Oklahoma’s most hardline legislative faction spent the spring trying to remake the Senate. Now, it is fighting to preserve what influence it has left.
By Tim Allen, Managing Editor
For months, Oklahoma’s Freedom Caucus and its allies spoke as though a Senate takeover was within reach.
They branded seven Republican senators the “Swamp Seven.” They accused Senate leaders of abandoning conservative principles. They portrayed longtime colleagues as corrupt, ineffective and obstacles to the conservative movement.
The message was unmistakable: The establishment had failed, and it was time for a purge.
But, as Lee Corso likes to say, “Not so fast.” Republican voters had other ideas.
All seven targeted senators survived their primaries. And these were not random lawmakers. The “Swamp Seven” included committee chairmen, members of Senate leadership and key allies of Senate Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle — the very senators responsible for moving budgets, negotiating legislation and running the institution.
The Freedom Caucus wasn’t merely trying to replace seven Republicans. It was attempting to remake the Senate’s governing coalition.
The results Tuesday were decisive: the Freedom Caucus and its allies went 0-for-7.
But the election results reveal something even more consequential than a failed insurgency. Oklahoma’s most prominent extremist faction is no longer playing offense.
It is now playing defense.
The Freedom Caucus has distinguished itself not merely by advocating conservative policies, but by embracing an uncompromising, confrontational style of politics.
Its members have championed some of the Legislature’s most hardline proposals, pushed measures rooted in religious ideology and frequently portrayed fellow Republicans who disagree with them as obstacles to be defeated rather than colleagues with whom to govern.
Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, the caucus chairman and chief strategist, is term-limited and leaving office. Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, its vice chairman and most visible firebrand, lost his primary outright. Freedom Caucus-aligned Sens. Dana Prieto, R-Tulsa, and Jack Stewart, R-Yukon, were forced into August runoffs.
That is a remarkable reversal.
The Freedom Caucus spent much of the spring attempting to convince Republican voters that it was on the rise and ready to reshape the Senate. By week’s end, the more pressing question was whether it could maintain its current level of influence.
Paxton argued Wednesday that voters rejected not simply a group of candidates but the underlying philosophy that has animated the caucus. He told the Lawton Constitution the election results are “an absolute rebuke” of the organization’s extremist positions and said voters rejected “this populist stuff that the Freedom Caucus has been spewing.”
Paxton may be overstating the case.
The election results also demonstrated that anti-establishment sentiment remains real inside the Oklahoma Republican Party. Sen. Grant Green survived by only 67 votes. Several August runoffs could still produce senators who share many of the Freedom Caucus’s priorities and confrontational style.
The movement is wounded, not dead.
To be sure, the Freedom Caucus has never maintained a fully public roster. Some lawmakers have openly embraced membership, while others have been described as allies or have declined to discuss their affiliation publicly. That makes it impossible to know with certainty what the caucus’s ranks will look like next year.
What is clear, however, is that the organization has already lost its chairman and vice chairman, failed in its attempt to topple Senate leadership and now finds itself in the unusual position of fighting to preserve its influence rather than expand it.
The Freedom Caucus wagered that Republican voters were prepared for a revolution inside the Senate.
Instead, voters delivered a different message. They rejected an attempted purge of Senate leadership, rejected the politics of perpetual outrage and refused to hand an extremist faction the keys to one of state government’s most important institutions.
That does not mean Oklahoma Republicans suddenly became moderates. Far from it. It means they chose adult governance over political tantrums.
The Freedom Caucus sought a revolution. What voters delivered instead was something more akin to a parental reprimand. In deep-red Oklahoma, even Republican primary voters have limits. And on Tuesday, they sent the state’s most combative legislative faction to the corner to think about what it had done.
