By Steve Fair

This week on the steps of the Ok­la­homa Capi­tol, Sen­a­tor Shane Jett, (R-Shawnee) an­nounced the for­ma­tion of the Free­dom Cau­cus (FC) in the Ok­la­homa state leg­is­la­ture. The Sooner state is the 12th state to form a Free­dom Cau­cus in the leg­is­la­ture. The con­cept mir­rors the FC in the U.S. Con­gress.
Jett said the pur­pose of the FC will be to ‘pre­serve free­dom for fam­i­lies back home and to ed­u­cate and pro­vide mean­ing­ful in­put to our col­leagues be­fore they vote.’ Five fel­low mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture also mem­bers of the FC stood be­hind him. Other mem­bers of the Ok­la­homa leg­isla­tive FC were not iden­ti­fied be­cause ac­cord­ing to Jett mem­bers in other states of the FC have faced pun­ish­ment from their leg­is­la­ture lead­er­ship for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the cau­cus. Three ob­ser­va­tions:
First, leg­is­la­tors should be lis­ten­ing pri­mar­ily to those who elected them. Con­stituents within their dis­trict are who they rep­re­sent first and fore­most, not a cau­cus. If a law­maker is too lazy or in­com­pe­tent to read, re­search, and study a bill be­fore a vote, they should quit and go home. An ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tive de­vel­ops a net­work of trusted coun­selors within their dis­trict who ad­vise them in their field of ex­per­tise and pro­vide ‘mean­ing­ful in­put.’ It’s not the job of leg­is­la­tors to ‘school the ig­no­rant’ among them. Law­mak­ers are there to rep­re­sent those who elect them. They aren’t elected to form cliques, fra­ter­ni­ties and hold theme par­ties.
Sec­ond, free­dom and lib­erty pro­mote in­de­pen­dence, not in­ter­de­pen­dence. A cau­cus is formed to pro­mote and ex­e­cute group think- vote as a bloc. Groupthink pro­motes in­ter­de­pen­dence. A leg­is­la­tor should never feel ob­lig­ated to vote for a bill be­cause a cau­cus tells them to. That is the op­po­site of free­dom. The best elected of­fi­cial is an in­de­pen­dent thinker, one not bound to lob­by­ists, donors, spe­cial in­ter­ests or their fel­low leg­is­la­tors. Good ones col­lab­o­rate but don’t ca­pit­u­late. They par­tic­i­pate, but don’t sur­ren­der. They are in­de­pen­dent thinkers who use their own judg­ment and per­cep­tions to make de­ci­sions and solve prob­lems.
Third, anonymity is for cow­ards. Jett said the full mem­ber­ship (other leg­is­la­tors) could­n’t be re­vealed be­cause of fear of ret­ri­bu­tion. Jett did­n’t iden­tify who the ex­e­cu­tioner/​boo­gie man in leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship that was go­ing to pun­ish the un­named for join­ing the FC. If an elected of­fi­cial is a mem­ber of a cau­cus and plans to vote with them, then why hide? If two agree, they walk to­gether- not one hid­ing be­hind the other.
Jett said anonymity was nec­es­sary be­cause the fo­cus of the cau­cus is to be on pol­icy and not per­son­al­ity, but those can’t be sep­a­rated? Anonymity hides/​shields/​pro­tects/​shel­ters cow­ards. The truly brave don’t fear re­tal­i­a­tion.
The FC in the U.S. House has been a ve­hi­cle of dis­rup­tion within the GOP ma­jor­ity and has­n’t truly ad­vanced con­ser­v­a­tive pol­icy. They took down the Speaker of the House, stalled leg­is­la­tion they deemed not con­ser­v­a­tive enough, and at­tacked fel­low Re­pub­li­cans in the me­dia. They stead­fastly refuse to com­pro­mise, col­lab­o­rate, or ne­go­ti­ate. They are will­ing to get noth­ing if they can’t get every­thing, so most of the time they get noth­ing. Many con­ser­v­a­tives agree with their val­ues, but not their zeal to get noth­ing done and con­tin­ual at­tack­ing of the like-minded. Hope­fully the Ok­la­homa chap­ter of FC is will­ing to work and play well with oth­ers. In the mean­time, cit­i­zens should be help­ing to school the ig­no­rant.
Steve Fair is Vice Chair­man of the 4th dis­trict of the Ok­la­homa Re­pub­li­can Party. He can be reached by email at steve.fair@ymail.com. His blog is steve­fair.blogspot.com