Just The Facts: Candidate Voting Records on 2016-2018 Tax Hikes

There are a number of current or former Republican state legislators running for higher office, and I wanted to do a post on their voting records during the 2016-2018 tax hike spree that Governor Mary Fallin and the GOP-led legislature went on (I ran the first version of this post during the 2022 election). 

During good economic times, Republicans like to run on tax cuts and no-new-taxes pledges, but the real test of their espoused principles comes during economic downturns and belt-tightening eras. Will their rhetoric match their governing, when push comes to shove and budgets have to be balanced? Will their instinct be to raise taxes, or to cut government?

So, without further ado, Just The Facts: 2026 Candidate Voting Records on Major Tax and Fee Increases in the Oklahoma Legislature, 2016-2018. We will specifically be looking at the voting record of 12 current or former Republican legislators who are on the June 16th GOP primary election ballot for statewide or congressional offices.

The colors I used in the following graphics are not 'green for good, red for bad'. Green means they voted for the tax increase measure, Red means they voted against the tax increase measure, Gray means they missed the vote, and blank means they were not eligible to vote (for example, Sen. Mazzei left office in 2016, and was only about to vote on three of these bills; Humphrey, Pugh, and West didn't enter office until the 2016 election, and thus their votes start in 2017. In other cases the bill either did not receive a hearing in that legislative chamber or the member was not on the committee where a vote took place). 

The very last measure in each graphic, HJR1050, is perhaps the most important of these recorded votes, as a green/yes vote there indicates that the legislator voted to make it much easier for the Legislature to raise your taxes.

Let's dive in. The following five former state legislators are running for Governor or U.S. Congress (with former state senators Brecheen and Bice being current members of Congress):

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Of these five former legislators, only Brecheen was in the small group of legislative conservatives who valiantly fought a losing effort against the onslaught of tax hikes. Speaker Charles McCall, in particular, ignominiously supported and promoted every tax increase proposal during this time period.

The next graphic examines seven other current or former Republican state legislators from that time period who are on the ballot for other statewide offices:

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Of these seven legislators, Echols and Pfeiffer voted for almost every single tax hike that came their way, and voted to make it easier to raise taxes on Oklahomans. Reps. Humphrey, Russ, West, and Sen. Quinn - while varying on the tax votes (West was more consistently with the Freedom-Caucus predecessor core-group than the rest were) - all stood with Oklahoma taxpayers in opposing the measure that would have lowered the threshold to raise taxes.

There are a handful of other legislators from the 2016-2018 time period running for these or other offices that are Democrats (including former Republican State Sen. Ervin Yen, who after being ousted from office in 2018 has run as an Independent, and now is running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat); they are not relevant to this post, as Democrats supporting tax increases simply falls under the definition of 'Democrat'.

Not all of the aforementioned measures passed both chambers and were signed into law. Some of these only received votes in either the House or the Senate. You can click the links below to go to the Legislative information page on each bill. I believe I covered all of the main tax and fee increase bills from 2016 through 2018, but can't guarantee that I missed none. If I did miss a few, what I did collect should be enough to give you a good idea.

2016:

• HB3210 - cigarette tax - $190M 
• SB1606 - itemized deduction cap - $97M 
• SB1604 - make the Earned Income Credit nonrefundable - $29M
• SB1577 - Gross Production Tax - $133M 

2017

• HB2348 - standard deduction freeze - $4.4M
• HB2361 - sports ticket fee - $2.6M
• HB2367 - end sales tax vendor deduction - $14.1M
• HB2429 - Gross Production Tax - $94M
• HB2433 - vehicle sales tax - $123M
• SB845 - cigarette tax - $258M (ruled to be unconstitutional)
• HB2372 - cigarette tax - $215M 
• HB2403 - itemized deduction cap - $102M 
• HB2414 - cigarette//fuel/GPT - $385M 

2017 1st Special Session

• HB1035X - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $455M
• HB1054X  - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $455M
• HB1085X - Gross Production Tax - $51M 

2017 2nd Special Session

• HB1010XX - cigarette/fuel/GPT/hotel - $534M (largest tax hike to pass since at least 1990)
• HB1011XX - itemized deduction cap -$94M
• HB1033XX - cigarette/fuel/GPT - $581M

2018

• SB1086 - eliminate capital gains deduction -- $120M
• HJR1050 - would have made it easier for the legislature to raise taxes on Oklahomans, a horrifically bad vote among a list of horrifically bad votes.

More could (and should) be said, but for the time being, in case I am not able to get more out on this, I hope this information will be helpful for my readers and for Oklahoma voters.