OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — May 18, 2026 (The Oklahoma Post)
The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber PAC has a way with bullet points. They are tidy. They are aspirational. They are the kind of bullet points a parent puts on the refrigerator next to a kindergartener’s stick-figure drawing of the family. The PAC’s endorsement of Ferlin Kearns for Oklahoma County Assessor offers four reasons the business community has chosen him: private-sector leadership experience, focus on accountability and county operations, engagement on long-term county funding issues, and commitment to transparency and responsiveness.
It is a beautiful list. It is not a complete list.
The list omits, for instance, that the candidate himself, in 2015, told a reporter for NonDoc that he had six DUI convictions on his record, that he had served time, and that he had “a hundred skeletons in my closet and can’t hide them from anybody.” It is a quote that does not appear in the PAC’s endorsement materials, which is a curious thing in a document supposedly devoted to “transparency and responsiveness.”
The endorsement entered the public bloodstream on Monday when Oklahoma City restaurateur Sean Cummings posted a screenshot of it to Facebook with the caption “Ten time felon Ferlin Kearns, endorsed by the Oklahoma City Chamber of commerce PAC for county assessor… How sad is that? WTF?” The Oklahoma Post has not corroborated Cummings’s “ten time” count, which appears to be hyperbole. What we have corroborated, from on-the-record reporting and from the candidate’s own mouth, is the documented count of six. Six is fewer than ten. Six is also more than zero, which is the only number that would be irrelevant to a county assessor’s race.
What follows is an attempt to print the footnotes the Chamber forgot.
The Race
Oklahoma County voters will choose a county assessor for the first time in eight years in a contested Republican primary. Incumbent Larry Stein, 70, first elected in 2018, is seeking a third term. He has drawn one Republican challenger, Ferlin Kearns, 61, an Edmond businessman known for his Edmond Auto Brokers television commercials, his catchphrase about letting customers keep the small American flags attached to vehicles, and a contentious March 31 exchange with Stein at an Oklahoma County Budget Board meeting. Democrat John Gibbons, 63, who previously ran for House District 88 in 2014, has filed and will face the Republican nominee in November.
The primary is Tuesday, June 16, 2026. The general election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
The Oklahoma County Assessor’s office is, by design, a low-drama position. The assessor’s job is to identify and value the roughly $34 billion in taxable property in Oklahoma County for ad valorem purposes, supervise a staff of appraisers, send out the annual property assessments and operate the homestead, senior valuation freeze and veterans’ exemption programs that protect Oklahoma County homeowners from runaway tax bills. It is a job where a single zero in the wrong place can cost a family its house, and a single missed deadline can cost a public school district a budget cycle. It is a job for people who keep their personal lives boring and their spreadsheets interesting.
It is also one of three constitutional offices in Oklahoma County on the 2026 ballot, alongside an open district attorney seat (which District Attorney Vicki Behenna won by default with no filed opponent) and an open county treasurer seat. The county treasurer will change hands for the first time in 30 years.
The Candidate’s Public Record, In His Own Words
In September 2015, NonDoc’s Josh McBee was reporting on a list of Oklahoma figures named as co-chairs of Donald Trump’s first Oklahoma presidential campaign. Kearns appeared on that list, alongside then-state Sen. Ralph Shortey (who would later plead guilty to a federal child sex trafficking charge). McBee called Kearns to ask about his record.
Kearns answered directly. He told NonDoc he had six DUI convictions on his record, that his most recent DUI was 16 years prior (placing the last conviction in or around 1999), and that everything was searchable on the Oklahoma State Courts Network at OSCN.net. He referred to his “past incarcerations” in the plural. He used the phrase “skeletons in my closet” voluntarily. By that evening, after the Trump campaign reportedly inquired, Kearns backed away from being formally listed on the campaign team and characterized himself as a “volunteer” for one event.
The relevant fact for the 2026 voter is not whether Kearns was on Trump’s 2015 Oklahoma steering committee. It is that ten years ago, in conversation with a working reporter, Kearns offered a candid accounting of his own record that the Chamber PAC’s endorsement of 2026 does not mention. Voters can decide whether candor about one’s record a decade ago counts as accountability in the present when running for public office. Voters can also decide whether the absence of any reference to that record in the endorsement materials of the most prominent business-political body in Oklahoma County counts as transparency.
Eligibility
Under Oklahoma law, codified at 26 O.S. § 5-105a, a person convicted of a felony is ineligible to be a candidate for state, county, municipal, judicial or school office for 15 years following the completion of the sentence. Misdemeanor DUI convictions do not trigger the bar at all. Felony DUI convictions trigger the 15-year clock. By Kearns’s own 2015 timeline, his most recent DUI conviction occurred around 1999. By 2026, that is roughly 27 years. On the available public record, and absent evidence of disqualifying felony timing, he appears eligible to run.
Eligibility is the floor, not the ceiling. The Chamber PAC chose to clear the floor and then keep going.
Who Runs the Greater OKC Chamber PAC
The Greater OKC Chamber PAC executive committee, per the Chamber’s own published roster, is:
Tom McDaniel, chairman (president, American Fidelity Foundation; former Kerr-McGee vice chairman; former OCU president). David Rainbolt, treasurer (BancFirst). Sean Trauschke, secretary (OGE Energy Corp.). Christy Gillenwater, deputy treasurer (Chamber president and CEO). J. Larry Nichols (Devon Energy co-founder). Richard Nix. Tony Tyler (Tyler Media). John Michael Williams.
Day-to-day staff lead on the PAC is Mike Jackson, the Chamber’s senior vice president for government relations.
This is the OKC business establishment. It is the lineage of Devon, OGE, BancFirst, American Fidelity, Tyler Media. It is the cohort that historically delivers the bulk of the city’s economic-development consensus, sells MAPS sales-tax extensions to voters, and shapes which Republican primary candidates make it through to November. When this group endorses, it is read as an institutional signal. That is the point of having a PAC.
The Stein Record
Larry Stein has held the assessor’s office since 2018. He has run the office on a digital-modernization platform, including the use of aerial imagery from manned fixed-wing aircraft for property identification, and an emphasis on homestead and senior exemption outreach.. Stein has had his own moments of controversy: in 2014, before taking office, he posted Facebook commentary referring to “thugs and animals” in Ferguson, Missouri, and was criticized for it. He defended the post on First Amendment grounds and later deleted it. Stein has been transparent about the budget pressures on the Oklahoma County jail and was the official Kearns accused, at the March 31 budget board meeting, of wanting to “defund” the jail when Stein had used the word “defer.”
A 70-year-old incumbent with a digital-modernization record and an occasional comment problem is a recognizable Oklahoma political type. He is not without flaws. He is also not the candidate trying to argue that the difference between “defer” and “defund” is a hearing problem.
*Correction, May 22, 2026: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office uses drones for property identification. The office uses imagery from manned fixed-wing aircraft. Mr. Stein’s full statement on the correction, “Our internationally award winning web site uses images taken by manned fixed wing aircraft. These images are available free online. Legislation to use these images to perform the assessor’s duties was SB 2143. Using VISUAL images to catalogue existing properties could save taxpayers money instead of the current statute that demands PHYSICAL inspection. That would prevent more than 200,000 unannounced visits to property in Oklahoma County to enforce the current statutes. But lawmakers are apparently uninterested in using technology and helping counties save money.”
The Gibbons Option
Democrat John Gibbons, 63, ran for Oklahoma House District 88 in 2014 and lost. He has limited recent press footprint. Whichever Republican emerges from the June 16 primary will face him in November. Voters in November will have a partisan choice. Voters in June have a Republican primary choice that, on the available record, looks like a choice between an imperfect incumbent and a challenger with a public record the Chamber PAC chose not to address.
The Question of Standards
When the Greater OKC Chamber PAC writes that it endorses Kearns for his “focus on accountability and county operations” and his “commitment to transparency and responsiveness,” it sets a standard against which both the candidate and the endorser can be measured. The candidate’s accountability and transparency, by his own admission to NonDoc a decade ago, include six DUI convictions and past incarcerations he chose to acknowledge in public. The endorser’s accountability and transparency, in 2026, include declining to mention any of that.
Voters can weigh whichever they prefer. Voters can also note that the assessor’s office, the office in question, handles roughly $34 billion in property valuations, oversees programs that protect senior homeowners from being taxed out of their homes, and signs off on the data that determines how much every public school district in Oklahoma County collects. It is the office that decides what your grandmother pays in property taxes next April.
For the Voter
Oklahoma County Republicans will choose between Larry Stein and Ferlin Kearns on June 16. Oklahoma County voters of any party will choose between the Republican nominee and Democrat John Gibbons on November 3. The Oklahoma Post does not endorse in the Oklahoma County Assessor race. We do recommend that voters look up the candidates on OSCN.net themselves, read the available reporting, and treat the Chamber PAC’s bullet points as marketing material rather than as a complete record.
The skeletons, as Mr. Kearns once observed, are in the closet. The closet is at OSCN.net. The door is unlocked. The Chamber PAC just isn’t going to walk you to it.
Writing By: Robbie Robertson | Editing by Robbie Robertson
Update
The original article posted Monday morning. The Chamber PAC’s bullet points were already on the internet. By Monday evening so were several new documents that the Chamber PAC’s bullet points did not seem to anticipate.
Sean Cummings, the Oklahoma City restaurateur whose Facebook post launched the original piece, forwarded two additional records to The Oklahoma Post late Monday. The first is a commercial background check report on Ferlin David Kearns, dated May 18, 2026, generated by TruthFinder. The second is a photograph of a handwritten Oklahoma Attorney General Citizen Complaint Form, signed by Cummings and dated April 1, 2026, naming Ferlin David Kearns as the subject of the complaint.
The citizen complaint
Cummings’s complaint is addressed to Attorney General Gentner Drummond. It alleges “deliberate falsification of public documents” in connection with Mr. Kearns’s April 1, 2026 candidate filing for Oklahoma County Assessor. Cummings writes that “on or before 04-01-26 (date of filing) Mr. Kearns failed to disclose the full scope of his felony convictions” and that “under Oklahoma law material false witness about criminal history can constitute perjury or false declaration.” The complaint references enclosures, presumably the same or substantially the same background check materials provided to this newspaper.
The Kansas conviction
In 1983, at age 18, Ferlin David Kearns was convicted in Lyon County, Kansas of a Class E felony for criminal damage to property of $100 or more. Case number 83CR26. Conviction date August 4, 1983. Kansas Department of Corrections records show him incarcerated at Hutchinson Correctional Facility-Central beginning August 8, 1983, paroled in-state to Harvey County in August 1984, paroled out-of-state to Oklahoma in September 1984, and discharged from parole September 3, 1985. KDOC identification number 0033201. The 2015 NonDoc piece quoted Mr. Kearns referring to his “past incarcerations” in the plural. The Kansas case is one of the incarcerations to which the plural appears to refer.
The Oklahoma felony convictions
Drawing from Oklahoma District Court Administrative Office of the Courts and Oklahoma Department of Corrections data, the TruthFinder report lists the following Oklahoma felony cases against Ferlin David Kearns, all with guilty dispositions, subject to OSCN verification:
CF-1991-1683, Oklahoma County. Two counts of possession of a stolen vehicle. Guilty plea September 9, 1991.
CF-1991-3125, Oklahoma County. Felony driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor and felony driving while privilege revoked. Guilty plea September 9, 1991.
CF-1995-3915, Oklahoma County. Obtaining money or property by means of a false and bogus check. Guilty plea February 29, 1996.
CF-1996-1174, Oklahoma County. Felony driving while privilege suspended, after former conviction of a felony. Guilty disposition October 11, 1996.
CF-1996-2063, Oklahoma County. Felony driving under the influence after former conviction of a felony, and felony driving while privilege revoked after former conviction of a felony. Guilty disposition October 11, 1996.
CF-1996-00182, Garvin County. Felony driving under the influence after former conviction. Wynnewood Police Department arresting agency.
CF-1997-511, Cleveland County. Felony leaving the scene of an accident involving injury. Conviction April 29, 1998. Three years of probation.
The report also lists a separate 1995 Oklahoma County felony charge for possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony, case number CF-1995-2718, which was dismissed February 28, 1996. Several misdemeanor traffic matters from 1990 and dismissed misdemeanor matters from 1997 also appear. They are noted here only for completeness.
The arithmetic
The original article quoted Mr. Cummings’s Facebook reference to Mr. Kearns as a “ten time felon” and said the figure appeared to be hyperbole, given that the only corroborated count at the time of writing was Mr. Kearns’s own 2015 admission of six DUI convictions. That was generous.
Counted by case, the TruthFinder pull lists seven separate Oklahoma felony case numbers with guilty dispositions, plus the Kansas felony, for a total of eight felony matters. Counted by guilty findings on individual felony counts within those cases, the number is higher. Mr. Cummings’s “ten time” figure, which appeared to be rhetorical when this newspaper went to press Monday morning, appears to be inside the ballpark of the actual record, depending on whether one counts counts or cases.
The 2015 conversation with NonDoc was, as noted, narrowly about DUIs. The record reflects DUI-related convictions in 1990 (misdemeanor, CM-1990-744), 1991 (felony, CF-1991-3125), and twice in 1996 (felonies, CF-1996-2063 and the Garvin County CF-1996-00182). That is four. There may be six. There may be more, folded into related actual-physical-control counts that the docket abbreviations do not always distinguish cleanly. The Oklahoma Post does not pretend to a complete count and notes only that the six-DUI figure Mr. Kearns offered to NonDoc in 2015 has not been independently corroborated and that, more importantly, the non-DUI felonies on the record were never the subject of that 2015 conversation in the first place.
The non-DUI felonies are the part of the record that the 2015 NonDoc piece, the 2026 Chamber PAC endorsement, and the 2026 candidate’s announcement video did not address. The Kansas criminal damage to property is not a DUI. The two counts of stolen vehicle in CF-1991-1683 are not DUIs. The bogus check conviction in CF-1995-3915 is not a DUI. The Cleveland County leaving-scene-of-accident-with-injury conviction in CF-1997-511 is not a DUI. The Declaration of Candidacy Mr. Kearns signed on April 1, 2026 was, presumably, broader than a conversation about DUIs.
Eligibility, revisited
Under 26 O.S. § 5-105a, a person convicted of a felony is ineligible to be a candidate for state, county, municipal, judicial or school office for 15 years following the completion of the sentence. If the most recent felony conviction is the Cleveland County leaving-scene case from 1998, with three years of probation completing in roughly 2001, then 15 years from completion of sentence is 2016 and Mr. Kearns appears eligible to run in 2026.
The TruthFinder report contains one additional entry that warrants flagging. The report shows an Oklahoma Department of Public Safety record for a DUI/APC matter with a disposition date of January 2, 2001 and a sentence of 120 months. The identifier on that entry, 994552552001, is not in the standard OSCN CF-format and may reflect a DPS administrative re-entry of an earlier conviction, a probation revocation order, or a separate matter. The Oklahoma Post has not been able to verify it against an OSCN docket. If it is a freestanding 2001 felony conviction with a ten-year sentence, completion of sentence falls around January 2011 and the 15-year statutory bar lifts around January 2026, roughly three months before Mr. Kearns filed for office. On the most pessimistic reading of that entry, Mr. Kearns would still appear eligible by a narrow margin. Readers can search OSCN by name to inspect the underlying docket directly. Mr. Kearns and his campaign are welcome to provide clarification.
The standing requests for comment
The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber PAC’s endorsement of Mr. Kearns describes him as a candidate whose qualifications include a “commitment to transparency and responsiveness.” The Oklahoma Post invites the Chamber PAC’s executive committee, listed in the original article, to address whether the endorsement remains operative in light of the record above. The Chamber PAC did not respond to a request for comment before publication of this update.
Mr. Kearns has not responded to a request for comment before publication of this update.
Larry Stein, the incumbent Oklahoma County Assessor, has not been asked to comment for this update. He is on the ballot. He is not the subject of the complaint and not the source of the records. The complaint and the records, in this update, speak for themselves.
Sources
- Sean Cummings Facebook post, May 18, 2026 (screenshot of Greater OKC Chamber PAC endorsement of Ferlin Kearns). Original post via Facebook public timeline.
- Josh McBee, “Trump’s Oklahoma leadership is a motley crew,” NonDoc, Sept. 23, 2015. Primary source for Kearns’s six DUI convictions and his on-the-record admission. https://nondoc.com/2015/09/23/trumps-oklahoma-leadership-motley-crew/
- Matt Patterson, “Oklahoma County: 8 candidates file for open District 3 commissioner seat,” NonDoc, April 3, 2026. Source for 2026 county filings, candidate ages, the Stein-Kearns budget board exchange and the Gibbons filing. https://nondoc.com/2026/04/03/oklahoma-county-8-candidates-file-for-open-district-3-commissioner-seat/
- Matt McCabe, “Oklahoma County jail avoids layoffs with $4.6 million in emergency funding,” News 9, April 1, 2026. Source for the March 31 budget board exchange and the “defer” versus “defund” quotes. https://www.news9.com/oklahoma-city-news/oklahoma-county-jail-avoids-layoffs-with-4-6-million-in-emergency-funding
- Greater Oklahoma City Chamber Political Action Committee, official PAC page listing executive committee. http://www.okcchamber.com/pac/
- Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, “2026 Officers and Board” announcement naming Michael F. Ross of INSURICA as 2026 board chair (separate from PAC executive committee). https://www.oklahomafarmreport.com/okfr/2025/12/18/okc-chamber-announces-2026-board-officers-names-mike-ross-as-chair
- Oklahoma State Courts Network (OSCN). Public docket search for criminal cases. The primary verification tool for any candidate’s criminal history in Oklahoma. https://www.oscn.net/
- Oklahoma State Election Board, 2026 candidate filing portal. https://oklahoma.gov/elections/candidates/candidate-filing.html
- Ballotpedia, Oklahoma elections, 2026. https://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma_elections,_2026
- 26 O.S. § 5-105a, Oklahoma Statutes provision governing candidate eligibility following felony conviction (15-year bar from completion of sentence). Searchable at https://oklahoma.gov/elections/candidates.html
- TruthFinder Background Report on Ferlin David Kearns, dated May 18, 2026. On file with The Oklahoma Post. TruthFinder, https://www.truthfinder.com
- Oklahoma Attorney General Citizen Complaint Form, signed by Sean Cummings, dated April 1, 2026, naming Ferlin David Kearns as subject. On file with The Oklahoma Post. Form available at https://www.oag.ok.gov
- Matt Patterson, “Oklahoma County: 8 candidates file for open District 3 commissioner seat,” NonDoc, April 6, 2026. Includes confirmation that Kearns holds a degree from Harvard University and that Stein’s “hearing aids” remark at the March 31 budget board meeting was directed at Kearns. https://nondoc.com/2026/04/03/oklahoma-county-8-candidates-file-for-open-district-3-commissioner-seat/
- 26 O.S. § 16-103, Oklahoma Statutes provision on false swearing in election filings. https://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/Index.asp?ftdb=STOKST26&level=1
- Oklahoma State Courts Network case search by name and case number, primary verification tool for Oklahoma district court records. https://www.oscn.net/dockets/Search.aspx
- Kansas Department of Corrections offender registry. https://www.doc.ks.gov
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