OKLAHOMA CITY— Governor Kevin Stitt is considering a new executive order banning state agencies from hiring public relations firms while a bill sits on his desk limiting the ability of State Superintendent Ryan Walters' ability to hire them.
Last week, as part of the new state budget, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers voted to cut off Walters' ability to hire public relations firms except for the sole purpose of hiring them to help apply for Federal grants. House and Senate Republican leadership said Walters has been spending tens of thousands of dollars in state education funds to contract with PR firms who specialize in getting their clients on national and cable television opinion shows.
"I can't believe that anybody in this room would think it would be okay to spend taxpayer dollars, that needs to go to our teachers and our students, to go to some kind of political campaign to go on FOX News," said State Representative Mark McBride (R-House Education Appropriations Committee Chairman).
McBride and other Republicans accused Walters of using portions of the Oklahoma State Department of Education budget for "self-aggrandizement" to help raise his image on the national political stage for a political career possibly on the national stage.
"I'm doing this for the students, teachers and the taxpayers. We're required to look after taxpayer dollars" McBride said.
Walters immediately took to social media to accuse McBride of being a leftist's puppet of teachers unions, and he also accused him of trying to silence him while he makes reforms that put parents first in education decisions for their children.
"We are not going to be silenced. We're going to continue to fight for parents. We will not allow Mark McBride to silence your voices. We will continue to fight this and continue to fight for you," Walters said to his supporters on X.
Just as he did in an email to members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, Walters said the bill would unintentionally require OSDE to take down its website, remove information pertaining to school choice, and would cause the agency to end its Teacher of the Year programs in addition to teacher recruitment and bonus programs.
In a subsequent e-mail right before passage of the budget with Walters' limits in them, Walters sent out an additional email promising he would curtail spending on PR firms and stick to what was budgeted, but McBride said, "I just don't trust him."
"It's amazing what the left is willing to do to destroy the voices they disagree with. The way they're attacking President Trump. They way they're attacking me. All because they want to silence your voice, that's what this is about," Walters said in a video post to X.
The bill puts Stitt in an awkward position of having to possibly scold a man who not only was a previous member of his cabinet, but also who Stitt campaigned for to become superintendent in 2022.
"If someone is using state resources for self-promotion, that's wrong, we want to stop that," Stitt said about the accusations against Walters.
But Stitt also expressed concern the bill was targeting Walters while doing nothing to curtail the spending habits of other state agencies. In order to strike a balance, Stitt said he is considering possibly vetoing the section of the bill limiting Walters ability to contract with PR firms while signing a new blanket executive order banning the contracting of all outside PR firms for all state agencies.
"I don't like it. I don't like it, but I also don't like picking on one executive agency or one department of education," Stitt said. "If there's a rule that's good for one agency, maybe let's have it across the board for all state agencies."
Stitt said all state agencies have communications departments that should be handling public and media relations, and he felt the contracts Walters is accused of entering into to be superfluous.
Stitt also faces the challenge of possibly vetoing part of a budget he said he would not veto in exchange for four legislative priorities state lawmakers passed before legislative session ended last week.
Walters has asked his supporters to flood the governor's office with phone calls asking for a line item veto of his PR restrictions. If the governor neither signs nor vetoes the bill, it will automatically take effect on its own.
FOX23 feels it is necessary to note that during Stitt's first term, multiple state agencies spend nearly $100 million on contracts with PR firms, but they were mainly used for pandemic and COVID-19 related communications. None were used to directly book anyone on a national or cable opinion show for the purposes of giving a political viewpoint or to attempt to sway legislation.
