By Jason Murphey

Most Oklahomans see the lieutenant governor’s race as a contest for a job whose only real function is waiting for the governor to get out of the way.

And that’s for good reason: almost as if by intelligent design, the lieutenant governor of Oklahoma does nothing to risk controversy.

He “promotes the state,” travels around, attends various functions, shakes hands, kisses babies, and moves on to the next venue. Hardly someone that one can be mad at.

Occasionally, when the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant steps up as governor, but even then, most Oklahomans don’t even know that’s going on. And, he does serve on numerous agency boards, but in that role, rarely does the wider public become aware of his specific votes. In fact, I suspect the reader would be hard pressed to name more than two or three notable board votes that the lieutenant governor has cast in the past year.

That’s not how the office was designed.

The founding fathers of Oklahoma gave the lieutenant governor a very important – and in fact, in many ways, his most important – charge: he’s the president of the Senate.

There’s a reason that the Senate’s foremost senator, Lonnie Paxton, the senator in charge of that legislative assembly, is known as the president “pro tem.” He can never be the president of the Senate, because, unbeknownst to many, that’s the job of the lieutenant governor – a role that he usually only steps into in a ceremonial way.

But by yielding his most important constitutional duty to a senator who is elected by 1/48th of the state, the lieutenant governor is, in fact, abrogating his most important duty and, in my view, should probably return a good portion of his salary to the treasury.

If I were one of the announced candidates for that position, my first order of business would be to make something clear: once elected, the politicians who have proven unfit for leadership in the Senate – the ones who block grassroots legislation sought by thousands of Oklahomans, while advancing giveaway sought not by the people, but by monied special interests, and who, as we saw on the next-to-last day of this year’s session, engage in skullduggery and shameful conduct unworthy of the people of Oklahoma – their days are numbered.

As your next lieutenant governor and president of the Senate, I would take the presiding officer’s chair and, as long as health would allow, I would not leave it. No more unending votes lasting for hours while co-opted senators, who happen to be out of state, scramble for flights back to Oklahoma.

In fact, I will never keep a vote open longer than two minutes. The old game of endless roll calls—votes held open until the dark forces of the status quo twist arms and fly in the missing – those days would be finished.

And when a conservative senator seeks recognition of the chair to move his legislation off general order – despite the obstinance of a co-opted committee chairman who refuses to hear it – I would recognize him for that motion. That means an open vote, putting every senator on record. No more hiding behind procedure. No more smoke-and-mirrors games that let senators dodge responsibility for a bad vote. Their names – and their votes – would be plain for every Oklahoman to see.

There would be no more telling constituents, “Sure, I support your bill, but that obstinate committee chairman from some faraway district, who doesn’t answer to you, is the real problem.” That game would be over!

Put simply, though most pay little attention to this position, I can certainly make the case that the race for lieutenant governor is almost as important as the race for governor itself – that is, if just one of the candidates will step up and take this approach.

I suggest this would electrify the grassroots all across the state, who time and time again have witnessed how the Senate and House leadership have developed the perfect system for enabling big government and what, in my view, is special interest corruption. And they know that it’s in the Senate where the grassroots are the strongest right now, and that a lieutenant governor, by courageously taking on the controversy and taking to this role, would tip the balance in favor of the grassroots.

Of course, that person would instantly become unpopular with the majority of the state’s politicians, special interests, and all things government. And potentially this would force senators to spend much more time on the floor, being senators and casting votes, and a lot less time living the lobbyist-funded high life in Oklahoma City.

So it would take the courage of an individual of strong constitution, who wouldn’t mind putting his future aspirations into jeopardy. But I would suggest that, as with all things in politics requiring the art of courage, he would ironically become the most popular lieutenant governor in the history of the state – to be forever known as restoring balance in favor of the people of Oklahoma, at the expense of the dastardly politicians and monied special interests.

So, as the candidates for lieutenant governor campaign to your grassroots groups and ask for your vote, here are the questions to ask them:

Will they do their real job, break Lonnie Paxton’s sole control over the Senate, and preside over the Senate, never yielding the chair except for reasons of health?

Will they recognize grassroots senators who make a motion to advance their legislation when a committee chairman refuses a hearing?

And will they cap all roll call votes at not longer than two minutes? Declaring the vote at that time, regardless of outcome, thus defeating the special interest arm twisters?

Will they be willing to cast a vote, as allowed by the Constitution, in all cases where there is a tie, breaking the tie in favor of the conservative values of the people of Oklahoma, and in accordance with the grassroots legislators’ voting guide and checklist, developed by grassroots legislators to guide their decision-making when casting votes on legislation?

If they refuse to answer, answer in the negative, provide a political answer, or hide behind slimy legalese (the courts are in my view, likely to support this initiative due to its strong precedent in senate history) to dodge the question, then your search for a candidate for lieutenant governor continues.