Category Archives: State

How Hissom’s Teachers Escaped

By Deborah Campbell

The Paradox of Silence: Hissom’s Teachers, Including Current Candidate for Oklahoma Superintendent Dr. Robert Franklin, Escaped Accountability

When federal investigators exposed the depravity of the Hissom Memorial Center in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, the public faced an unsettling truth.

In 1987, Hissom Memoral Center was legally condemned by U.S. District Judge James O. Ellison as a “human-development emergency.” the institution was found to have subjected vulnerable children with disabilities to relentless physical abuse, gross medical neglect and widespread chemical sedation of vulnerable children with disabilities.

Yet, an intriguing professional paradox arose from the landmark litigation. Despite the facility’s closure due to inhumane conditions, the teachers who worked there neither faced any judicial consequences nor experienced career repercussions. Instead, Hissom’s teachers cleanly transitioned into local public-school systems. Among them was Dr. Robert Franklin, who taught special education at Hissom for five years, from 1981 to 1986, before embarking on a respected, decades-long career in public school leadership. The key question is how the judicial system and the Oklahoma State Department of Education permitted these educators to keep their licenses and certifications and advance in their educational careers.

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OK’s Path to Energy Abundance

By Marven Goodman, Investigative Report

Why Limited Government and Market-Driven Innovation Beat the Old Regulatory Capture Model

The Regulatory Trap Holding Oklahoma Back

Oklahomans are tired of watching their electric bills rise while being told the only remedy is more government-approved spending on the same century-old system. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission continues to entertain rate cases from utilities that pass the costs of aging infrastructure and new demand straight through to captive ratepayers. At the same time, technological progress in solar, batteries, and small modular nuclear reactors offers a fundamentally different path, one that rewards results rather than spending. The contrast is stark, and it reveals why limited government, low taxation, and the removal of regulatory control over daily economic decisions consistently outperform bureaucratic gatekeeping.

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Advancing Budget Resolution

By Josh Brecheen, Member of Congress

On Thursday, I voted to advance the Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2027 as the best option to ensure the SAVE America Act will be passed in full, not just in part. While there were elements in the package many of us sought spending offsets for (still seeking to be accomplished in another measure), this package is designed with the U.S. Senate in mind. The SAVE America Act is essential and I have concluded this measure puts maximum pressure on the Senate to finally take up the SAVE America Act after declining to do so for months.

If the SAVE America Act comes back to the House watered down by the Senate, the American people will become rightfully disillusioned.  All eyes are on the Senate to ensure President Trump is able to deliver on what he has rightfully signaled as policy priority number one!!

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Data Center Dangers

By David Arnett

Data Part Two: Oversight, Finance, and Health Updates

The previous story, “Data Part One,” asked if high speed private fiber optics lines (Dark Fiber) were being installed illegally in Oklahoma to connect multiple data centers. The layman’s answer is yes as profiteers place private lines in presumed public rights-of-way without compensation, notice to landowners, or surveys. Not to put too fine a point on it, but without surveys, then are no accurate installations.

The Oklahoma Attorney Generals (AG) office has been asked to review the matter, but according to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), by law, they are not allowed to regulate data fiber. Only Oklahoma County Government is currently regulating installation and Wagoner County Commissioners, to their credit, have requested clarification from the AG office. There is no state oversight or consistent rule statewide.

Complicating matters, local officials—encouraged by economic special interests, supported by regional planning organizations, and pursuing economic gains—are signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to keep data center financial, construction, and operational details from the public.

Citizens object because publicly elected officials are sworn to represent citizens and many believe they betray constituents to sign such agreements. A law was proposed but defeated in the Oklahoma Legislature last year to specifically prohibit elected officials from signing such private NDAs. It should have been called the “Who’s your daddy law.”

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Gov. Stitt on Poultry Settlement

By Staff Report

Governor Kevin Stitt released the following statement Monday regarding a proposed multimillion dollar settlement to a 20 yearlong lawsuit against Oklahoma’s poultry producers. 

“It is a shame that State Attorney General Gentner Drummond put our family-owned farmers through years of uncertainty and threats to ultimately reach the agreement I called for him to negotiate long ago,” said Governor Stitt. “His delay tactics and theatrics were clearly unnecessary and harmed real Oklahomans in an attempt to benefit his trial attorney supporters.”

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