Corri Williams completed probation for burglary five years ago, but the punishment didn’t seem to end there. 

Everything from finding a steady job to a place to live proved difficult after the conviction, said Williams, who eventually found a job as a volunteer coordinator at the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Oklahoma County. She said prospective employers were impressed with her credentials, including a master’s degree in criminal justice administration, but withdrew their offer after running a background check. 

“Even though you’re not getting in any trouble, because the charge is still there, they think you’re a liability,” Williams said. “It’s like ‘Oh, how do we know you’re not going to go back?’ And it’s been nine years for me.” 

Williams said she’s hopeful the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board will recommend her for a pardon later this year. From there, she could benefit from a new state law that aims to make expungement more accessible for hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans. 

Senate Bill 2030, which passed the Legislature with little opposition and was signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt earlier this month, directs the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to launch a free online portal for expungement requests by November 1. By Nov. 1, 2027, the agency is supposed to have an automatic expungement system in place, with all eligible records being cleared by the end of 2029. 

Clean slate eligible records include arrests with no conviction and pardoned offenses, as well as misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, provided the individual has not been charged with a new crime and at least five years have passed since the completion of the sentence. The arresting agency and the district attorney who prosecuted the crime will retain the right to object to expungement under the automated system.  

Advocates said SB 2030 will help facilitate Oklahoma’s initial automatic expungement bill, commonly known as the Clean Slate Act, which lawmakers passed in 2022. The system was expected to be up and running by 2026, but technical issues delayed implementation. 

Courtenie Jackson, an employment coordinator for the Oklahoma County Diversion Hub, knows firsthand the stigma of having a criminal record. She said she has been rejected from countless jobs, housing and volunteer opportunities because of two nonviolent felony convictions from the mid-2010s. She said she intends to apply for expungement once the OSBI launches its expungement request portal. 

Jackson said automatic expungement will provide a boost to thousands of Oklahomans who are either underemployed or have dropped out of the workforce entirely. The Clean Slate Initiative, which advocated for SB 2030, estimates more than 300,000 Oklahomans will benefit once the automatic expungement system is fully operational. 

“After 10 noes, you’re thinking there’s no chance you’re going to get a job,” Jackson said. “It’ll put people who are educated and overqualified back into positions that need to be filled.” 

Williams said she is encouraging her clients, many of whom have clean slate eligible records, to read through the legislation and be prepared to submit an application via the online portal later this year. 

“You’ve got to read the fine print inside of this bill, but I do believe it’s going to be a big change for Oklahoma,” she said. “Especially people who are in a career that are trying to advance and get their education. I think it will be great for them.”

Oklahoma lawmakers took up several other criminal justice reform bills in 2026, dealing with topics such as medical parole and earned credit eligibility. Here’s a look at some of the most consequential measures: 

Earned Credit Calculation

State prisoners with good behavior will soon gain speedier access to programs, job opportunities and early release. 

Senate Bill 1213 modifies the Department of Corrections’ formula for calculating good time credits. Prisoners with a class 3 or 4 designation will begin earning credit at an accelerated rate upon receiving their judgment and sentence, rather than upon being processed into state custody. The bill takes effect Nov. 1. 

The change could affect upwards of 1,000 prisoners on the state’s county jail backlog. It sometimes takes the state months to process sentenced prisoners, with longer wait times common in rural counties, Oklahoma Watch reported in August. 

The Department of Corrections does not anticipate a significant reduction in population from the bill. However, well-behaved prisoners would be able to enter programs and take on certain jobs more quickly upon entering state custody. 

Emily Barnes, founder of the Oklahoma prisoner advocacy group Hooked on Justice, said she expects the change will further motivate prisoners to stay out of trouble throughout their incarceration. If a prisoner gets a class X violation, such as possession of a weapon, their accumulated good time credit is wiped away. 

“It’s going to help the ones that want it to work for them,” Barnes said. “It’s definitely an incentive for good behavior.” 

Medical Parole Authority

State prisoners seeking medical parole could soon have an easier time receiving a hearing.

Senate Bill 1255, which takes effect Nov. 1, removes the requirement that the Department of Corrections director approve medical parole referrals, instead shifting that decision-making authority to the agency’s chief medical officer. The change comes following a significant decline in Oklahoma’s medical parole rate since 2021. 

In October, the Pardon and Parole Board requested an attorney general’s opinion on its authority to bypass the Department of Corrections and place inmates on its medical parole docket, noting that the agency had faced pressure to adopt an expansive view of the medical parole statute. The Attorney General ruled in December that such action would be unlawful. 

Failure to Pay Arrests 

Criminal justice reform advocates have long scrutinized Oklahoma’s court fines and fees collection system, in which some counties rely on private debt collectors and failure-to-pay arrest warrants. 

House Bill 3321 aims to examine the scope of the issue. The bill creates a committee tasked with submitting an annual report with the following county-level information: 

• Number of individuals booked solely on failure-to-pay warrants, and how long they were held in a county jail. 
• Number of third-party vendors each county uses for debt collection. 
• Amount collected using court cost compliance programs 
• Amount collected per individual, per county, after a failure-to-pay warrant is executed. 

The first report is due on Dec. 31. Beginning in 2027, reports will be due on Nov. 15.

Keaton Ross covers democracy and criminal justice for Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at (405) 831-9753 or Kross@Oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter at @_KeatonRoss.

The post Automatic Expungement, Easier Medical Parole and Better Good-Time Credits: Oklahoma’s Criminal Justice Reforms appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Senate Bill 504, which removed exceptions in the law that allowed minors to marry with parental consent and court approval, recently passed the House 51 to 36 after unanimously passing the Senate in March. All 36 no votes were cast by Republicans.

Some against the bill, such as Rep. Justin Humphrey, argued that the government should not interfere with parents’ rights. Others argued the bill would impede the creation of stable families; Humphrey anecdotally cited knowing people who married as minors and “remained married until they’re dead.” 

SB 504 proponents argued that, in addition to high rates of abuse, child marriage undermines statutory rape laws by legalizing what would otherwise be considered sex crimes. They also argued that because minors lack the legal rights of adults, child marriage can easily become forced, and that minors face immense barriers to leaving such a marriage. 

Governor Kevin Stitt signed SB 504 on May 13, making Oklahoma the 18th state with a minimum marriage age of 18.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• Oklahoma Legislature Senate Bill 504
• Oklahoma Legislature SB 504 House Voting
• Oklahoma House of Representatives Representatives
• KTUL – Tulsa OK rep doubles down on voting against child marriage ban
• Unchained at Last Child Marriage in the U.S.

The post Were all 36 votes against a recently passed bill that bans child marriage cast by Republican lawmakers? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

As anxious policyholders await a pivotal Oklahoma Supreme Court decision in a bad-faith case involving the now-infamous State Farm documents, additional revealing documents, compiled decades ago by a State Farm whistleblower with Oklahoma roots, have surfaced at the Oklahoma City office of attorney Charles Weddle.

Weddle, of White & Weddle, first heard of State Farm whistleblower Ina DeLong after she was featured on a 1993 segment of “60 Minutes.” A decade later, Weddle employed DeLong as an expert witness, and a couple years after that, on the occasion of a visit to her sister in Yukon, DeLong showed up at Weddle’s office with a sheaf of documents that Weddle placed into a binder boldly labeled “State Farm.”

Weddle knew that after working for State Farm as a claims adjuster for 22 years, DeLong had flipped to become a fervent defender of insureds and had helped to found an influential, California-based consumer advocacy firm, United Policyholders.

Weddle recalled that DeLong was convinced that State Farm was never going to stop cheating their insureds.

“It just so happened that she handed me those documents,” Weddle said. “She said, ‘Charles, look, I acquired these documents, and someone like you might find them useful someday.’”

After she became renowned as a whistleblower, DeLong told Weddle, she would find State Farm documents left for her in paper bags and envelopes, their contents presumably judged damning by those who took pains to hide their origin.

One document from 1985, a letter from a Los Angeles claim superintendent to State Farm’s director of claims, spoke of a reluctance to put too much in writing.

“It is our concern that these items could possibly come back to ‘haunt’ us in future litigation on how we handle claims,” the superintendent wrote.

Weddle preserved the documents because of the quality of their source, he said. He recalled the binder when news broke of State Farm’s alleged Oklahoma scheme of denying hail and wind claims. He fished the binder out of a box to see if they showed the same corporate mentality.

“Twenty years later, [DeLong] was right,” Weddle said. “We’re seeing the same corporate scheme to not pay off their insureds.”

Of DeLong’s Oklahoma roots, Weddle knew only rumors, and of her eventual fate, he knew less.

After years in the public eye, DeLong had disappeared.

The Profit Center

Weddle gave the 156-page binder of documents to Oklahoma Watch.

Representing approximately 30 years of corporate activity from 1970 to 2000, the binder sometimes includes full articles, such as a 21-page chapter of a 1981 claim superintendent manual entitled “Suits Against the Company.” Other documents are single pages excised from larger documents: performance reviews, correspondence and policy manuals.

One of the earliest documents, from 1970, is an operation guide from corporate headquarters advising claim superintendents to compose self-aggrandizing letters to bolster their position on claims.

“The Claim Superintendent should not overlook the opportunity to strengthen his file by preparing self-serving correspondence,” the guide reads.

The guide further suggested that an internal body known as the Excess Claim Committee could propose text for such letters.

A full examination of the documents by Oklahoma Watch suggested that an early effort to crack down on auto claim fraud with “special investigators” and “Senior Referral Units” may have evolved or suffered mission creep over time into more brazenly money-driven goals. Internal organizations known as the “General Claims Committee” and “Unit 414” smacked faintly of star chambers, while an “automation committee” appeared designed to take the human element out of claims handling.

Throughout, the documents employ Orwellian, euphemistic language: “indemnity containment,” “safe” litigation strategies, “aggressive expense control,” “realistic claims handling,” “truer values,” “proper evaluations,” “imaginative investigations” and “tough negotiations.”

A page of an article from an internal publication says that in the early 1970s State Farm was the country’s largest user of computer technology, second only to the U.S. government. Systems designed to streamline claims handling came and went: RAMAC in the 1960s, Delta in the 1980s, MeData and EZEst in the 1990s, the latter specific to the auto claims business of which State Farm has been the country’s leader since 1942.

By the late 80s, a “Profit Center” was established to create “added emphasis” on expense control, and in 1992 the company’s fifth president, Edward B. Rust Jr., issued a fiat.

“Our efforts in controlling expense must show better results,” Rust said, in one of the binder’s documents.

According to yet another document, this came at a time when State Farm profits were on the rise: from 1988-90, State Farm’s net annual income averaged $500 million; from 1991-93, the company’s income soared threefold to $1.6 billion per year.

“Maybe We Have to Send Them to Jail”

One of the binder’s documents, a 1991 memo from a law firm to a regional audit consultant, offered advice on how to respond to Ina DeLong’s dramatic departure from State Farm. The memo prematurely belittled what would prove to be only the beginning of DeLong’s fierce campaign against her former employer.

“Many insureds…see Ina as a modern day Joan of Arc,” the memo said. “To re-ignite the embers of Ina’s dying crusade at this time…would be to court a new wave of litigation.”

Oklahoma Watch pieced together a timeline of DeLong’s life.

DeLong was born Ina Prince in 1943, near Geary, an hour west of Oklahoma City. She was one of seven children, four daughters and three sons.

The family moved to Sebastopol, California, in 1958. DeLong’s mother died three years later, her father 13 years after that, in a tractor accident. The remains of both parents would be returned to Oklahoma and interred in Elk City.

Ina Prince married Charles DeLong in 1962, and several years later she began working as a State Farm Claims adjuster. In 1978, Charles DeLong drove to the parking lot of a Santa Rosa, California, police station and shot himself to death.

In 1989, Ina DeLong was promoted and spent 131 days on a “Special Disaster Program” in California following the Loma Prieta Earthquake, at the time one of the most expensive natural disasters in history. For that work, State Farm rewarded DeLong with a letter of commendation.

That’s when she started to go rogue.

DeLong compiled 2,700 cases in which she believed insureds had been cheated. Of these, she chose 10 to reinspect at her own expense and found that she was right: the homes had significantly more damage than policyholders had been compensated for.

Again operating on her own initiative, DeLong produced a video to better train claims adjusters; State Farm confiscated it.

Several years later, after she quit and appeared on “60 Minutes,” DeLong said that better-trained adjusters would result in higher claims payouts.

“They don’t want adjusters to be better trained,” DeLong told interviewer Ed Bradley.

By then, DeLong was speaking to conference rooms of policyholders to offer advice on how to get insurance companies to pay up and serving as an expert witness in bad-faith claim cases. In 1999, she was a leader in a group of 39 present and former agents who banded together to resist abuses against agents and policyholders.

The following year, DeLong played a role in a pivotal case that reached the United States Supreme Court, Campbell v. State Farm. The Supreme Court overturned a $145 million jury award against State Farm on the argument that excessive punitive damages violated the 14^th Amendment.

Conservative firebrand Justice Antonin Scalia dissented. In the oral arguments, Scalia offered a chilling assessment of the effectiveness of punitive damages against large corporations.

“No amount of money will suffice,” Scalia said. “Maybe we have to send them to jail.”

A short time later, DeLong disappeared from public view. Today, State Farm is facing massive fines and possible expulsion from the California insurance market.

State Farm did not respond to a request to interview any current employee with knowledge of Ina DeLong.

“Somebody Needs to Get Emotional”

DeLong’s binder of documents contained numerous examples of the company’s practice of pressuring employees to adhere to changing corporate culture.

“Each employee has been asked to make a personal commitment to State Farm,” one document reads.

“Overall, both claim representatives and management are not adhering to the Legal Services Program,” reads another.

A document from 1993 described a company-wide effort to discuss “career ambitions” with every employee, and another document revealed a change in policy: although “employment contingent” testing would come to an end — that is, pass a test or get fired — testing would continue to be used to determine employee competency.

Further documents establish arbitrary goal markers on “proactive claim handling,” reduction of non-assigned risk files, and early settlements.

Numerous documents reveal that throughout the 1980s and 90s, the company instituted a broad policy to achieve greater profits: take more claim cases to trial against aggrieved policyholders. In some cases, the goal of litigation was strictly reconnaissance — that is, to learn how much money a particular type of injury might be worth to a jury.

Amy Bach, who founded United Policyholders alongside DeLong, recalled her former partner as passionate about her work — almost to a fault.

Ed Bradley of “60 Minutes” asked DeLong as much.

“Was I too emotional?” Delong told Bradley, her voice cracking. “Yes, I was emotional. But when people’s lives are in danger because they had the audacity to trust, somebody needs to get emotional.”

As close as Bach and DeLong had once been, Bach was as uncertain of Delong’s roots as she was of her ultimate fate.

“I heard different stories,” Bach said. “I heard she was in an accident.”

Oklahoma City attorney Weddle, too, knew little of DeLong’s biography apart from the binder that had remained in his office for decades. Looking through them recently, he was struck by how clearly they presaged the hundreds of bad-faith cases now moving through Oklahoma courts.

“That corporate philosophy of looking for ways to pay less on claims — they set goals and criteria, and they were going to live by it,” Weddle said. “This isn’t some kind of mistake. It’s an ingrained corporate philosophy that goes back decades. That’s what these documents reveal.”

J.C. Hallman covers a variety of topics for Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at jchallman@oklahomawatch.org.

The post Oklahoma “Joan of Arc” Waged Prescient State Farm Battle appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Oklahoma’s education funding paradox takes center stage as Andrea Eger untangles why historic state investments clash with rock-bottom national rankings. Plus, Raynee Howell explores how global conflicts are squeezing local soybean farmers, and Jennifer Palmer breaks down the most consequential new education laws. Catch these stories and more on the latest Long Story Short with Shaun Witt.

The post Long Story Short: The Funding Paradox and The Soybean Squeeze appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

In early February, the city of Stillwater declared the Remington Ranch apartment complex a public nuisance. It was a unique and time-consuming approach to holding the problematic Tulsa-based landlord, Vesta Realty, accountable for the lack of heat and water tenants experienced for months on end.

In several Oklahoma Watch stories detailing the conditions tenants experienced at Vesta Realty-owned properties, housing experts cited the landlord as an example of why Oklahoma legislators should pass House Bill 2015.

The bill, proposed by Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, would make an addition to the tenant remedies section of Oklahoma’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, giving courts the power to hold problem landlords accountable for their properties.

That bill has stalled, and other eviction reform bills failed this legislative session.

Tenant Remedies

Oklahoma’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act has barely changed since the state adopted parts of the Uniform Law Commission’s model legislation in 1978. Oklahoma was one of 20 states that adopted a substantial part of the legislation, but when crafting state law, the tenant remedies section was left on the cutting room floor.

Remedies that Katie Dilks, the executive director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation, said Oklahoma’s neighboring states had.

“The goal of bills like House Bill 2015 and improved tenant repair and landlord accountability laws across the country is to give tools to tenants and communities to address issues before they become full-blown community-level disasters like we saw in Stillwater,” Dilks said.

She said that if no change is made to the Landlord-Tenant Act, the case of Remington Ranch could serve as inspiration for proactive municipalities to hold bad landlords accountable on their own.

“That will also only meaningfully address really large multi-family properties and challenges with repairs or habitability or safety concerns that rise to a really egregious level,” Dilks said. “The city is not in a place to go and file nuisance complaints against every landlord who doesn’t make the repairs that they are expected to do. If we put our eggs in that basket, we have to acknowledge that we are going to be leaving a lot of people without a solution.”

House Bill 2015 was not the only bill proposed this session to address eviction reform.

Oklahoma’s Eviction Timeline

Once again, the eviction timeline was in question at the state Capitol, this time in the form of Senate Bill 1209.

After Sen. Julia Kirt’s timeline extension bill was vetoed last year by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the Oklahoma City Democrat made some adjustments and again tried to pass an extension with Senate Bill 1209, which would exclude Sundays and federal holidays from Oklahoma’s eviction timeline.

Dilks said the timeline is a piece, but it is not the most actionable move to lower Oklahoma’s eviction rates. She said an increase in the $58 filing fee would be more direct.

An Oklahoma Watch investigation found that Oklahoma’s eviction process, which is among the fastest in the country, paired with the state’s low filing fee, opens the door for landlords to use it as a form of rent collection. That often results in serial evictions.

Sabine Brown, a senior policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said there is no one solution to driving down evictions and keeping people housed, but Oklahoma’s timeline still needs to be addressed.

“There are so many reasons why folks are experiencing housing instability,” Brown said. “This is (the timeline) part of the solution. Someone can go from being a day late to being removed from their house in under two weeks, which is just incredibly quick.”

Despite being only a piece of the solution for Oklahoma’s eviction rates, the bill ultimately failed in the House.

The Upcoming Election

Both Dilks and Brown attributed the bills’ failures to the upcoming election.

“The fact that this is an election year makes it tough,” Brown said. “Landlords hold a lot of power in the legislature, and I think legislators are sometimes scared of landlords.”

Eric Dunn, director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project, previously told Oklahoma Watch that it is difficult to pass eviction reform bills in states without strong tenant unions.

“What we generally see is that landlord and Realtor associations in every state are going to have tremendous clout in state and local government,” Dunn said. “Landlords get pretty much what they want out of state and local government, and then it’s really only communities that have well-organized grassroots tenant organizations that are really able to get anything approaching a balanced law.”

He said that landlords often see such bills as attacks.

Brown said the majority of landlords would not be affected by the bills, adding that they would have been used to hold bad landlords accountable.

“What is important to remember is that these bills are not targeting landlords; they are trying to hold bad landlords accountable,” Brown said. “The large majority of landlords that are doing right by their tenants are not going to be affected by this legislation.”

Jake Ramsey covers evictions, housing and homelessness. Contact him at (405) 370-3798 or jramsey@oklahomawatch.org.

The post Election Year Politics Killed Oklahoma’s Eviction Reform Bills, Advocates Say appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

According to the USDA Economic Research Service, 85% of the 14.3 million bales of cotton and 38% of the 1.2 billion bushels of winter wheat produced in the United States have been exported since the start of the ongoing 2025-2026 marketing years of each crop.

This is slightly above the 2024-2025 numbers, which saw 83% and 30% of U.S.-produced cotton and winter wheat exported, respectively.

Oklahoma typically ranks second in U.S. winter wheat production and seventh in cotton production.

The United States is the second-largest exporter of cotton after Brazil and among the top five exporters of wheat. Vietnam, Pakistan and China are the top importers of U.S. cotton, and Mexico, the Phillipines, Japan, South Korea and China are historically top importers of U.S. wheat.

U.S. agricultural exports decreased 3% from 2024 to 2025, with China, which currently has a 15% tariff on U.S. cotton and wheat, accounting for $16 billion of the decline.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA Cotton Supply/Demand Data
• U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA Wheat Data
• Statista Leading cotton exporting countries in 2025/2026
• Farm Bureau Wheat Exports: The Balancing Act of U.S. Wheat
• U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service
• USDA – Foreign Agricultrual Service Commodity Fact Sheets – Wheat
• Trade Compliance Resource Hub Trump 2.0 tariff tracker
• American Enterprise Institute Evaluating the Impact of Tariffs on US Agriculture a Year After Liberation Day

The post Is about 80% of the cotton and 40% of the winter wheat raised in the United States exported? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ has used the state investment pools he oversees against corporations engaging in climate change and diversity initiatives, purportedly to refocus their attention away from politics and on their fiduciary duty of maximizing shareholder profits.

But Russ, who is also a minister, steered a contract managing $2 billion in taxpayer money to a Christian investment firm that partnered with his close allies during the bid process. Russ directed the firm to conduct so-called Oklahoma values tests of portfolio managers, indicating his own conservative religious politics are fair investment criteria.

Despite delivering record returns, NEPC, the longtime investment consultant for the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, was fired last year in favor of Innovest Portfolio Solutions, a firm founded by devout Catholics that serves many Catholic dioceses and religious organizations. Russ chairs TSET’s Board of Investors, which published the request-for-proposals last year. But the bid process may not have been very competitive; Innovest had been a client of Russ advisor Jerry Bowyer, who is himself an Episcopal deacon.  

Additionally, during the time period that Innovest was under consideration for the contract, the firm partnered on multiple projects with key Russ allies at the State Financial Officers Foundation, including Bowyer, who are also major players in the Christian finance industry. At least one project involved payment from Innovest to SFOF.

Oklahoma Watch obtained exclusive audio, photos, and documents from multiple events held by the anti-ESG coalition, of which Russ, Bowyer, and SFOF are frequent participants.  

Neither Treasurer Russ nor his office responded to multiple requests for comment.

“A Fight for Western Civilization”

Since his arrival in state government finance in 2023, Todd Russ has been a key member of the State Financial Officers Foundation: it bestowed Russ with a 2023 Rising Star Award, and his deputy Jordan Harvey with a 2024 honor and a spot on SFOF’s 2025 leadership team. The group itself is a key member of the network of conservative nonprofits fighting the so-called War on Woke against corporations that have engaged in climate change and diversity initiatives, often referred to in the shorthand as ESG and DEI, which are values-based investing frameworks. 

GOP power broker and Catholic super lawyer Leonard Leo, who is armed with a $1.6 billion war chest, funds this anti-ESG network. On a quest to “crush liberal dominance” of American culture, he has been a critical engineer of the conservative Supreme Court majority and overturning Roe v. Wade. Consumers’ Research, which has claimed to be SFOF’s top donor and has deep ties to Leo, leads the effort.

Chanting the mantras of political neutrality and fiduciary duty, the Leo network assails corporations for taking political stances (such as joining a climate pact, supporting LGBT rights, or requiring pay equity), which it claims harm shareholder profits. SFOF’s role is to organize red-state treasurers to threaten blacklisting and to divest from government investment pools, such as pension funds. 

But behind closed doors, Leo associates assert the need to gain as much political ground as possible and take “scalps” from their perceived enemies, like BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who committed his companies to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

With a Democrat at the helm and $14 trillion of assets under management, including many state funds, BlackRock makes a juicy target for Republican state treasurers such as Russ. He blacklisted the firm and subsequently was sued by a retired public employee to stop the state from divesting. In early April 2026, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that divestment would cost the state pension funds millions of dollars, and ruled against Russ.  

In exclusive audio from the 2025 Consumers Research Summit, when asked to provide a fiduciary argument for state treasurers to divest from BlackRock that would trump the millions in losses, SFOF CEO O.J. Oleka conceded that he lacked direct academic research. On political neutrality, he said that “it depends on what’s going on at the time,” and suggested that they should not appease ESG proponents, a group including big banks, because the results would be akin to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.

Oleka framed their work as “a fight for Western civilization,” drawing a line from supporting ESG to hating America and becoming Marxist, and explicitly stated the partisan nature of their work: “Just because we won in November, or because we got some great executive orders, we’ve got to keep going. And I’m thankful that we’ve got a lot of financial officers who are doing it.”     

Mr. Oleka did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Russ Allies in Anti-ESG Network Set Sights on Board Consultants

Treasurer Russ plays a prominent role for SFOF’s national anti-ESG advocacy campaigns, including sign-on letters to corporations, media interviews, and events. He regularly partners with Oleka; Derek Kreifels, who is SFOF’s former CEO and current board member; and SFOF advisory council member Jerry Bowyer.  In January 2025, Kreifels launched his own financial consultancy, Prospr Aligned, with Bowyer as his head of corporate engagement, and registered as an executive lobbyist in Oklahoma. The following month, Russ formally hired Bowyer as a corporate engagement advisor to TSET.    

According to a previously unreported agenda obtained from a source who was present, both Russ and then-SFOF CEO Kreifels were speakers at the 2024 Consumers’ Research Summit, which has been held annually in late January at the swanky Sea Island Resort in Georgia for several years. Russ’ travel disclosure to the OK Ethics Commission confirms he attended.

Both Kreifels and Bowyer attended the 2025 summit, but neither had a formal speaking slot. During the comment period for Oleka’s panel, Kreifels noted that none of the “bad asset managers,” meaning those supporting ESG, get hired by state pension boards without the recommendation of investment consultants. “Callan, Aon, NEPC, there’s about 10 of them, and they’re all in this together. They all love the ESG space,” he said, as he urged the audience to start pressuring board consultants.    

Mr. Kreifels did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Perhaps coincidentally, just two weeks earlier the TSET Board of Investors, chaired by Russ, issued an RFP for an investment consultant to oversee its $2 billion portfolio, despite record returns from its incumbent vendor, NEPC.

The RFP outlined an approximately six-month schedule, with responses due in February, finalist notification in May, and an award to be made after a June presentation to the board. The decision would ultimately come down to just two choices:  incumbent NEPC, which Kreifels disliked for ‘loving’ ESG, and Innovest Portfolio Solutions, a client of Russ advisor Bowyer that participated in anti-ESG advocacy campaigns in the Leo network as early as 2024. 

In government procurement, open bid processes prohibit inappropriate communication by vendors with procurement officials to limit improper influence. Those norms appear to have been violated during the TSET RFP consideration period. 

“In general, prohibitions on back-channel communication in government procurement act as a safeguard in the public interest against corruption,” said Lisa Graves, founder of corruption watchdog True North Research. “If a vendor in an open bid carried on a close relationship with an advisor close to the official overseeing that contract, and sponsored an event for a group tied to both the advisor and the official, that would raise questions about potential favoritism in my view.”

“The Devil Has Taken Advantage of Our Christian Assets”

In early April, Innovest hosted its inaugural Christian Institutional Investors Conference, with a panel featuring Bowyer and another Bowyer client, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian Right legal juggernaut responsible for overturning Roe v Wade that provides much of the legal muscle for the anti-ESG coalition. Later that month, Innovest sponsored a panel on values alignment for state fiduciaries featuring its President Wendy Dominguez, Bowyer, and Kreifels, at the spring SFOF conference in Orlando, which was attended by Russ. His travel was paid for by SFOF, according to a filing with the OK Ethics Commission.

Innovest CEO and Co-Founder Rich Todd joined Bowyer on his May 20 podcast to discuss “How the Financial Consulting Industry Weaponizes Christians’ Money Against Them.” Without explicitly naming NEPC and Oklahoma, Bowyer bemoaned secular investment firms “not aligned” with the Christian faith as “completely inappropriate” for red states. He added, “They are the major barrier right now to faith institutions and say, red states et cetera having their values and their virtues expressed in their portfolio.”

From there, any appearance of neutrality disappeared. Corporate supporters of clean energy and reproductive rights were homicidal, Marxist agents of Satan. “The devil has taken advantage of our Christian assets, especially in proxy voting. Corporate cultures have changed. They’ve become anti-Christian,” observed Todd, who in other contexts describes his firm as secular. Here, he dropped that pretense: “Satan will not give up his fight for sure, but I really do believe this is a fight of good vs. evil.” 

The Innovest chief continued, “[BlackRock CEO] Larry Fink is the leader of this. He still talks about stakeholder capitalism, which in many ways is rooted in socialism or Marxism. Catholics do not do well in communist or socialist countries, they’re killed.”

TSET notified NEPC and Innovest on May 23 that they made the cut. Days later, Treasurer Russ, his advisor Bowyer, and SFOF alum Kreifels appeared on a panel entitled “Breakthroughs in Public Markets” at an institutional investor conference held by Christian finance firm Sovereign’s Capital, according to a social media post from one of Sovereign’s co-founders. Hosted inside the Museum of the Bible, the event appears to have been fairly secretive, given the scant details available online. It’s not clear if anyone from Innovest was in attendance, nor whether Russ paid for his own travel, as he did not file an ethics disclosure with the state.

Mr. Bowyer, Ms. Dominguez, and Mr. Todd did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

According to the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, Innovest was set to feature Bowyer talking about the importance of proxy voting alignment in its Quarterly Faith-Aligned Webinar Series on June 10. An Innovest Q2 recap notes that his was the inaugural episode. A few days later, Innovest CEO Richard Todd wrote an article in The Daily Signal about Christian proxy voting analysis, in which he cited a study conducted by Bowyer in 2023. The publication described Innovest not as secular, but as providing “investment consulting services to faith-based organizations.”

“Finding Innovest Was An Answer to Prayer”

In audio of the June 18 TSET board meeting recorded by Oklahoma Watch, there were clear differences between the final presentations. NEPC Partner Doug Moseley was given a palpably colder reception from the board than Innovest President Wendy Dominguez. NEPC’s presentation focused on performance and the benefits of scale from their recent acquisition, with ESG concerns only addressed in questioning. A big player in the Christian finance space, Innovest tailored its pitch throughout to appeal to Chairman Russ’ desire for “Oklahoma values” alignment, while curiously avoiding the subject of faith, with one exception.   

Board member Debbie Mueggenborg asked Dominguez what assurance she could give that Innovest would be diligent in its evaluation process. “We are aligned with your values. We don’t have a big contingency of clients that are searching for ESG,” Dominguez replied, adding, “Because of that, we work with a lot of religious organizations.” 

There was little deliberation, but Board Trustee John Waldo did air his doubts over the legality of Innovest slashing its fee by $60k during its pitch that day. He wanted to know if there was disparate communication between the vendors: “So no one has communicated with them any, nothing?” 

Russ replied, “No. I don’t think that would probably be ethical.” 

While it’s unclear if Russ himself had outside communication with Innovest during the bid process, it is clear that his close advisor Jerry Bowyer certainly did, and extensively throughout. And Russ and Dominguez attended the same Innovest-sponsored SFOF conference in April. It beggars belief that they would not have had any contact there.   

Was NEPC asked to sponsor SFOF panels? Or its CEO given the opportunity to be interviewed by Russ confidantes like Jerry Bowyer?

At the end of Bowyer’s May podcast, Innovest’s CEO sung the advisor’s praises: “I’ve gotten to know you over the last three or four years and you’re a leader in this movement.” 

“You’re an answer to prayer,” replied Bowyer. “Finding Innovest was an answer to prayer.”

Lauren Windsor is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist. She can be reached at @laurenwindsor

The post TSET Investment Consultant Partnered with Russ Allies During Bid Process appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Here is the audio of Oklahoma Watch’s published stories for the week of May 11, 2026.

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A campaign donation to Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ from the owner of an investment firm that won a state bid further complicated the state’s Invest in Oklahoma program and may have led to the firm pulling out of the process. 

A letter from 311 Capital Management LLC sent Friday to the five-member Invest in Oklahoma board said the company could no longer pursue a potentially lucrative investment advisory role to invest a portion of the state’s $45 billion in pension, trust and endowment assets in Oklahoma-based private equity and venture capital funds.  

The letter came just days after Oklahoma Watch asked about a $2,500 campaign donation in February 2025 to Russ from Bond Payne, the owner of Citizen Capital LLC and the parent company of 311 Capital. 

Federal securities rules prohibit investment firms from seeking state pension advisory roles if an employee or other associate donated to an elected official with a role in approving a contract. The so-called pay-to-play rule has a two-year lockout period on receiving compensation under such investment advisory contracts. 

The Invest in Oklahoma board voted Feb. 17 to award the investment advisory contract to 311 Capital over two other bidders, MEMCO and GCM Grosvenor. Russ’ office ran the bidding process, and he recommended 311 Capital be awarded the bid.  

The campaign contribution is the latest twist in a bidding process that has been marred by undisclosed business relationships and shared lobbyists uncovered by an Oklahoma Watch investigation. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond expressed his concerns about the bidding process in a letter to Russ sent this month after the Oklahoma Watch articles. 

Drummond, a Republican who is running for governor, said the bidding process was tainted by collusion and undisclosed conflicts of interest. The attorney general said May 6 he’d sue over any contract based on the bid award to 311 Capital Management. 

Neither Payne nor Russ responded to detailed questions about the connections among the campaign contribution, the federal pay-to-play rule and 311 Capital Management. Instead, their representatives provided general statements about the bidding process. Payne served as Stitt’s chief of staff from 2020 to 2022. 

“311 Capital Management complied with the requirements of the Treasurer’s RFP and conducted ourselves appropriately as part of our efforts to help organize capital for investment in Oklahoma,” Payne said in a written statement. “We believe we did and have followed all applicable statutes, rules and bid procedures.” 

Russ’ statement said his campaign receives hundreds of donations and he doesn’t check his donor list when considering state business. He said the proposal from 311 Capital was signed by its managing partner, Steve McDonnold. 

“Any contract that would be entered into between the Invest in Oklahoma Program and 311 Capital Management would be signed by Steve McDonnold,” Russ said in his May 13 written statement. “Remember, there are (zero dollars) in the program, 311 Capital Management will receive no income directly from the program as bid in their proposal and my office would be working with Steve McDonnold.” 

But Russ, in a 23-minute interview with KWTV about the Invest in Oklahoma program on May 12, said there was little difference between Citizen Capital and 311 Capital. 

“They knew Oklahoma,” Russ said in the interview. “They met the criteria on trades in Oklahoma. I don’t know a lot of background on these people. I dealt with their principal, Steve McDonnold. Great guy, highly professional, long history, probably 40 years in the industry, highly seasoned. 311 was umbrellaed under Citizen Capital, which has been around a long time.”  

The 311 Capital response to the Invest in Oklahoma bid, obtained under the Open Records Act, listed Payne as founder of Citizen Capital and 311 Capital. The RFP required any successful bidders to have an investment track record, but records show that Citizen Capital founded 311 Capital in September, just months before the treasurer’s office issued an initial RFP. 

“Based in Oklahoma City, Mr. Payne is responsible for the vision of the firm, establishing key

relationships for fundraising and for sourcing investments for the (fund of funds) and direct investments of the 311 Fund,” the RFP response said.  

Payne was the sole name on a state form on Dec. 5, noting non-collusion as part of 311 Capital’s response packet to the RFP. 

311 Capital Management said it wouldn’t charge any upfront fees to the Invest in Oklahoma board. That was a key part of Russ’ recommendation to the board to hire the firm. Instead, 311 Capital would get paid by the entities it brought to the board and after any investments approved by the separate pension or state investment boards. 

The federal pay-to-play rule has been in place since 2010 and has survived several legal challenges. Its existence is well-known in the securities industry. The rule has been an issue in recent presidential campaigns, in which a candidate was a governor whose role included chairing state investment boards or appointing members to a pension board of directors. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt chairs the Invest in Oklahoma board, whose members include Russ, Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell and legislative appointees Brady Sidwell and Zack Hall. 

State campaign filings show Payne also donated to the Stitt and Pinnell campaigns. But those donations came outside of the two-year lockout period for pursuing state investment advisory contracts. 

In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Minnesota investment advisory firm Wayzata Investment Partners LLC over a single campaign contribution. Without admitting wrongdoing, the firm settled the enforcement action and paid a $60,000 civil penalty. 

“Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-5 does not require a showing of quid pro quo or actual intent to

influence an elected official or candidate,” the SEC said in its order.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, an appointee of President Trump in 2018, has consistently dissented from enforcement actions involving the pay-to-play rule. She said the rule is a blunt instrument that chills political speech. 

“To avoid questions from commission examiners, the easiest course is not to contribute to political campaigns,” Peirce said in a recent dissent. “So, the cost of working for an investment adviser is that you have to give up your right to contribute to certain political campaigns.”

Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health. Contact him at (571) 319-3289 or pmonies@oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter @pmonies. 

The post Campaign Contribution May Have Scuttled Investment Advisory Bid appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

According to a 2026 Oklahoma Tax Commission report, less than 10% of the 39,722 recipients of tax credits issued through the Parental Choice Tax Credit program were previously enrolled in public schools. Three hundred forty-nine recipients were homeless or financially disadvantaged.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education determines economically disadvantaged status using the USDA metric of 185% the poverty level; for households of three, that means an annual income of $49,303 or less.  

The PCTC program allows households with children in private schools to claim between $5,000 and $7,500 each year, depending on their income bracket. 

Eight percent of recipients were families receiving income-based government benefits, qualifying them for the maximum amount. 

Twenty-one percent of recipients were in the lowest adjusted gross income category of $75,000 or less, and 25% were in the highest category of over $250,000, accounting for 22% and 19% of the total funds, respectively.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• Oklahoma Tax Commission PARENTAL CHOICE TAX CREDIT (PCTC) REPORT – 70 O.S. § 28-101(K)
• State of Oklahoma INCOME-ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR SCHOOL YEAR 2025-2026
• Oklahoma Tax Commission PARENTAL CHOICE TAX CREDIT TAXPAYER RESOURCES

The post Were 90% of private school tax voucher recipients already enrolled in private schools and less than 1% financially disadvantaged? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.