Flashback: Frix's $2k lobbyist-paid trip to National Popular Vote conference in NYC

State Rep. Avery Frix, running against former State Sen. Josh Brecheen in the 2nd Congressional District's GOP runoff, is keen to remind voters of Brecheen's greatest (single?) blemish from eight years ago in the state legislature, when Brecheen cast an ill-advised (and swiftly recanted) vote in support of a National Popular Vote compact bill authored by a fellow Republican.

Frix doesn't want voters to remember the time - just four years ago - after Donald Trump's 2016 election, that he took a lobbyist-paid junket to New York City for a National Popular Vote conference.

Does anybody remember this?

(In NYC on the IRPE-paid trip. L-R: Rep. Avery Frix, Rep. McDugle's then-mistress, Rep. Baker's husband, Rep. Kevin McDugle, Rep. Rhonda Baker)

In mid-December 2017, three Republican state representatives (among them being Avery Frix) took a trip to New York City to attend a conference put on by the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. The group spent a little over $2,000 on Avery Frix. The purpose of the junket was to learn about the IRPE's efforts to change how we elect the President from the Electoral College system to a national popular vote.

LtGov Pinnell opposes push for National Popular Vote

Last Thursday, I wrote about the continued years-long effort by out-of-state groups to persuade the Oklahoma Legislature to bypass the Electoral College and tie Oklahoma's electoral votes to the National Popular Vote.

Since December 2017, National Popular Vote groups have spent over $47,000 to bring 15 GOP legislators and 12 Democratic legislators to wine-and-dine events in Utah, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and New York City.

Members of the State Senate have been particularly targeted, with 20% of the Senate GOP caucus and nearly the entire Democratic caucus having gone on these paid-for junkets. Almost a full third of the entire Senate has been on an out-of-state IRPE trip since 2017.

Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC) responded to my request for comment, confirming his past opposition to the National Popular Vote plan. I also asked Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell, who holds the constitutional (and primarily ceremonial) office of President of the Senate, for his thoughts on the matter. His statement is below:

"I was opposed to the national popular vote as Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, and I remain opposed. The framers designed this system to give voters in states like Oklahoma a real say in who our president is. If we went to a national popular vote system, presidential candidates would campaign in the large cities on the coasts, and neglect states like Oklahoma. I would be opposed to any effort to go to the national popular vote." -- Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell

Pinnell has a unique background and experience on this matter, given his tenure as state GOP chairman and his time working in conjunction with the RCN and Trump 2016 campaign across the nation. Hopefully he can help counter the NPV/IRPE money and persuade Republican legislators against falling prey to the subversive National Popular Vote campaign.

Senate Pro-Tem Treat opposes National Popular Vote effort

Yesterday, I wrote about the ongoing effort by out-of-state groups to lobby the Oklahoma Legislature to ditch the Electoral College and instead hitch Oklahoma's electoral votes to the National Popular Vote, thus disenfranchising Oklahoma voters from giving their voice in presidential elections.

Since December 2017, National Popular Vote groups have spent over $47,000 to bring 15 GOP legislators and 12 Democratic legislators to wine-and-dine events in Utah, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and New York City.

Members of the State Senate have been particularly targeted, with 20% of the Senate GOP caucus and nearly the entire Democratic caucus having gone on these paid-for junkets. Almost a full third of the entire Senate has been on an out-of-state IRPE trip since 2017.

I asked Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC) for his position on the National Popular Vote concept, and whether he would support or oppose such a measure if advanced in the 2020 legislative session. I got a pretty quick response:

“The framers of the federal Constitution devised the electoral college to protect states like Oklahoma from being disenfranchised by voters in states with much larger populations. I previously have opposed and will continue to oppose any legislation that enables a national popular vote.” – Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City

In 2014, when a National Popular Vote bill passed the Oklahoma State Senate, Treat was one of 18 Republicans who opposed the measure. 16 Republicans and all 12 Democrats voted together to approve SB 906, which would have bound Oklahoma's vote to the winner of the "popular vote" nationwide as opposed to the candidate who won the most votes in Oklahoma. The National Popular Vote campaign has held that vote up as a trophy in the years since, even though it never received a hearing in the House.

Fortunately, Sen. Treat's position has been pretty consistent on this issue. I'm awaiting comment from Governor Stitt, Lt. Governor Pinnell, and House Speaker McCall on the topic. Stay tuned.

Nat'l Popular Vote lobby continues wine-and-dine trips for Oklahoma Legislators

In January 2018, I posted about three GOP legislators who were taken to New York City for a conference put on by the innocuous-sounding Institute for Research on Presidential Elections, a group founded to help lead the effort to ditch the Electoral College and transition presidential elections to a National Popular Vote system.

National Popular Vote (NPV) advocates managed to slip a NPV measure through the State Senate in 2014, but uproar by grassroots activists, then-OKGOP chairman Dave Weston, and former OKGOP chairman (now Lt. Governor) Matt Pinnell led to the House not taking up the bill.

In the intervening months since the early 2018 story, I forgot to check back and see if there had been further developments.

Wow. I should have looked earlier.

Let's recap: in January 2018, we found out that Reps. Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon), Avery Frix (R-Muskogee), and Kevin McDugle (R-Wagoner) had attended the IRPE/NPV junket to New York City. Frix and McDulge were given a "scholarship" of about $2,000 to attend; Baker received about $500. Baker and McDugle filed their required reports late, a fact I noted in my articles and confirmed at the time with the director of the Ethics Commission. Some days later, thanks to an interview with the El Reno Tribune, Baker revealed that Sens. Stephanie Bice (R-OKC), Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle), and then-Rep. Leslie Osborn (R-Mustang) had attended a similar seminar in Utah.

We now can look back and see that a whole host of other legislators attended IRPE/NPV events in 2018, and some in 2019 as well. This should especially concern conservatives and Republicans given the approaching 2020 presidential election.

Here is the list of those known to have attended IRPE/NPV events, with links to their legally-required disclosure forms for scholarships they received to attend, along with the dollar amount, listed with most recent at the top and Republicans in bold:

• Rep. Marcus McEntire (R-Duncan), January 2019, $2,706.95
• Rep. Mark Lawson (R-Sapulpa), January 2019, $2,695.61
• Sen. James Leewright (R-Bristow), January 2019, $2,357.32
• Rep. Kyle Hilbert (R-Depew), January 2019, $2,060.14
• Sen. John Michael Montgomery (R-Lawton), January 2019, $2,026.12
• Rep. Josh West (R-Grove), January 2019, $2,013.60
• Rep. Forrest Bennett (D-OKC), January 2018, $1,731.44
• [Former] Rep. Karen Gaddis (D-Tulsa), January 2018, $1,642.66
• [Former] Rep. Eric Proctor (D-Tulsa), January 2018, $1,436
• Sen. Kevin Matthews (D-Tulsa), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Sen. Allison Ikley-Freeman (D-Tulsa), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Sen. J.J. Dossett (D-Owasso), January 2018, $1,287.26
• [Former] Sen. John Sparks (D-Norman), January 2018, $1,287.26
• [Former] Sen. Anastasia Pittman (D-OKC), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Sen. Kay Floyd (D-OKC), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Sen. Michael Brooks (D-OKC), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Justin Cajindos (Senate Democratic Caucus Chief of Staff), January 2018, $1,287.26
• Rep. Matt Meredith (D-Tahlequah), January 2018, $1,168.73
• Rep. Emily Virgin (D-Norman), January 2018, no amount reported
• Sen. Roger Thompson (R-Okemah), January 2018, $2,397.68
• Sen. Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle), January 2018, $2,255.11
• Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond), January 2018, $1,969.57
• [Former] Sen. A.J. Griffin (R-Guthrie), January 2018, $1,879.23
• Sen. Stephanie Bice (R-OKC), January 2018, $1,860.21
• Sen. Jason Smalley (R-Stroud), January 2018, $1,827.98
• Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee), December 2017, $2,063.18
• Rep. Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow), December 2017, $2,048.17
• Rep. Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon), December 2017, $579.75

All told, since December 2017, IRPE and the National Popular Vote effort have doled out at least $47,017.53 to bring 8 GOP Senators, 7 GOP Representatives, 7 Democratic Senators, 5 Democratic Representatives, and one Democratic legislative staff member to their conferences in Utah, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and New York.

That's 20% of the Senate GOP caucus, and almost a full third of the entire Senate.

IRPE spent $30,740.62 on 15 GOP legislators (an average of $2,049.37), but just $16,276.91 on the 13 Democrats (average of $1,252.07). If I were a Democrat, I'd probably be a little irked at the disparity in money spent.

Some of the members who went on IRPE/NPV junkets are in positions of leadership. Rep. Josh West is one of two House Majority Leaders. Rep. Hilbert is both the A&B Vice Chair and the JCAB Vice Chair. Sen. Roger Thompson is the Appropriations Chair. Sen. Smalley is the Senate Majority Caucus chair. Rep. Virgin is the House Minority Leader. Sen. Sparks was the Senate Minority Leader; Sen. Floyd is now.

Earlier in 2017, three Democratic legislators went to an IRPE event in California, but paid their way with campaign funds. It is unknown at this time if other legislators have likewise since used that route of funding to obscure their attendance.

I also reached out to some thought and opinion leaders in the state for their two-cents on this topic.

Trent England of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs has spoken and written extensively on the Electoral College and national popular vote in recent years, including several debates with NPV proponents. "Unlike many other lobbyist junkets, NPV usually keeps Republicans and Democrats segregated on different trips," England told me. "They do that so they tell Republicans that changing the rules will help them, and then turn around and tell Democrats the same thing." England authored op-eds this year that ran in publications as diverse as USA Today and The Resurgent, and was featured in a debate in Colorado earlier this summer.

"The legislature is very concerned about voter apathy and declining participation. I told them in 2015, that elections need to be meaningful for Oklahomans," says David Van Risseghem, editor of SoonerPolitics.org. "To give our electoral voice to major cities on the coasts, will further drive down voter turnout. But more importantly, it will limit campaign events in our state. The politicians will just focus on big cities, to a greater degree than they already do."

"It seems to me that if the arguments for a National Popular Vote were so strong it would not be necessary to wine and dine legislators in places outside of the state," said Oklahoma Constitution publisher Steve Byas in response to my request for comment. "Rather, they should be able to present their arguments for them in Oklahoma City or Tulsa. Going to a National Popular Vote would transfer even more power to the federal government, away from the states." Byas is a professor of History & Government at Randall University, in Norman, Oklahoma, and has defended the merits of the Electoral College in op-eds in The New American.

I'm in communication with Governor Stitt, Lt. Governor Pinnell, Senate Pro Tem Treat, and House Speaker McCall for their comment on the National Popular Vote push, as it seems that Republicans in the Legislature continue to open the door to the idea. When I receive their statements, I'll publish them.

OCPA's Trent England debates Electoral College at Georgetown Law

As multiple Republican state legislators here in Oklahoma are flirting with the National Popular Vote effort to change how we elect our President, OCPA's Trent England recently debated in favor of the Electoral College system at a debate hosted by the Georgetown University Law Center.

From Georgetown Law:

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Trent England, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, recently debated the merits of the electoral college versus the popular vote in U.S. presidential elections.

The debate in full can be viewed below:

National Popular Vote: more GOP members have gone on trips, Baker files disclosure late, McDugle still non-compliant

Three weeks ago, I reported that three freshmen GOP state representatives went on junket to NYC in December paid for by a National Popular Vote lobbying group. I've learned some news on the topic that deserves an update.

The Institute for Research on Presidential Elections put on the December 14th-17th excursion, which was attended by State Reps. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee), Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon), and Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow). IRPE and its sister organization National Popular Vote seek to bypass the Electoral College and elect the president by a national popular vote.

Under their proposal, states would pledge to give their electors to the winner of the popular vote; hence, Oklahoma's electoral votes would have been given to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and to Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, despite Oklahomans overwhelmingly voting for the GOP nominees.

On February 3rd, the El Reno Tribune ran an article on the topic, interviewing Rep. Baker (who has not responded to my repeated requests for comment) and State Sen. Lonnie Paxton.

Baker told the reporter that her expenses were indeed paid for by IRPE, but that she personally covered expenses for her husband, who also attended the trip with Frix and McDugle. She is quoted as saying, "It's all on the state Ethics Commission website."

Problem -- there is evidence that she had not submitted the require disclosure at the time of the interview, despite giving the impression to the El Reno Tribune (and thus her constituents) that she had.

Filings with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission show that Baker submitted the disclosure form on February 5th, and it was stamped "received" on the 6th - two days after she told the El Reno Tribune it was "all on the state Ethics Commission website".

According to Ashley Kemp, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, legislators and state employees who receive scholarships or subsidies for trips to events like this must submit a disclosure form within 30 days of the trip, showing who paid for their expenses and how much was spent. The "due date" for Baker, Frix, and McDugle would be January 17th. Frix filed his on the 16th, within that timeframe. According to Kemp, failure to follow the Ethics rules in this regard may result in a $1,000 fine.

Thus, Rep. Baker was 19 days late filing her disclosure form.

To date, Rep. Kevin McDugle has not submitted his disclosure form, and he has not responded to my repeated requests for comment.

In the El Reno Tribune article, Baker said that other Canadian County legislators 'have also been the guests at IRPE events. Rep. Leslie Osborn and Sen. Stephanie Bice have attended conferences hosted by the organization, she said.'  In the same article, State Sen. Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle) revealed that he attended a similar event recently in Utah.

This is news, as there are no disclosure forms filed or campaign finance reports that indicate Bice, Osborn, or Paxton received the same sponsorships that IRPE is known to give out.

Are there other legislators out there who have recently been to National Popular Vote/IRPE events, and had their expenses paid for by those lobbying groups? Who else is not in compliance with these transparency and disclosure rules?

I'll keep digging to find out more.

3 GOP State Reps went on December NYC National Popular Vote junket

(In NYC on the IRPE trip. L-R: Rep. Avery Frix, Rep. McDugle's girlfriend, Rep. Baker's husband, Rep. Kevin McDugle, Rep. Rhonda Baker)

In mid-December, some freshmen Republican state representatives took a trip to New York City to attend meetings put on by the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. The group spent a little over $2,000 on one legislator, and likely spent the same amount or more on two others. The purpose of the junket was to learn about the IRPE's efforts to change how we elect the President from the Electoral College system to a national popular vote.

I first learned about this after reading an article by Brianna Bailey of TheFrontier, entitled Oklahoma lawmakers can accept limitless hotel stays and travel subsidies from special interest groups. Bailey includes a list of these "scholarships" here, dating back to 2015.

Listed first alphabetically on the Frontier's list, State Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee) reported a scholarship of $2,063 to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission for a trip to New York City from December 14th, 2017, to December 17th, 2017. I asked Rep. Frix for more information on the excursion, and discovered that State Rep. Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon) and State Rep. Kevin McDugle (R-Broken Arrow) also went. Baker appears to have attended with her husband, and McDugle brought his girlfriend along (he is currently going through a divorce, and is accused of adultery).

According to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, legislators must file the reporting forms within 30 days of the trip; as of tonight, neither Baker nor McDugle appear to have done so (Frix did). It is possible that Baker and McDugle paid for the trip out of their campaign accounts, but those reports aren't due until the 31st, and they have not responded to my questions on this topic.

John Koza, "a California Democrat who made his fortune by inventing the scratch-off lottery ticket", started two non-profits about a decade ago to push his goal of discarding the Electoral College -- the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections, and National Popular Vote. IRPE is the group that paid for Baker, Frix, and McDugle to attend their NYC junket.

Back in May, when the State House held rare Saturday proceedings during late-session budget negotiations, three Democrats were absent, attending a seminar in California. State Reps. Eric Proctor (D-Tulsa), Shane Stone (D-OKC), and Cory Williams (D-Stillwater) were at a conference being put on by none other than the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. The Democrats did not receive any scholarships/grant/subsidy for their trip; Proctor's campaign spent $1,614.61 for his expenses, Stone's campaign spent $1,037.53, and Williams' campaign spent $466.96.

Politico did a recent profile on Koza and his campaign; here are some relevant snippets:

"[T]he most viable campaign to change how Americans choose their leader is being waged at booze-soaked junkets in luxury hotels around the country and even abroad, as an obscure entity called the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections peddles a controversial idea: that state legislatures can put the popular-vote winner in the White House."

Earlier this year, Koza's IRPE took journalists on "all-expenses-paid, three-day trip at a four-star resort" in Panama to introduce them to his project:

"The only way to ensure a nuanced, in-depth discussion of a national popular vote is to lock people in a conference room for hours—and the only way to do that is to lure them to a swanky location promising an otherwise leisurely weekend of free food, drink and entertainment. The seminars initially targeted state lawmakers—whose votes back home will shape the Compact’s fate—but beginning last fall they have also been organized for journalists and opinion leaders in an attempt to gain broader recognition."

Koza has been the primary funding source for the National Popular Vote push, putting over $14M into it so far and pledging at least $2M per year for future efforts.

Leading into 2016, Koza and his compatriots felt like they were on the verge of finally getting a Republican-led state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC): "If the 2016 election had been normal, we believe we would have gotten enactments in red states in 2017,” Koza says. “We’ve been in a holding pattern, waiting to see if things cool down. … We’re currently in the process of figuring out what to do in 2018."

Currently, 10 blue states (CA, HI, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI, VT, WA, as well as DC) have signed on to the NPVIC, representing 165 electoral votes.

Here's another key quote from the Politico article: The plan, according to [former MI GOP chairman and NPV activist] Saul Anuzis, is to kick off the year by targeting not just any Republican states but Utah and Oklahoma—two of the most conservative in the union—in pursuit of a symbolic breakthrough. They boast only a combined 13 electoral votes, but Koza and his team believe passage there could open the floodgates. “A lot of Republicans don’t want their state to jump first,” Anuzis says. “But if we get those two, we’ll get four or five more.”

Three Democrat state representatives attended an IRPE conference in California in May. Three Republican state representatives attended an IRPE conference in New York City in December. It does appear that Oklahoma is getting special attention paid by the NPVIC proponents.

I reached out to several other Republican legislators to see how widespread the IRPE invitation was. None of the members I heard back from had been invited, leading me to believe that specific legislators were being targeted, specifically freshmen, or else singled out for exclusion.

I asked Reps. Frix, Baker, and McDugle whether they were supportive of the electoral college reforms being put forward by the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections. Reps. Baker and McDugle have not responded to any of my questions as of this point. Rep. Frix said, "Currently, I support the system as is. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about the history of the electoral college and the treatment swing states receive vs. non-swing States. As well as analyze where the contributions come from and where they are spent in Presidential elections. I'm still learning more."

According to Frix, "All [of the speakers] were conservatives." NPV and IRPE have routinely used Republican figures such as former Michigan GOP Chair Saul Anuzis to recruit GOP support, once even touting an endorsement by Newt Gingrich. The NPV 'about' page has a mix of people who support the plan, ranging from Democrat mega-donors, consultants and a former Bernie Sanders staffer, to Anuzis and a former Republican State Senator from California.

This is not the first time that Oklahoma has been targeted by the National Popular Vote advocates. In 2014, a version authored by [now former] State Sen. Rob Johnson passed the Senate 28-18. After grassroots outrage to the vote, Republican Senators Allen, Brecheen, and Stanislawski publicly admitted their error in lending support to the measure. Johnson and former State Rep. Don Armes (R-Faxon) authored NPV bills during their tenure, and have lobbied for the idea since leaving the legislature.

Following the 2014 Senate vote, the OKGOP Chairman (Dave Weston, at the time) issued a scathing editorial on the National Popular Vote Compact, as did former OKGOP chairman Matt Pinnell (who was working at the RNC at the time). The measure did not advance in the House.

Under the NPVIC, Oklahoma's electoral votes would have been cast for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore in 2000, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite Oklahomans actually voting for the GOP candidate (overwhelmingly in most cases).

Conservative activists will need to keep a watchful eye on the Legislature to make sure that no effort is made to tie our presidential voting to the national popular vote, and that this scandalous and subversive effort is not successful in Oklahoma.