On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, two women walked into the Secretary of State’s office in Oklahoma City and filed the necessary paperwork to begin collecting signatures in an effort to place HB 1010xx on the ballot in November. HB 1010xx is the revenue bill, signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin on March 29, which funds teacher pay raises and increased education funding found in HB 1023xx. If the petition, organized by a group called Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite!, successfully gathers a little more than 41,000 signatures by July 18, the revenue raising measures in HB 1010xx will be placed on hold until a vote of the people. There is no consensus on what exactly that would mean for the raises and funding in HB 1023xx. There is wide consensus, however, that raise or no raise, the removal of the revenue in HB 1010xx would mean further disaster for the already destitute Oklahoma public schools.
The required number of signatures in Oklahoma for a veto referendum is set at 5% of the total number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. In November 2014, only 824,831 total votes were cast in Mary Fallin’s successful reelection. That places the threshold for State Question 799 at the incredibly low number of 41,242. The Oklahoma State Election Board’s annual report in January of this year shows the total number of registered voters in Oklahoma to be 2,016,157. That means that slightly more than 2% of registered voters in Oklahoma have the power to place a veto referendum on the ballot.
There is wide consensus, however, that raises or no raises, the removal of the revenue in HB 1010xx would mean further disaster for the already destitute Oklahoma public schools.
These numbers have caused many pro education groups and individuals to unofficially and prematurely declare defeat on the hard-fought funding and revenue found in HB 1023xx and HB 1010xx respectively. To many, the success of the referendum petition seems certain. Some have gone so far as to suggest that it is not worth fighting. The premise is simple and true. If you are certain you cannot win, your effort is better spent somewhere else. Look for a fight you can win and engage there. But is the success of the State Question 799 referendum petition a foregone conclusion? I would like to suggest five reasons why it is not.
- Tom Coburn
From the beginning, the press narrative around the petition was that it was the direct result of the perpetual tax avoiding efforts of former U.S. congressman from Oklahoma, Senator Tom Coburn. Without an easy and clear way to reference the campaign, it was often informally dubbed the “Tom Coburn Petition.” Attaching Tom Coburn’s name to this petition gives it credibility that it does not deserve. The truth is that Coburn agreed to allow his name to be used and to speak at the press conference. All indications are that Coburn’s involvement goes no further. Tom Coburn has not been sighted at Wal-Mart gathering signatures. The Senator’s office is not addressing envelopes to interested volunteers. And there is no evidence that he has publicly addressed the petition at all since the March 28 press conference. Although the Senator still lives in Tulsa, he continues to spend much of his time in national policy efforts with groups like Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York City and Citizens for Self-Governance in Austin, Texas.
- Mistakes
At regular intervals, the work of Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! has been marred with mistakes. NonDoc reported that when the ballot language was proposed on May 1, it was printed on the wrong size paper, prompting the four people representing the group to make an emergency trip to Office Depot to correct the oversight. The packet that OTU sends to volunteers contains two information sheets. One is half-size and correctly states that HB 1010xx raises the Gross Production Tax from 2% to 5%. The other is a full sheet that incorrectly states that HB 1010xx raises the GPT “by” 5% instead of “to” 5%. Given that the numbers 2, 5, and 7 have been so politically charged in reference to the Gross Production Tax in Oklahoma, this mistake is particularly egregious. The final downfall of the referendum petition may be the efforts of the Oklahoma Education Association and other education organizations who are challenging the petition on grounds of “deficiencies,” omissions, and a description that is “misleading and written backward.”
- Unprofessionalism
“This is the result of grassroots work.” Those were the words of Brooke McGowan as she slipped a $0.30 three ring pocket folder into a manila envelope. The paperwork to file a statewide veto referendum was placed inside a cheap blue folder, not the plastic kind, but the paper kind with the frustratingly ineffective brads.Grassroots efforts are “bottom up” and nonhierarchical, but that by no means should lend itself to unprofessionalism. The Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! Facebook page is a treasure trove of fiscally conservative colloquial rhetoric. Recently, the posts have descended into what is referred to as “doxxing.” Doxxing is when someone’s personal information is posted online without their permission and often with malicious intent. In a recent Facebook post, OTU cites examples of education advocates publicly announcing their boycott of businesses that host petition signings. But the screenshot of someone’s personal Facebook post is not in the comments, but in the original post directly from the OTU account. The comment thread is actually where the practice of doxxing is called out. It seems the people commenting on OTU’s Facebook posts are more professional than those running the account.
- Lack of Institutional Power
The looming question when this all began with that press conference on March 28 was, “Who was really behind this?” It was clear (to those who were paying attention), that Coburn was there in name only. So from where is this really coming? Is this the result of closed-door education reform efforts in the legislature? Could ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) be behind this? Surely OCPA (Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs) has a direct hand in this? Would the Oklahoma GOP be so bold as to put this together just before a statewide teacher walkout? Turns out the answer to each is “no,” and essentially nobody is behind this campaign. There is no established organization that has fully lent its institutional power to the referendum petition efforts. The mailing address for Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! is a post-office box inside the Nichols Hills Pack-n-Ship at 6608 N. Western Ave. in Oklahoma City. Brooke McGowan’s social media presence does not regularly feature the petition efforts and consists mostly of frequent changes to her cover photo to various memes of Donald Trump. The reality is that almost all of the actual work of OTU is being done by one person, Ronda Vuillemont-Smith. Part of what that means is that Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! truly is a grassroots movement, but even grassroots movements need institutional power in order to win.
- Growing Opposition
The Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! website now has a page listing “Petition Signing Locations.” Education advocates wishing to express their opposition in person need not look any further. Despite the lack of a centralized and unified social media campaign of opposition, the movement to “decline to sign” is well underway. 41,242 is a very small percentage of Oklahomans, but it is still a lot of people. The Oklahoma teacher walkout proved that the public education community has more than that many people who are willing to go to much greater lengths for Oklahoma students than merely sign their name on a piece of paper. Public education in Oklahoma now has over 41,242 of what Claudia Swisher calls “emergency certified activists.” This new group of activists certainly needs to be prepared for the worst, the success of the state question 799 referendum petition, but also needs to utilize a variety of nonviolent tactics now to actively oppose the petition efforts of the ragtag group known as Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite!
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