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The Tulsa Beacon

 

Ray Carter

Center for Independent Journalism

Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism.

National Supermajority agrees with Oklahoma-Style transgender laws

Tulsa Beacon

In recent years, Oklahoma has been at the forefront of states that have prohibited males from participating in women’s sports as “transgender women” and made it illegal to perform sex-change surgeries on children. Opponents claimed those laws would cause people to leave Oklahoma and prompt businesses to avoid the state. But a new poll shows…

Oklahoma group launches effort to adopt California Voting System

Tulsa Beacon

Officials with Oklahoma United announced they have launched an initiative-petition effort to place State Question 835 on the ballot in 2026, asking Oklahoma voters to effectively end primary elections and instead replace them with a June general election followed by a November runoff general election. The proposed system is similar to California’s election process. The…

GOP Easily Holds Legislative Majorities In Oklahoma

Tulsa Beacon

Oklahoma Republicans easily held onto their supermajorities in the state legislature during this week’s elections, emerging unscathed. Republicans went into the 2024 election cycle holding 81 seats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives to the 20 districts held by Democrats, while in the Senate the GOP held 40 seats to the eight held by Democrats….

Arm of Oklahoma Supreme Court engages in campaigning for justices

Tulsa Beacon

Under state law, the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA) is considered “an official arm” of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. As a result, when Oklahoma Bar Association President Miles Pringle used the association’s resources to email all licensed attorneys in the state, urging them to retain three members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court facing retention-ballot elections this…

Report finds Oklahoma professors overwhelmingly support Democrats

Tulsa Beacon

Based on campaign contributions, university professors are overwhelmingly left-wing—and Oklahoma is no exception. According to a recent report, “Educators Overwhelmingly Support Democrats, Even in Republican States,” 93 percent of political contributions made by professors nationwide went to Democratic candidates in 2022. In Oklahoma, the share of professor contributions going to Democrats was 92 percent. “Both…

Families moving to Oklahoma

Tulsa Beacon

Oklahoma is gaining more families, measured as a percentage increase, than all but 11 states in the country, according to a recent analysis. According to the report by the Institute for Family Studies, the trend among most (although not all) states that are gaining families is that those states are generally conservative political environments. “Today,…

Oklahoma among top states in job creation

Tulsa Beacon

A recent analysis by an official with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity finds Oklahoma has been among the nation’s top states for job creation since February 2020, the last pre-COVID month. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Committee to Unleash Prosperity Senior Fellow E.J. Antoni found that Oklahoma generated more jobs than…

Database shows 65 Oklahoma children subjected to sex change

Tulsa Beacon

A new database compiled by the organization Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals, shows that 65 children were subjected to some form of sex-change procedure in Oklahoma from 2019 to 2023. According to the Stop the Harm database, of the 65 child patients identified in Oklahoma 18 underwent some form of sex-change surgery…

Oklahoma School-Choice Programs save the State millions of dollars

Tulsa Beacon

Two Oklahoma school-choice programs have generated up to $181 million in cumulative savings since their inception, freeing up financial resources to benefit students in traditional public schools, according to a new report. “Fiscal Effects of School Choice,” a new study authored by Martin F. Lueken, director of the Fiscal Research and Education Center at EdChoice,…