Yesterday afternoon, Oklahoma Senate leadership – a.k.a. Republicans – announced they will not hear SJR 20 – a bipartisan Senate resolution that would have rejected the new batshit crazy social studies standards whipped up by Ryan Walters.
They did this because either A) they're spineless cowards who are too afraid to cross Ryan Walters and his crazy Moms for Liberty MAGA fringe, or B) they belong to that fringe.
Via KFOR:
Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle) said the Senate would not consider a joint resolution against the new social studies guidelines by the May 1st deadline.
Paxton, along with Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond), filed SJR 20 last week. It asked lawmakers to take a second look at social studies standards, approved by the Oklahoma State Board of Education. It also questioned the $33 million price tag for taxpayers for new textbooks and the lack of transparency on the approval process of the new guidelines…
Paxton sent News 4 a statement Tuesday about why his resolution was not heard.
“Following a lengthy conversation Monday, the caucus was not on board with rejecting the standards based on the process by which they were presented to the board of education.”
Yeah. I guess that’s not a surprise.
Oklahoma lawmakers have had multiple opportunities over the years to go after Ryan Walters, hold him accountable, and possibly force him out of office—but why would they want to do that?
Not only would that infuriate the hard-right evangelical theocrats who, to their credit, actually organize and vote in elections, but it would eliminate the human shield that protects them from outside scrutiny.
Seriously, you don’t think Oklahoma GOP leadership likes having Ryan around to draw away all the outrage, memes, and media attention so they can clandestinely push their agenda behind him? As long as Ryan’s out front setting fires, nobody notices who’s handing him the matches.
Hell, in a way, Ryan's even good for Democrats, because he lets them grandstand and show the world how mad they are:
I guess the decision not to bring the resolution to a vote happened after Senate leadership had a closed-door meeting with Ryan:
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. Granted, that’s just so I could zoom around and defecate on their muffins and danishes, but it still would have been cool.
Anyway, put me in the “Totally Not Surprised” column regarding our Republican lawmakers’ continued effort to enable Ryan's craziness.
Although the clandestine methods Ryan used to trick board members into voting for the new standards were shady—and the standards themselves damage our state’s national reputation and basically turn every classroom into a reenactment of a PragerU cartoon—we can never forget that the most important thing for 99% of Oklahoma lawmakers is winning reelection.
And unless you’re a moderate suburban Republican, the best way to do that is to keep Ryan in charge.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
