Yesterday afternoon, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission—a weak, toothless, underfunded agency lawmakers created in the 1990s to make it look like they care about ethics—announced a settlement agreement with Ryan Walters.
This time around, it’s over the claims, accusations, and cold, hard facts that he violated rules prohibiting elected chodes like him from using state social media accounts to support or attack political candidates.
Here are the details via News 9:
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission have signed an agreement to settle an investigation into Walters’ use of social media…
The Commission began investigating Walters in late 2024 over his alleged use of state resources, including official letterhead and government social media accounts, to advocate for political candidates—specifically Donald Trump against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Nice! Ryan blatantly flaunted the rules here, so to teach him and any future ethics violators a lesson, the agency obviously came down hard on him… right?
Well…
As part of the agreement, Walters must:
• Not use “Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction” on his personal X account and remove “Supt.” from the account.
• Change the profile picture of that account to something other than his official State Superintendent picture.
• Participate in social media training from the Ethics Commission.
• Pay a $5,000 penalty.
Yep, that’s right. As punishment for willfully violating state laws, Ryan has to update his social media accounts, take a woke social media training class, and pay the state—insert Dr. Evil voice—$5,000.
Sure, the thought of Ryan, Matt Langston, and the rest of the OSDE communications staff sitting at tiny desks with their No. 2 pencils like they’re in after-school detention, passing notes, and watching a boring social media training video in silence is funny—and $5,000 is still $5,000—but doesn’t that seem a little weak?
At the very least, they should have banned him from filming any more SUV vlogs for three months, or forced him to update his social media photo to this…
This…
Or this…
Now that would teach him a flip-floppity lesson!
Anyway, if you ask me, it’s way past time for the Oklahoma legislature to take a page from the right-wing authoritarian discipline-bro playbook and—if they really want to teach people like Ryan Walters a lesson—grant the Oklahoma Ethics Commission the authority to enforce corporal punishment!
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
They should totally have the power to treat Oklahoma elected officials like some lawmakers want to treat special ed students and give the agency the power to dole out biblically approved paddlings, floggings, and backhanded spankings as punishment.
For added measure, they could even livestream the proceedings on social media and OETA. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?!
The only catch is they need to get these new rules in place before Ryan’s next ethics complaint goes to court.
Executive Director Lee Anne Bruce Boone said the Oklahoma Ethics Commission will pursue alleged violations of campaign finance rules from Walters’ 2022 election committee—Walters for State Superintendent 2022 Committee—in Oklahoma County District Court. Records do not state what specific violation Walters is accused of committing, and as of Thursday afternoon, no case had been filed.
The commission first authorized an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations in October, according to the initial report.
The board requested further documents with a subpoena, which Walters’ legal team refused to provide, arguing that the matter had already been resolved, the request was too broad, and there were no responsive documents.
The commission followed up with a second subpoena.
Walters had already signed a separate settlement agreement in March 2024 to resolve “outstanding compliance orders” for the late filing of several campaign finance reports, according to the released report.
According to Nolan Clay in The Oklahoman, this complaint could cost Ryan up to $50,000 in fines—but I’ll believe that when I see him stopping by Check N’ Go in McAlester for a loan.
Anyway, unless the Oklahoma Legislature follows my recommendation and gives the Ethics Commission more draconian teeth – something that I doubt will happen – I'd say the odds are high that Ryan will just rack up another slap on the wrist, a minor deterrent that won’t stop him from doing what he does best: being an unethical political stooge.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
