Category Archives: State

Interview: Jon Echols OK AG Candidate

By David Arnett

Jon Echols is a fifth-generation Oklahoman with roots back to the Land Run. He is a serial entrepreneur who received his undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma and his law degree from Oklahoma City University.

“I am the only candidate in the Republican primary that’s ever been in an Oklahoma courtroom. I’ve tried numerous cases on the criminal defense side, and some family law but what separates me: I am the only one in this race that has ever started a business with their own money at their own risk out of the Republican and Democrat field, Echols said.

*Jon Echols speaking in Tulsa March 2025*

Continue reading →

Medicaid expansion (not) working

By Jonathan Small, OCPA

Proponents of adding able-bodied adults, including many working-age men, to Oklahoma’s Medicaid program promised it would solve virtually all the state’s health-care woes. Rural hospitals would suddenly be lavishly funded. State government would be flush with cash. Health outcomes would improve on a skyrocketing trajectory.

Obviously, none of those things has happened despite expansion having been in place for five years now.

Continue reading →

Purple Martins Return to Oklahoma

By David Arnett

In a sure sign that spring is not far behind, the first Purple Martins of the year have been spotted in Oklahoma, the Purple Martin Conservation Association reported today.

The birds were seen on February 18 in Lawton, Oklahoma by a Purple Martin enthusiast – one of many throughout the eastern and central United States who track and report on the birds’ annual migration on behalf of the Purple Martin Conservation Association. The migration of these unique birds can be reported and tracked through a community science project called the Scout-Arrival Study. Last year, as Tulsa Today reported, the birds were first seen on February 8 in Purcell.

Continue reading →

OG&E, PSO Brief Filed with Supreme Court

By Staff Report

On the fifth anniversary of February 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri,” appeals challenging more than $1.4 billion in bonds and $377 million in rate increases impacting the customers of electric utility companies OG&E and Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) are now in the hands of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Tuesday, Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola, Kevin West, R-Moore, and Rick West, R-Heavener, filed the final brief in their appeal of a 2025 Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) order approving a $127 million rate increase for OG&E without a CPA-led audit of the utility’s 2021 Winter Storm “Uri” bonds.

Continue reading →

What OK’s Literacy Debate Is Missing

By Dr. Rebecca Pellam

Oklahoma’s 2026 literacy bills represent one of the most serious legislative pushes for early reading improvement in recent memory. Lawmakers across chambers have introduced proposals addressing screening, intervention, coaching, summer programs, and—in some cases—third-grade promotion standards. That is encouraging.

But after studying these bills closely, I believe the real question facing Oklahoma is not whether we pass “a literacy bill.” It is whether we build a coherent literacy system.

Continue reading →