!
The only other thing that sounds SUPER FISHY here, is that the Governor would decide TODAY, the day that Auditor Cindy Byrd was to make her audit of Tulsa Public Schools public, to make this School Board ‘shake up’ announcement based on the stupid premise of “political drama”. The Governor just had Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller stand with him for his state of the state address – touting the equally stupid cell phone bill (even funnier…Supt. Miller created his district’s policy without a law, yet the Governor pointed to him for support of the bill) and, as we all know, the Governor is from Tulsa.
Interestingly (I know, I keep using that word), Auditor Byrd was unable to release the findings because a truckload of lawyers working for TPS invoked an obscure law to halt its release. At her press conference she said the findings are significant and that she wasn’t allowed to provide the results to the public because of a law that no one had ever used in her 28 years as an auditor.
People, this state is in trouble. The people who run it do NOT HAVE OUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART.
In fact, did you know that Governor Stitt still had financial interest in Gateway Financial Services and other Gateway entities as of 2019? Did you know that Oklahoma has given Gateway First – the fusion of Gateway Mortgage and Farmers Exchange Bank of Cherokee – hundreds of thousands of dollars in Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2019?
This State Board of Education ‘shake up’ was WRONG. Dead WRONG. It won’t help our NAEP scores, but I guarantee it’ll help score political points with someone somewhere – and that has to be what ALL of this is about. So, make no mistake, none of this was about helping Oklahoma kids!
Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution – one of our own Oklahoma independent film makers and homeschoolers answering the questions, “Why do homeschoolers need a tax break” (short answer – they don’t and neither does anyone else).
The Oklahoma Voice – Our legislators want us to believe we can’t afford a tax cut. Meanwhile, the biggest proponent of paying people to bring their businesses to the state – our Governor Kevin Stitt – is saying he’s going to open an Oklahoma DOGE office inside of OMES – the place where Oklahoma taxpayer dollars go to be redistributed. Truly, so many of our legislature has no idea why they’re there. They think it’s to ‘make laws’, or ‘help bring business’ to the state, but very few seem to understand that GIVING AWAY THE GAINS OF THE INDUSTRY OF OKLAHOMANS ISN’T IT!
The Oklahoma Voice – So we’re going to cut spending while increasing the cap on the ‘school choice’ tax credit. So, again, we’re going to be funding TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION IN OKLAHOMA – PRIVATE AND PUBLIC WITH TAX DOLLARS. I suggest you watch one of our podcasts on the ‘tax credit’ to get a better idea of what a bad idea this is.
Alex Newman – Liberty Sentinel – This is one you should probably read after you watch the video and think about what it means for the Governor to want to reduce taxes while increasing the cap on a tax incentive program…
The Oklahoma Voice – So, we’re going to increase teacher salaries. Look, I know there are some good teachers out there, but they should be paid by THEIR SCHOOL BOARD! If a teacher is doing great, the school board should vote to give them a raise!!! Yet very few that I’ve ever heard of do that! Instead, we’ll allow the legislature to create a BLANKET RAISE FOR EVERYONE EVEN THOUGH WE’RE 49TH IN EDUCATION AND HAVEN’T IMPROVED SINCE COVID! Please don’t re-elect the people who work at Lincoln and 23rd who vote for this nonsense.
The Garfield County Conservation Coalition – this is the group that’s fighting a huge solar installation north of Enid. They have a point. Governor Stitt should stand with Trump as a Republican and QUIT SHOVING THE GREEN AGENDA DOWN OUR THROATS.
The Federalist – I would say that maybe this would end the fights between parents and administration over things like boys in girl’s bathrooms, but since so many schools are staffed with progressive ideologues today, the chances of this kind of thing will probably not go down as much as we’d like. Still and all, don’t let schools push you around parents! Trump has wiped out of existence all the progressive BS.
According to a press release sent out by Senate Media, the bill, “empower[s] schools to adopt ‘bell to bell’ cell phone policies”, yet the bill summary says, “An Act relating to schools; requiring school district boards of education to adopt a policy prohibiting use of cell phones while on campus during certain time period”. Requiring and ’empowering’ do not have the same meaning – the first includes force.
In fact, the bill goes on to say that it will require schools to set discipline policies for students who break the school’s required policy on cell phone use (the force part). Originally, it had allotted up to 2 million taxpayer dollars (“if available”, whatever that means) to be granted to middle and high schools so they can buy something to STORE cell phones during the day. Because a basket can’t hold cell phones in a classroom and we need a cabinet (or something) for THE SCHOOL to hold EVERY STUDENT’S cell phone.
Problems With The Bill
What is the point of a school board? According to state law, individual local school boards have the right and ability to set policy – including policy over cell phones. This bill actively usurps local school board authority by forcing them to create a policy. On one hand, we expect parents to execute control over their minor children, yet so much of what the state does actually removes parental executive control in favor of a government policy, rule or law. How can a parent execute parental control if we keep removing their executive function?
This is NEW LAW. How many laws do Oklahomans need to restrain them – or, in this case, their children? What about schools? Could an argument be made that part of the reason public schools in Oklahoma are failing is that they are constrained by state laws that may not have been needed at the local level? How many laws does Oklahoma actually need – especially when this one has no teeth, making it a suggestion.
This law forces schools to create disciplinary actions to be meted out when students break cell phone policy. What happens if a school DOESN’T create a cell phone policy? What happens if they don’t create a discipline policy? How many times has state law required schools to create a policy, but then never forced the school to write the policy when they don’t? Tulsa attorney Maria Seidler has told us numerous times, for example, that public schools don’t adhere to all of Oklahoma’s Parental Rights law, but there isn’t an enforcement mechanism in the law to make them, forcing parents to use their own money to sue schools while schools use taxpayer dollars to fight them. How many times has the state forced schools to follow the policies they DO create – about bathrooms, free speech, bullying, or student safety, for example? This law, then, would be meaningless, just like so many others our legislature creates, because there isn’t a mechanism of enforcement.
Our state has real problems with school employees who misuse and abuse children in their care. We have only to look at the number of multi-million dollar lawsuits being settled by schools in the last several years like Kingfisher and Ninnekah and Salina and Perry and Shawnee and Wewoka… Yet, parents who suggest CCTV for classrooms are confronted with an uproar like a tsunami from certain teachers and administrators against such a thing. Now, we want to remove the only way students have to ‘catch’ a school employee doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Just this thought should be concerning.
So much learning is now done on computers but somehow the kid’s cell phones are causing distraction? How does that work? Countless studies have shown that computer learning isn’t the best thing for students, but not only do we still do it, there are real problems with students accessing porn and other sites, as former Oklahoma resident Denise Roberts told us during an interview on our podcast – but cell phones are the problem?
This is a national movement. Why? Why we are attempting to do what so many other states are doing? Why do we play Follow The Leader so often in Oklahoma when we’re an individual state. What about, “I don’t care what the other kids do”. What about being an “laboratories of Democracy“?
Each and every teacher could create their own class rules about cell phones, but we’re not letting them – “Put the phones in the basket on my desk until the end of class everyone”. We’re telling teachers that we don’t trust them with a policy over a cell phone, but you trust them to educate the kids in their class? How much sense does that make? This is all talk out of both sides of the mouth of the legislature – here, have more money teachers – but you can’t manage your own classroom.
Bottom line. This is a bill in search of a problem that already has a solution. This isn’t even a bandaid for the horrible educational results we have in this state. This bill is vanity, not good governance.
Contact the Senate Education Committee and ask them to say NO to SB1389.
This week’s headlines include lists of legislation posted to the site to watch for this year’s legislative session. More items will be posted this week.
Weekly News Headlines and Commentary – Week of 2.3.25
This week’s headlines include lists of legislation posted to the site to watch for this year’s legislative session. More items will be posted this week.