Two Standards: What Mazzei Would Change and What Drummond Has Chosen Not To

TULSA, Okla. – August 8, 2026 (The Oklahoma Post)

While most politicians reach for sweeping poetry and vague invocations of freedom, Mike Mazzei approaches the governorship the way a certified financial planner approaches a balance sheet he suspects contains a glaring accounting error from 2007. The August 25 primary runoff is, in that sense, a choice between two entirely different instruments. Attorney General Gentner Drummond brings the trial lawyer’s theatrics and banker backroom dealings; Mazzei brings a spreadsheet, 12 years in the state Senate, a decade chairing the Senate Finance Committee, two years as Governor Kevin Stitt’s Secretary of Budget, and a lifetime spent scrutinizing line items.

Two weeks out, you choose the GOP candidate; the question in front of Oklahoma Republicans is not who sounds more conservative. It is which man’s record, under pressure, actually looks like it.

But who is Mike Mazzei?

He gave 26 minutes.

The call came in on a Thursday afternoon with 19 days left before the runoff, and it ended when a 2:30 he had promised somebody else came due. That is the arithmetic of an August campaign: a candidate parceled out in quarter-hours, a calendar that fills faster than it empties, and whatever is left over going to a small outlet and a reporter he had never spoken to. His campaign has a couple weeks to make the case; I got 26 minutes of it.

I went in braced. Reporters who have covered this candidate longer than I have suggested I prepare to be managed, that the pace can be used to run out a clock, that a hard question can dissolve into a long, mild answer that never arrives anywhere. It never came. He asked whether anything was off limits before I could, said he was pretty transparent and liked nearly every question, except what he was having for dinner. He said, “You know it’s from Oklahoma, don’t have to ask.”

We started, as most conversations between Oklahomans do, by working out where each of us was from. He wanted to know where home is now. Northern Minnesota, seven hours from anywhere. He allowed that August is the good part of the year to be there. Then we found the overlap. He grew up an Air Force kid, moving with his father through three high schools and across two continents, and it turned out we had been to some of the same places, here and abroad. He walked me through Oral Roberts and George Mason. My own family was at ORU in roughly the same years. Some of the conversation was reporting and some of it was just two people establishing they had stood in the same rooms.

What I took from that stretch is not a policy finding and I will not dress it up as one. His family matters to him. He talked about a marriage of 36 years, five children including a daughter adopted from Russia and a set of triplets, and a faith he credits for the way he treats people. He was not performing it. He answered the question and moved on.

Then we got to work: his plan to cut and eventually eliminate the state income tax, what pays for schools if seniors stop paying property taxes, what it takes to raise Oklahoma wages, the Inola aluminum project and the land ownership loophole he says he will void on his first day, and whether Oklahoma’s courts function.

That last one produced the sharpest answer of the interview. Mazzei does not think the current judicial nominating system works, and he was specific about what he would replace it with.

He talks slowly, in the unhurried cadence of a man who spent thirty years explaining compound interest to nervous retirees, and he uses the pace. Asked about the affidavit, he recited the operative sentence from memory. Asked about property taxes, he stopped the question halfway through to separate two proposals that most coverage of his campaign has fused into one.

There was no press aide on the line. No one interrupted. When the time ran out he apologized, said the campaign would arrange a second conversation, and poof the man was gone.

Twenty-six minutes is not enough to take the measure of a man who wants to run a state. It is enough to hear what he leads with, what he has ready, and what he does when a question does not fit the script. What follows is what he said, and what the public record says about it.

A self described military kid

Mazzei did not grow up in Oklahoma. He chose the place deliberately rather than simply inheriting the soil. His father was an Air Force officer and a Vietnam veteran, and the family moved with him across three high schools. What that lifestyle imparts to a child, Mazzei says, is portability: the rare ability to land anywhere and adapt fast.

His first foray into earning money happened as a 10th-grader in Seoul, South Korea, during his father’s overseas deployment. Hunting for summer work, he noticed local South Korean business professionals were eager for English lessons. He tacked up paper notices around the military base and quickly landed more clients than he could handle: three classes a week at $10 a lesson, packing roughly $20 worth of students into a room.

“That was, I think, my first little lesson that free-market capitalism works pretty well if you just get out there and do some productive work that adds value,” he recalled.

He arrived in Tulsa in 1983 to attend Oral Roberts University, staying through 1985. A seven-month stint in Washington, D.C., working on a U.S. Senate pro-life task force drew him east, where he earned a degree in government and politics from George Mason University. He returned to Tulsa, entered financial planning, earned board certification through the College for Financial Planning, and launched his own practice in 1996.

At home, the personal arithmetic was equally ambitious. Married 36 years to his college sweetheart, the 1989 ORU homecoming queen, the couple sought a large family. When health challenges arose, they adopted a daughter from Russia, pursued fertility treatments, and ended up with triplets, an event Mazzei dryly notes was “a little more successful than expected” followed by a fifth child, whom he affectionately calls the “bonus brother”. Five children, including surprise triplets, is a stress test no risk-management model survives unscathed. These are real-life matters that expand beyond stats and spreadsheets, the kind of quiet perseverance most Oklahomans understand inherently, even if Mazzei admits he hasn’t always trumpeted those personal moments on the trail as much as he could.

Asked what keeps relationships grounded, he doesn’t reach for management theory. He reaches for his faith: the conviction that loving Christ means actively loving your neighbors, and that tending those bonds yields lasting fruit. He remains an active member of Asbury Church in Tulsa.

Today, his firm, Trinity Strategic Wealth (headquartered at 1375 E. 71st St. in Tulsa with a second office in Enid), manages over $1.5 billion in regulatory assets under management across 1,746 clients on its Form ADV, ranking 16th out of 1,370 offices nationwide. While Mazzei cited $1.7 billion on tape, his firm’s site lists “over $1.5 billion” as of late 2025. The firm carries zero disciplinary disclosures. Its securities relationship flows through Raymond James Financial Services, the very affiliation that abruptly ended his 2022 state treasurer campaign before it started, when the firm reversed a policy permitting advisors to hold political office.

Mazzei served in the Oklahoma Senate from November 17, 2004, to November 22, 2016, representing District 25 in south Tulsa County and spending ten years as Finance Chairman before being term-limited out. Governor Kevin Stitt appointed him Secretary of Budget in December 2018, a role he held for two years.

Tulsa, he insists, is home for good. His practice is there, his home is in south Tulsa, and he owns commercial real estate in the city. Having visited major metropolitan centers across several continents, he returned for the people, Green Country, and the wide-open Oklahoma skies with sunrises and sunsets built right into them.

Drummond’s childish mischaracterizations

Mazzei has acquired a mocking moniker in online comment sections: Hazy Mazy. He speaks slowly, carrying the unhurried, faintly pastoral cadence of a advisor who has spent three decades explaining compound interest to nervous retirees. In a modern political arena that constantly mistakes velocity for competence, that measured tone reads to some casual observers as vagueness. Every Okie of good nature speaks slowly.

It is worth separating political theatre from fiscal substance, because the public record does not support the caricature.

“Trump endorsed him, so he’s identical to Trump.” This is a basic category error. An endorsement reflects a political decision by the endorser, not a total mirror of the candidate’s character. To be fair, regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, he is the current President of the U.S.A. and the head of the GOP for all extensive purposes. An endorsement is huge. Regardless of how one views national politics, an endorsement does not dictate how Mike Mazzei manages a private firm, chairs a Senate committee, or raises a family in Tulsa. Mike and his family built what they have today with grit and grace.

“He’s slow, therefore he’s unprepared.” This claim does not survive contact with the tape. When asked about state land-ownership affidavits, Mazzei quoted the operative legal text from memory, verbatim, and identified the precise filing. Asked about property tax reform, he stopped the interviewer mid-sentence to correct a conflation between two distinct tax proposals that most news outlets repeatedly mix up. Whatever else one thinks of him, the man knows his file. Deliberate speech is not empty speech.

“The tax plan won’t work, what pays for schools?” This is the central policy critique, and it warrants a detailed answer rather than a brush-off. Critics conflate two separate ideas. Mazzei’s property tax plan does not touch general school operations the way opponents claim, because it is not a blanket ad valorem repeal. It is a targeted phase-out for seniors 65 and older. His core premise is that seniors account for roughly 10% of county collections, meaning natural property valuation growth (averaging 2% to 3% annually) easily absorbs the shift without imposing a replacement tax.That 10% figure is fiercely debated.

A commentary by Drew Williamson in the Oklahoma Gazette titled “A Lesson In Mazzei Math” claims the senior share is closer to 20%, estimating a senior-and-veteran exemption would mean $1.5 billion in lost revenue, including $900 million from common schools, and up to $3 billion if expanded. However, this critique comes from a young, partisan Drummond ally whose own wealth-management outfit has little standing to lecture seasoned finance chairs. Why should Oklahoma’s seniors and military veterans serve as an unyielding cash cow to subsidize government giveaways? Statewide, property taxes generated roughly $3.7 billion in recent years, with 68% to 70% allocated to common schools and 12% to 13% to career tech. Because property taxes are strictly local, Oklahoma County Assessor Larry Stein pointed out that no governor can eliminate them unilaterally, it requires legislative action or a statewide citizen petition. Mazzei’s objective is to push state leadership toward structural tax relief, standing out as the candidate advocating for citizens against overstaffed bureaucracies and tax-funded non-profits.

“Trump endorsement was just for the Inola Jobs.” What exists is a basic chronological sequence: Mazzei questioned the tax incentive package for the Inola smelter in March, repeated those concerns at an April forum, and later endorsed the project after reviewing updated job and supply-chain metrics. The Trump endorsement followed. Drummond’s campaign framing, accusing Mazzei of “flipping and flopping”, is purely candidate rhetoric. Meanwhile, Gazette op-eds spinning tales of Roger Stone orchestrating the move read like political fiction from Drummond partisans. Drummond has a history of claiming conspiracy, while simultaneously participating in criminal enterprise. Mazzei’s explanation is simpler: “I was never concerned about the plant itself,” he told News 9. “Fortunately, I did more homework as the financial guy would do, and eventually learned about the total potential jobs surrounding it.” Voters can evaluate that evolution for themselves, but Mazzei’s focus is bringing clean manufacturing jobs to the Port of Inola industrial district under proper environmental safeguards.

The plan, and where it stops

Two distinct tax proposals run through this campaign, and confused commentators continuously fuse them into a single blob. Mazzei separated them himself, unprompted, with the patient clarity of a man explaining to a client why their mutual fund isn’t a savings account.

1. The Property Tax Phase-Out: Senior Relief Without Replacement Taxes

Mazzei’s property tax initiative is a targeted phase-out specifically for Oklahomans aged 65 and older. Unlike traditional legislative proposals that immediately reach for a “replacement tax” to cover lost revenue, Mazzei’s plan features no replacement tax by design.

His calculation rests on a basic structural reality: seniors account for roughly 10% of total county property tax collections. Because local property valuations in growing Oklahoma counties appreciate organically at an average rate of 2% to 3% annually, normal economic growth absorbs the exemption over a multi-year transition period. Counties continue to see net revenue increases without raising rates on anyone else.

To ensure local government balance sheets stay solvent during the phase-out, his platform pairs the exemption with two fiscal requirements:

• County Spending Discipline: Restraining local administrative overhead so budget growth mirrors realistic revenue trends.
• Modernized Public Pensions: Transitioning new urban county employees toward 401(k)-style defined-contribution retirement plans, ending the accumulation of unfunded legacy pension liabilities that quietly choke municipal budgets.

While his broader campaign platform pairs senior relief with veterans, Mazzei kept his direct mathematical model focused squarely on senior homesteads, where organic valuation growth cleanly absorbs the shift.

2. The Income Tax Phase-Out: A Three-Step Glide Path to Zero

Mazzei’s income tax plan is a structured, three-step blueprint designed to eliminate the state income tax over six years without triggering fiscal instability:

• Step One (Year One 4.5% down to 3.0%): Oklahoma’s top individual income tax rate currently sits at 4.5% under recent legislative reform. Mazzei’s first move slashes that rate to 3.0%, funded entirely by sweeping away roughly $2 billion in unnecessary tax-code preferences, deductions, and exemptions that non-income-tax states like Tennessee simply do without. Mazzei frames this as a straightforward trade: politicians love passing oversized standard deductions because they sound generous on campaign mailers, but a lower overall marginal rate leaves more cash in working wallets every single payday. Same net collections, far less economic friction. Critical, high-impact preferences remain explicitly protected, including Quality Jobs incentives, aerospace engineering credits, and the Parental Choice Tax Credit, which the Legislature recently expanded to a $275 million annual cap.
• Step Two (Revenue-Neutral to 2.5%): The second phase continues cleaning out special-interest carve-outs to drop the top rate down to 2.5%, effectively cutting the state’s income tax rate nearly in half.
• Step Three (The Voter Choice): Eliminating the remaining 2.5% requires a direct vote of the Oklahoma electorate.

“That’s where the people of Oklahoma would have to vote on: ‘Do I want to have an activity-based tax that’s on some sales and some services that Oklahoma doesn’t currently tax, or would I rather keep an income tax system that punishes work, time, and labor?'”

— Mike Mazzei

Mazzei points to straightforward comparisons: an Oklahoma City Thunder ticket currently carries no state sales tax, whereas a Memphis Grizzlies ticket across the border in Tennessee does. Mazzei offers over ten similar real-world examples showing how removing double taxation on earned wages and shifting toward consumption-based taxes allows working Oklahomans to keep far more of what they earn.

The Kansas cautionary tale vs. the Mazzei reality check

Nine states currently operate without an individual income tax. Most substitute alternative revenue mechanisms: Tennessee relies on a 7.0% state sales tax, Texas leans heavily on local property assessments, while Wyoming and Alaska fund operations through mineral severance taxes. (Alaska remains the only state in American history to completely repeal an established broad-based individual income tax.)

Critics of income tax repeal routinely bring up Kansas as a ghost story. In 2012 and 2013, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed aggressive tax cuts that slashed top individual rates by nearly 30% and zeroed out taxes on pass-through business income. State revenues collapsed by over $700 million in year one, S&P and Moody’s issued double credit downgrades on Kansas bonds, the state Supreme Court ruled school funding unconstitutionally inadequate, and in 2017 a bipartisan legislative supermajority overrode Brownback’s veto to pass a $1.2 billion tax hike to restore the budget.

Mazzei understands the Kansas failure better than his critics do. Kansas committed the cardinal sin of tax reform: it slashed rates blindly while leaving its bloated tax code full of special-interest exemptions completely intact.

Mazzei’s structural distinction is ironclad: Steps One and Two are fully funded upfront by liquidating $2 billion in special-interest tax preferences before rates ever drop, while Step Three is placed directly in the hands of Oklahoma voters. That isn’t a gamble. He trusts the people of Oklahoma.

The aluminum question

Asked how a candidate who campaigns on driving foreign ownership out of Oklahoma supports a project 60% owned by a UAE state enterprise, Mazzei drew a line between adversaries and allies.

He said he will sign executive orders on day one, “in Trump-like fashion,” Mike exclaimed, to chase foreign adversaries who own land out of the state. The UAE, he said, is an Ally. He cast the 40-60 structure as the same joint-venture model that brought Honda, Nissan and Toyota to American soil. His reasons for backing it: 10,000 jobs, 10% growth in the state economy, and national security, since China dominates world aluminum production. The Port of Inola was built for these moments. Oklahoma should cash in.

At the Griffin Media News 6/9 debate

At the latest gubernatorial debate, the Inola project drew the sharpest exchange of the night the station framed it as one of the clearest policy divides in the race. The shape of the argument was familiar: supporters point to jobs and domestic manufacturing, opponents to environmental impact, taxpayer incentives and foreign ownership.

Mazzei did not soften the reversal in which he is being questioned. He confirmed it and defended the reasoning for now supporting the plant in Inola, Oklahoma, saying new information had convinced him the project is critical to America’s aluminum supply, and pledging to protect Oklahoma families and agriculture. He also invoked President Trump’s support for the plant, which is the political core of his position and the part that requires no further explanation to a Republican primary electorate.

But he added something he has not said elsewhere, and it is the most specific environmental commitment he has made to date. Pressed on the pollution question, Mazzei said he would ensure the project complies with the Clean Air Act and would use independent inspectors to monitor impacts on residents, livestock and hay production.

That is a governing promise with a testable shape. Clean Air Act compliance is a federal floor the plant must meet regardless of who is governor the DEQ permit process exists to enforce it. Independent inspectors are not. That would be a new mechanism, and it raises the questions nobody has yet put to him: who appoints them, who pays them, what authority they carry, and what happens when their findings conflict with DEQ’s.

Drummond, for his part, defended the lawsuit on timing. He said he waited until the developers filed their final paperwork before going to court an answer aimed squarely at the charge that he sued prematurely and repeated his concerns about farmland, hay production and foreign ownership.

He also went after the reversal on stage, questioning why Mazzei changed his position. Mazzei stood by it. Mazzei’s arguments on the matter are defensible. Drummonds are not. And the body that will test the second one, DEQ, had not ruled as of early August.

Oklahoma Primary Aluminum would be a $4 billion facility on about 350 acres along the Verdigris River, near the Port of Inola Industrial district. At more than 750,000 metric tons of annual capacity it would be the largest primary aluminum plant ever built in the United States and the first in roughly 45 years, drawing more than 1,000 megawatts of continuous power. Emirates Global Aluminum owned equally by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and the Investment Corporation of Dubai holds 60%. Century Aluminum, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Chicago, holds 40%. Bechtel has been selected for preparatory engineering.

While critics like Gentner Drummond attempt to weaponize the 60% stake held by Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the equity structure of Oklahoma Primary Aluminum is standard practice across American heavy industry and manufacturing.

In fact, foreign capital and international joint ventures have quietly powered some of the most iconic “American” brands and critical infrastructure projects for decades:

• The Brewing Industry: Anheuser-Busch, the century-old maker of Budweiser long touted as the “King of Beers,” was acquired in 2008 by Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate AB InBev. Similarly, Miller and Coors operate under Molson Coors, a Canadian-American multinational headquartered in Montreal and Chicago. Americans raise a glass of “American” beer every day without realizing the profits flow to corporate boards in Western Europe and North America.
• Agriculture & Food Security: Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States controlling vast tracts of American farmland and processing facilities, was acquired in 2013 by WH Group, a massive Chinese public conglomerate. Brazilian meatpacking titan JBS S.A. similarly owns the largest beef processing capacity on American soil. Drummond has never said a word about Smithfield. He is ok with their toxic output. Never enforced.
• Automotive & Defense Supply Chains: Foreign-headquartered automakers like Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and BMW built the industrial backbone of the American South through multi-billion-dollar direct investments. In the defense sector, British defense giant BAE Systems operates as one of the top suppliers to the U.S. Department of Defense under strict federal Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) security arrangements.

When placed alongside these established precedents, the Inola smelter model presents an even stronger safeguard for domestic interests. Rather than a 100% foreign-owned acquisition, Oklahoma Primary Aluminum is structured as a joint venture with Chicago-based Century Aluminum, the largest primary aluminum producer in the United States, holding a 40% operating stake. Furthermore, the engineering, procurement, and site construction are being spearheaded by Bechtel, America’s premier civil engineering firm.

While political opponents attempt to frame the project as a foreign threat, the facility leverages allied Middle Eastern capital to build an American plant, engineered by American firms, staffed by Oklahoma workers, and designed to double U.S. domestic aluminum capacity curtailing national reliance on Chinese metals.

However, in March 2026, Oklahoma Watch reported Mazzei criticizing the state’s incentives to EGA and noting the UAE majority ownership. All fair. The goalpost needed to change, and he forced the change with President Trump. He called it a “Billion Dollar Boondoggle” and argued the roughly $250 million package would be better spent elsewhere because, he said then, the plant would create only 1,000 jobs. At the April 6 News 9 forum he again criticized incentives for foreign companies. He has since explained the shift as the product of further study. Today he fully stands by the project as it has evolved.

Then on June 2, Drummond needlessly filed a 12-page petition in Rogers County District Court, Case No. CV-2026-108, styled a petition for injunctive relief and abatement of anticipatory public nuisance. Count I proceeds under 50 O.S. §§ 1 and 8; Count II, pleaded in the alternative, under the Oklahoma Environmental Quality Code, 27A O.S. § 2-6-105. Defendants are Century Aluminum and Aluminum Oklahoma LLC. This should have been brought up in the regulatory and legal review stages of the project and permit applications at a local level.

“The controlling hand behind the largest smelter ever proposed on American soil belongs not to Oklahomans, nor even to Americans, but to a foreign sovereign more than 7,000 miles away,” AG Drummond wrote. At a press conference he put it less formally: “60% is owned by a Muslim monarchy 7,000 miles away.”. The statement is repulsive. In America, there is no religious test for investing in our greatness.

Drummond has also been explicit about the stakes: “This is why you need to elect me governor. Because I will take this case from the attorney general and transfer it into the Governor’s Office.”

Defendants moved on or about July 21 to remove the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality has not approved the air permit. A July 2 DEQ letter requested revisions on control technology, emissions calculations and modeling, placing the application in pending status with the timeline paused. No formal public comment period had opened as of early August.

That sequence is the strongest procedural criticism available to Mazzei, and it is worth stating precisely: the attorney general sued to abate a nuisance from a facility whose permit the state’s own environmental regulator has not yet granted, on terms it has not yet set. Stitt has called it weaponizing the office to settle scores.

The attorney general’s authority to abate an anticipated nuisance is statutory and does not obviously wait on a permit. No court has ruled. Whether primary jurisdiction lies with DEQ is a live legal question and this article does not resolve it. In the meantime, our economy suffers yet again because of the current government’s incompetence and that includes the AG office.

The Judiciary: razing or reforming the Judicial Nominating Commission

The sharpest exchange of the campaign came last, concerning a power the Oklahoma governor’s office actually holds: shaping the state’s court system.

Mike Mazzei wants the Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) completely abolished. He favors the federal model, direct gubernatorial appointment subject to state Senate confirmation. His objection is both structural and political: under the current system, the commission presents the governor with a tight slate of just three candidate names, sharply limiting executive discretion. More bluntly, Mazzei charges that the panel is “mostly controlled by the liberal trial bar, all those friends that donate thousands upon thousands of dollars to my opponent.”

That characterization warrants a closer look at how the 15-member commission is built:

• Six Attorney Members: Elected by Oklahoma Bar Association members across six geographic districts established in 1967. Here is the problem. The Bar Association is not accountable by any agency or individual. The OK Bar Association is notorious for protecting its own. We have seen corruption as well by members like Melissa DeLacerda.
• Six Lay Members: Appointed directly by the Governor (none can be licensed attorneys or have attorneys in their immediate family, with a maximum of three from any single political party).
• Three At-Large Members: One appointed by the Senate President Pro Tempore, one by the House Speaker, and one selected by the other 14 commission members.

The roster reality check

The public roster complicates Mazzei’s claim of total trial-bar dominance. The six attorney seats represent a 6-to-9 minority on the board.

• All six lay seats were appointed by Republican Governor Kevin Stitt: Harold King, Brent Watson, Michael Daniel, Timothy Lashar, Rob Cummins, and commission chair Bill Schonacher.
• Two of the three at-large seats were appointed by Republican legislative leaders: Brent Hubbard (named by the Senate President Pro Tempore) and Jeffrey DeFehr (named by the House Speaker).
• The lone Democrat among the nine non-attorney seats is Bill Warnock of Tulsa, chosen by the commission itself.

Shockingly, it is the Republican in name only led commission that continues to fail Oklahomans in the courtroom. Whether six elected lawyers combined with institutional bar influence amounts to indirect control remains a fair debate for a gubernatorial campaign. But mathematically, the non-lawyer majority was hand-selected by Republican leaders.

The 1967 legacy vs. modern reform

The JNC was not created in a vacuum. Oklahoma voters established the commission through State Question 447 in July 1967 following one of the most devastating judicial scandals in American history. Former Chief Justice N.S. Corn confessed to selling Supreme Court votes for decades, leading to federal tax evasion convictions, disbarments, and the impeachment and removal of sitting justices. The JNC was specifically engineered to insulate judicial selection from political backroom bribery.

That 59-year-old history remains the strongest institutional argument for keeping the commission. However, appetite for destruction, or at a minimum a structural update is real:

Under measures like HJR 1024, lawmakers have proposed updating district boundaries from 1967 to modern lines, adjusting term lengths, and altering membership restrictions. Mike is for those changes.

Yet, there is a fundamental operational boundary every candidate must acknowledge: a governor cannot abolish the Judicial Nominating Commission by executive order, appointment, or sheer political will. Dismantling the JNC requires a statewide constitutional amendment approved by Oklahoma voters.

While Mazzei promises a bold structural overhaul, delivering it requires winning a statewide vote that extends far beyond the governor’s desk. So can we expect Mike to be in support of citizen led initiatives in the near future? Ding Ding Ding! A key indicator surfaces that we have a leader that is interested in allowing th voice of the people be heard through petition initiatives. Something the Oklahoma voter has been in vocal supprot of for the past decade.

Character, courtrooms, and the standard each man sets

Every campaign eventually pivots from spreadsheets to soul-searching, forcing voters to judge the character of the man rather than the math on his whiteboard. Both candidates in this runoff have invited that judgment, and both carry records that invite scrutinizing look-overs.

For Mike Mazzei, the complications are mostly matters of political optics and economic narrative, the kind of standard campaign gymnastics voters are accustomed to weighing. As detailed earlier, Mazzei has claimed parentage of a sales tax holiday the public record credits to another senator. He has attributed Devon Energy’s Houston relocation to an income tax policy that neither Devon nor Expand Energy mentioned. And when an aluminum smelter in Inola promised 1,000 jobs, he labeled it a $250 million boondoggle; when the projection swelled to 10,000 jobs, he reframed it as a national security imperative. None of this is fatal; it is simply the background noise of a seasoned policy guy recalibrating his pitch.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s complications, by contrast, are of a fundamentally different species. They are not argued on campaign stops; they are actively litigated in federal court.

The Federal docket: power, immunity, and asymmetry

The amended federal civil rights complaint in Moyer v. Murray (Case No. 5:25-cv-00429, W.D. Okla.) lays bare the structural mechanics of power in Oklahoma. By naming 23 distinct defendants, including Attorney General Gentner Drummond, Koch Industries, Garfield County Sheriff Corey Rink, District Attorney Mike Fields, Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS), the Stillwater Police Department, Ky Corley, and Payne/Logan County District Judge Phillip C. Corley, the action targets an interconnected web of corporate interests, law enforcement, and judicial officers acting in concert under color of state law.

At its core, the lawsuit alleges that state and municipal officials systematically refused to enforce Oklahoma’s criminal intimidation and reporting statutes when corporate titans like Koch Industries were implicated, subsequently violating private citizens’ 14th Amendment due process and equal protection rights.

Case study in Drummond government practices: comprehensive investigative synthesis: corporate misconduct, retaliatory setup, and institutional ethics failures

To fulfill a family court order requiring the production of his complete medical and employment records, Gregory Moyer initiated contact with Koch Nitrogen’s human resources department in October 2022. Moyer had previously suffered severe chemical exposure and neuromuscular complications leading to epilepsy while working at the Enid, Oklahoma facility between 2015 and 2016. Because Moyer maintained pending federal civil rights lawsuits against local judicial bodies, he sought to obtain these mandatory records directly from Koch to comply with court directives without entangling presiding officials like Judge Phillip C. Corley.

On October 20, 2022, Shon Jackson, a former Garfield County Sheriff’s Lieutenant turned Koch Security Supervisor, returned Moyer’s call while Moyer was at his residence in Minnesota. During this discussion, Jackson learned that Moyer was traveling to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to attend an unrelated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) court hearing (Moyer v. City of Stillwater). Equipped with knowledge of Moyer’s travel timeline, Jackson and Koch security activated a retaliatory framework established in May 2022, when Jackson and Matador Regional Security Manager Todd Daley had generated and internally distributed an unauthorized “Security Alert” / BOLO featuring Moyer’s photograph.

On October 22, 2022, after Moyer attended his Stillwater hearing on October 21 and departed the state, Koch security personnel coordinated with the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office to generate incident report CFS 22-0742. Koch staff alleged that at 1:05 a.m. / 2:45 a.m., Moyer drove a white Hyundai onto the Enid facility grounds, acted erratically, claimed he was seeking blood work at St. Mary’s Hospital, tailgated a truck into a restricted area, and was identified via photo ID with a license plate tag of “TWSTER”.

This manufactured incident was subsequently disproved through extensive objective evidence:

• Physical Impossibility & Alibi: Comprehensive travel receipts, hotel check-ins at the Holiday Inn Express in Tulsa, OK, and Northwood, IA, timestamped sports betting slips from the Diamond Jo Worth Casino, and Minnesota kennel pickup logs conclusively proved Moyer had left Oklahoma on October 21 and was in Iowa and Minnesota when the alleged trespass occurred.
• Falsified Vehicle Data: Official searches by Service Oklahoma confirmed on February 8, 2023, that the license plate tag “TWSTER” does not exist in state vehicle or title records.
• Inconclusive Video: District Attorney Mike Fields reviewed the facility gate footage provided by Koch and conceded in writing on January 15, 2023, that the video was entirely inconclusive and failed to establish who was driving the vehicle.

Despite possessing zero verifiable evidence, Jackson used his personal connections with Sheriff Corey Rink to bypass standard investigative protocols. On October 31, 2022, Deputy Kristi Ream phoned Moyer in Minnesota, asserting he was formally “trespassed” under 21 O.S. § 1835 and threatening interstate law enforcement action without a judicial warrant, written notice, or formal court order.

In response to the refusal of state authorities to address this corruption, a formal ethics report was filed against Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. The complaint detailed Drummond’s undisclosed relationships and conflicts of interest involving judicial figures, including Judge Phillip C. Corley, whose campaign committee received financial contributions from Drummond family members. Despite receiving formal demands to investigate public record falsification, false crime reporting, and official misconduct, Drummond failed to act, demonstrating institutional nonfeasance and selective enforcement to shield political allies and corporate entities.

The combined actions of corporate security, local law enforcement, and state officials constitute severe violations across Oklahoma statutory and administrative frameworks:

• False Reporting of a Crime (21 O.S. § 589): Koch staff and security personnel provided knowingly false statements and fictitious license plate details to law enforcement. Despite DA Mike Fields acknowledging the report was based on “mistaken identity” and a non-existent tag, no charges or investigations were pursued against Koch or Jackson.
• Oklahoma Open Records Act Stonewalling (51 O.S. §§ 24A.1–24A.32): The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office withheld report CFS 22-0742 for over a month and systematically ignored subsequent FOIA requests submitted on January 3, January 12, January 18, and February 13, 2023, for video metadata, communication logs, and internal BOLO directives. The county utilized defense firm Collins, Zorn & Wagner (CZW) to control and filter record disclosures, creating a structural conflict of interest designed to suppress public records.
• CLEET Standards & Constitutional Violations (70 O.S. § 3311(J) & OAC 390:25-1-19): Law enforcement officers entered unverified corporate statements into official government records, failed to conduct basic vehicle tag lookups, and logged fabricated data into state databases in violation of Brady v. Maryland and Giglio evidentiary standards.
• Failure of Prosecutorial Oversight: Former DA Mike Fields improperly reclassified the false report as a “civil dispute” to avoid initiating an independent Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) probe, while AG Gentner Drummond raised jurisdictional and sovereign immunity defenses in federal court to shield state actors rather than addressing the bad-faith setup of a citizen complying with a court order.

Potential violations and official nonfeasance

When an Attorney General turns a blind eye to credible, documented allegations of corporate leverage, criminal intimidation, and falsified public records, the issue transcends political preference and enters the realm of statutory nonfeasance and constitutional deprivation.

1. Official Nonfeasance and Neglect of Duty (21 O.S. § 93 & 22 O.S. § 1181)

Under Oklahoma law, public officers are bound by mandatory statutory duties to enforce state laws without favor or prejudice. Willful failure or refusal to perform the duties of office constitutes nonfeasance in office (21 O.S. § 93) and serves as statutory grounds for removal (22 O.S. § 1181). By refusing to direct investigations into substantiated reports of criminal intimidation or retaliatory law enforcement filings involving corporate entities, the Attorney General’s office engaged in deliberate non-enforcement.

2. Deprivation of Constitutional Civil Rights Under Color of Law (42 U.S.C. § 1983)

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees both Due Process and Equal Protection under the law. When state power is deployed asymmetrically, enforcing strict compliance and protective orders against individual citizens while granting pre-emptive immunity and non-prosecution guarantees to multinational corporations, state actors violate 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint details how official authority was weaponized to insulate corporate figures while stripping ordinary citizens of statutory protections and parental rights without basic procedural fairness.

3. Misapplication of Open Records and Transparency Mandates (51 O.S. § 24A.1 et seq.)

The Oklahoma Open Records Act explicitly designates the Attorney General as an enforcement mechanism to ensure government transparency. During an active Freedom of Information (FOI) and public records push seeking transparency regarding state-corporate communications, the AG’s office failed to compel compliance or investigate the withholding and destruction of public records, effectively aiding in the suppression of official documentation.

Overlocking financial networks, lobbyist proxies, and conflict of interest

The failure to enforce state law does not occur in a vacuum; it aligns closely with established financial and political relationships linking the Attorney General’s apparatus to key named co-defendants.

• The Lobbyist Interlock (Pat McFerron & CMA Strategies): Official filings with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission reveal that strategist Pat McFerron and his firm, CMA Strategies, Inc., serve as registered executive and legislative lobbyists for Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC and its affiliates (including Koch Industries, Inc., Georgia-Pacific LLC, and John Zink Company, LLC). Simultaneously, McFerron serves as a core political strategist and campaign consultant for Gentner Drummond. This dual role creates a direct conflict of interest: the state’s chief law enforcement officer relied on the same political consultant tasked with advancing the legislative and corporate interests of a primary defendant in the lawsuit.
• Judicial Campaign Contributions: The integrity of the judiciary depends on the absence of financial bias. State ethics reports and campaign filings show that immediate members of the Drummond family, including Tom Drummond, Jonathan Drummond, LeeAnn Drummond, and Frederick Drummond, made direct financial contributions to the campaign committee of District Judge Phillip C. Corley. We also found the court reporter Shelly Phillips had relations and she too refused to hand over transcripts. When Judge Corley presided over matters touching these interlocking interests, no disqualification or disclosure was tendered, raising serious questions under Rule 1.7 of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct and the Oklahoma Code of Judicial Conduct regarding impartial administration of justice. Judge Corley resigned. Laura Thomas resigned. Ky Corley succumbed to his drug and alcohol addiction.

Disregarded ethical notices and the procedural immunity shield

The record demonstrates that state officials were given formal, written notice of these systemic failures long before federal intervention was required:

• Disregarded Formal Notices: On May 18, 2025, formal notices detailing judicial ethics violations, unaddressed criminal histories, and active public safety concerns were transmitted directly to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, district attorneys, and local law enforcement. Rather than initiating an independent inquiry or referring the matter to an unconflicted prosecutor, the state communications were ignored.
• Deployment of State Resources for Personal Insulation: When service of process was executed on June 6, 2025, Assistant Attorney General Lexie P. Norwood entered an appearance not to address the substantive merits of the allegations, but to erect procedural defenses. The state legal machinery was mobilized to assert sovereign immunity, Eleventh Amendment immunity, and common-law prosecutorial immunity to dismiss the case prior to discovery.
• Appellate Review at the Tenth Circuit: While the federal district court granted dismissal based on procedural immunity defenses, the matter is now under review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

This case illustrates an ongoing problem within Oklahoma’s legal ecosystem: state administrative and legal immunities, created to protect public officials carrying out routine duties, are routinely weaponized to shelter corporate donors, political operatives, and connected judicial officers from accountability, leaving ordinary citizens with federal appellate litigation as their sole remaining recourse. The core argument emerging from the docket is not merely a legal dispute; it is a case study in the asymmetry of state power. When an ordinary citizen faces the state’s apparatus, the machinery moves swiftly. When that same citizen attempts to hold mega-corporations or high-ranking officials to the letter of the law, the Drummond machinery grinds to a halt behind procedural immunities.

The Payne County web and protecting children: judicial discretion and institutional silence

Beneath the federal litigation lies a parallel trail of public records in Payne and Logan Counties, a recurring network of courthouses, familiar surnames, and judicial maneuvers that illustrate why so many Oklahomans question the fairness of the state’s legal apparatus.

Court documents trace a 25-year arc involving one individual, Denshio Cook:

1. The 1998 Rape Plea: Cook pleaded guilty to first-degree rape in Payne County (CF-1997-832) and received a three-year deferred sentence.
2. The 2005 Dismissal: In 2005, Cook was charged with two felonies failure to register as a sex offender and living within 2,000 feet of a school (CF-2005-90). Judge Phillip C. Corley issued the arrest warrant, presided over the settings, and ultimately sustained a motion to dismiss both counts after the state claimed it could not prove residency.
3. The 2019 Vacatur: In July 2019, attorney Ky Dowdy Corley represented Cook in Logan County to terminate his sex-offender registration requirements. Over the explicit objection of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, the court entered an order vacating Cook’s original 1998 rape judgment and sentence entirely.
4. The 2023 Custody Order: By November 2023, Cook was awarded temporary custody of an infant daughter in a proceeding where the mother appeared pro se. Meanwhile, Ky Corley himself remains a pending felony defendant in Creek County (CF-2024-00161) following a July 2026 bench warrant for failure to appear on DUI and open-container charges.

While these historical rulings originated at the county level prior to Drummond taking state office, they frame a critical conflict-of-interest demand submitted directly to the Attorney General’s office. When formally asked in writing to clarify his institutional relationship with the donor networks surrounding these local judicial figures and whether his office would investigate state sex-offender registration enforcement gaps, Drummond offered no answer.

For fifteen months, the state’s top law enforcement officer simply let the inquiry sit in silence.

Beneath the federal litigation lies a parallel trail of public records in Payne and Logan Counties, a recurring network of courthouses, familiar surnames, and judicial maneuvers that illustrate why so many Oklahomans question the fairness of the state’s legal apparatus.

The Kevin Etherington scandal: systemic rot and prosecutor misconduct

The decay inside Payne County’s justice system extends directly into the District Attorney’s office itself. For nearly a decade, Kevin Etherington served as the First Assistant District Attorney for Payne and Logan Counties, acting as the chief prosecutor handling major homicides and serious violent felonies.

In late 2022, an OSBI Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigation revealed that Etherington was harboring over 150 items of child sexual abuse material on personal and cloud storage accounts. Following his arrest and termination, a Payne County jury convicted Etherington on multiple counts of aggravated child pornography possession, resulting in a 20-year prison sentence

Etherington’s conviction exposed deep moral rot within the prosecution’s office and cast an indelible shadow over hundreds of criminal cases, plea bargains, and jury trials he spearheaded during his eight-year tenure. Families, defendants, and crime victims across Payne and Logan Counties were left to digest the reality that the county’s top enforcement officer was actively committing egregious offenses while exercising unbridled power over their lives and liberties.

Executive inaction and institutional silence

Despite holding statutory authority over prosecutor oversight through the District Attorneys Council (DAC) and as Oklahoma’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Gentner Drummond chose non-intervention.

While aware of pending investigations, felony charges, and structural corruption within the Payne County District Attorney’s leadership, Drummond took no administrative action to:

1. Initiate a comprehensive Conviction Integrity Review for cases prosecuted by Etherington.
2. Order an independent audit of the Payne/Logan County District Attorney’s Office.
3. Investigate systemic non-enforcement of state sex-offender registration laws or local judicial conflicts of interest.

While these historical rulings originated at the county level, they frame a critical conflict-of-interest demand submitted directly to the Attorney General’s office. When formally asked in writing to clarify his institutional relationship with the donor networks surrounding these local judicial figures and whether his office would investigate state sex-offender registration enforcement gaps, Drummond offered no answer.

For fifteen months, the state’s top law enforcement officer simply let the inquiry sit in silence, allowing institutional immunity and selective prosecution to shield court actors while ordinary citizens bore the cost.

Payne & Logan County Prosecutor Arrest Coverage This video provides local news reporting on the initial arrest and felony booking of former First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Etherington in Stillwater.

Selective prosecution and institutional silence: the pattern of government protection

When judging Gentner Drummond’s record as Attorney General, the critical metric isn’t just the lawsuits he chooses to file, it is the cases he chooses to bury. A consistent pattern has emerged from the Attorney General’s office: swift, headline-grabbing intervention when a political opponent or out-of-state corporation is involved, contrasted with total institutional immunity whenever government officials, police officers, or state agencies violate the civil rights of ordinary Oklahomans.

1. The Lich Vu Case: Taking the Prosecution Away to Protect the Officer

Perhaps the most glaring example of selective enforcement occurred in the tragic case of Lich Vu, a 71-year-old Vietnamese-American grandfather who was slammed to the ground during a routine traffic stop in Oklahoma City. On Oct. 27, 2024, Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Joseph Gibson responded to a non-injury accident involving Lich Vu. Body-camera footage showed an Oklahoma City police officer throwing the elderly man onto the pavement after a brief verbal dispute, fracturing his neck, causing a brain bleed, and ultimately leading to his death.

The dispute was over a traffic ticket Vu declined to sign. Body-camera video shows Vu getting out of his car, arguing, touching Gibson’s vest with the back of his hand and telling him to be quiet. Gibson took him to the ground with violent intent. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna charged Gibson with aggravated assault and battery. Her office had concluded the force was unreasonable. Drummond took the case away from her. He entered an appearance on Dec. 23, 2024, effectively assuming control of the prosecution, and dismissed the charge four days later.

His stated reason was categorical rather than case-specific. “As Attorney General, I will not permit Oklahoma police officers to face criminal prosecution for conduct adhering to their training,” he said, adding that while the outcome was devastating for Vu and his family, he did not believe the officer exhibited criminal intent. He also said no individual is allowed to hit or push an officer regardless of whether they don’t understand English well or come from a different culture, and that the incident never would have happened if Vu had kept his hands to himself. This maybe true, but he is obviously controlling all prosecutions across the state that fit his political needs.

Behenna’s response was public and pointed. She said she was surprised and disappointed that the attorney general took the case away from her office and the citizens of Oklahoma County. Charging decisions in Oklahoma belong to elected district attorneys. Behenna made hers. The attorney general substituted his own and announced the standard he applied; which is not the law.

And it was not the first time. In February 2023 Drummond took over the Oklahoma County prosecution of then-Rep. Terry O’Donnell, charged along with his wife over an alleged scheme to change state law so she could become a tag agent. Two months later he dismissed it, while calling O’Donnell guilty. “I think he violated the law,” Drummond said, “but I think because he was targeted, I am not going to tolerate the prosecution of a legislator who has the audacity to hold accountable the attorney general.”

Two prosecutions, both taken from the same elected district attorney, both dismissed. In the second, the attorney general said aloud that he believed the defendant broke the law and dismissed the case anyway.

2. Southeastern Oklahoma: Silent Approval for a Sheriff Threatening Journalists

In March 2023 the publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News left a voice-activated recorder in the commissioners’ meeting room after a public meeting. What it captured made national news.

On the recording, county officials complained about two of the paper’s journalists, discussed knowing hit men and referred to two holes already dug. The same conversation included talk of lynching Black people. Gov. Kevin Stitt called on four officials to resign: Sheriff Kevin Clardy, Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. Jennings was the only one who did. Stitt asked Drummond to investigate.

On June 30, 2023, Drummond announced that his office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation had found no evidence of criminal acts or conduct amounting to statutory grounds for ouster. Investigators had examined Oklahoma’s official misconduct and removal statutes, which cover willful neglect of duty, corruption and extortion.

His letter to Stitt explained the reasoning in general terms. “There are countless examples of incidents from across the country where public officials make inflammatory comments that spark severe condemnation,” Drummond wrote. “Oftentimes the offending official resigns in disgrace. Sometimes the outrage fades and the matter is forgotten.” He added that there is no provision of Oklahoma law to throw elected officials out of office merely for saying something offensive. He said the voters of McCurtain County would decide the sheriff’s fate and suggested Stitt use his political influence to find someone to run against Clardy.

The legal conclusion may well be correct. Oklahoma’s removal statutes are narrow, and no prosecutor is obliged to charge what he cannot prove. But the framing is the thing worth noticing: a recording in which public officials discussed killing two named journalists was addressed in a letter about officials who “make inflammatory comments.” The attorney general’s answer to threats against the press was that the remedy lies at the ballot box, and that the governor might consider recruiting a challenger.

That is a defensible reading of the statute. It is also an attorney general declining to use the office and telling an elected governor to handle it politically, which is the same instinct, in reverse, as taking a charging decision away from an elected district attorney because he disagreed with it.

3. Stillwater Police Misconduct, Payouts, and the Ignored Grand Jury Petitions

In Stillwater, Oklahoma, municipal law enforcement has faced a wave of public outrage over systemic misconduct, unconstitutional detentions, and severe jail abuse. High-profile federal civil rights lawsuits, including cases resulting in multi-million dollar payouts, such as a $2.55 million settlement over unconstitutional jail strip-searches and assault have laid bare a pattern of municipal overreach.

Frustrated by local inaction, citizens and legal advocates in Payne County have repeatedly pushed for formal grand jury petitions to investigate municipal corruption and law enforcement practices. Yet while local taxpayers foot the bill for massive civil settlements, the Attorney General’s office has consistently looked the other way, refusing to initiate state audits, grand jury oversight, or independent criminal investigations into the department’s leadership.

4. OKDHS and Weaponized “Parental Alienation” in Adoption Cases

The institutional protection extends directly into Oklahoma’s state agencies. In Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) child welfare and custody proceedings, parents and family-rights advocates have documented a disturbing trend: state agency attorneys weaponizing aggressive “parental alienation” doctrines to sever biological parental rights and fast-track forced adoptions.

Rather than auditing OKDHS or enforcing strict due-process protections for vulnerable families, Drummond’s office functions as the agency’s legal shield. By deploying the full weight of the state Attorney General’s litigation apparatus to defend OKDHS tactics in court, Drummond ensures that state caseworkers and agency officials remain immune from oversight, leaving ordinary parents to fight an asymmetric battle against state-funded attorneys.

The verdict on accountability

Whether it is overriding local prosecutors to drop charges against a police officer in the death of Lich Vu, refusing to prosecute a county sheriff who discussed burying journalists, ignoring citizen grand jury calls regarding Stillwater police payouts, or protecting OKDHS from family court oversight, Gentner Drummond’s record reveals a consistent philosophy:

When state employees or law enforcement officers violate the rights of Oklahoma citizens, the Attorney General’s office doesn’t investigate the violators, it shields them.

Two standards of governance

This silence highlights the core structural question of the 2026 governor’s race.

Mike Mazzei has proposed dismantling the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) in favor of direct gubernatorial appointments and Senate confirmation, a policy designed to break up self-policing judicial networks and force judges into the public light. When asked how Oklahoma’s courts can be held accountable to the citizens they serve, Mazzei outlined a concrete legislative plan.

Gentner Drummond, when presented with the same fundamental question through formal legal demands and public inquiries, chose the traditional route of Oklahoma’s legal elite: shelter behind assistant attorney generals, rely on procedural immunity, and let the clock run out.

As voters head to the polls on August 25, they are asked to choose between two very different standards of public office. One candidate operates like an auditor who wants to open the books and rewrite the rules to force accountability. The other operates like a managing partner who knows precisely how to use the existing system to protect the house.

The ballot box as the ultimate ledger: trusting the electorate

When a candidate promises sweeping structural overhauls, from dismantling the Judicial Nominating Commission to replacing the final tranche of the state income tax, a practical reality immediately emerges: none of this happens by executive decree.

Both proposals require amending the Oklahoma Constitution, a process that ultimately routes through a statewide referendum. For a political establishment that routinely views citizen-led petition initiatives and state questions with mild panic, frequently attempting to tighten signature thresholds and restrict petition drives, Mazzei’s reliance on the ballot box represents a noticeable shift in strategy.

Rather than attempting to bypass the public through administrative backrooms or unilateral executive orders, Mazzei’s core roadmap explicitly places the final decision in the hands of Oklahoma voters:

• The Referendum as a Fiscal Valve: Under Step Three of his income tax plan, the transition to a consumption-based sales model is not forced through legislative maneuvering it requires direct voter approval at the ballot box.
• Structural Accountability: Overhauling judicial selection bypasses elite legal bar committees by requiring a statewide constitutional amendment, forcing the judiciary to answer directly to the public.

For an electorate that has fiercely protected its right to direct democracy through petition initiatives and state questions over the last decade, Mazzei’s blueprint treats the voter not as an administrative obstacle to be managed, but as the ultimate board of directors.

While traditional politicians treat ballot measures as threats to their authority, the financial planner treats the ballot box like an independent audit confident that if you lay out the numbers clearly, Oklahomans are fully capable of doing the math for themselves.

In finality who will you choose? The typical attorney or the mild-mannered master of spreadsheet

As the August 25 primary runoff arrives, Oklahoma voters are not merely choosing between two Republican candidates; they are choosing between two fundamentally opposing theories of governance.

Gentner Drummond offers the classic playbook of Oklahoma’s legal elite: swift press releases, headline-grabbing lawsuits against multibillion-dollar energy partnerships before permit reviews even conclude, and a reliance on procedural immunities when challenged in court. It is governance by a backroom drinking attorney, loud, dramatic, and well-suited for a cable news chyron, but often leaving the structural errors in Oklahoma’s balance sheet completely untouched.

Mike Mazzei offers something far less theatrical, but infinitely more durable: a spreadsheet, a red pen, and twelve years of proven legislative receipts. He approaches the governorship not to play prosecutor, but to fix the structural math errors that have dragged down Oklahoma taxpayers for decades. On Aug. 25 the ballot asks a narrow question with a wide answer: which of these two men has spent his career doing what conservatives say they want done. One built a business, chaired a finance committee, and wants to put the biggest structural questions to a vote of the people. The other holds the powers of a prosecutor and has decided, more than once, when they will and will not be used. Read the record. Then decide which one has earned your vote.

Mike Mazzei won’t pretend to care what you’re having for dinner as long as it is grown in Oklahoma. But he can tell you what it cost the farmer and you to put good food on the table, which government agency collected the sales tax, and exactly how many dollars his arithmetic would have left in your pocket. He is that rare candidate: a thinker who grasps the reality of what a society produces and consumes, a seasoned manager of wealth, a citizen of Tulsa, a father, a husband, and a believer in Christ without being ugly about it. He is someone willing to step into the ring to restore accountability, fight for justice, and return real capital to the people who built this state.

Whether the arithmetic holds is the question on the ballot Aug. 25.

Writing By: Robbie Robertson | Editing by Robbie Robertson

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Sources

This article is based on a recorded interview with Mike Mazzei conducted Aug. 6, 2026, and on public records including court filings, state agency documents, campaign finance reports and published reporting. Where a claim could not be independently verified, it is attributed to the person who made it. The Office of the Attorney General did not respond to requests for comment.

Interview

Mike Mazzei, interviewed by Gregory Moyer, Aug. 6, 2026.

The race

Mazzei, Drummond advance to runoff election for Oklahoma governor — KOSU

Trump releases video backing Mike Mazzei in Oklahoma governor runoff — News 9

Biography and business

Mike Mazzei — team directory — Trinity Strategic Wealth

Mike Mazzei wants to bring financial skills to Oklahoma governor’s office — KOSU

Mazzei withdraws from state treasurer race — MuskogeePolitico

Form ADV, Trinity Strategic Wealth, CRD #337956 — SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure

Tax policy

How do Mike Mazzei and Gentner Drummond differ on Oklahoma taxes and government spending? — News on 6

Oklahoma County assessor warns property tax cuts could have wide-ranging consequences — News 9

Is Mike Mazzei’s Tax Plan Built On Sand? — Oklahoma Gazette (commentary)

Senator Barrington: Sales tax holiday to help Oklahoma families, retailers — Oklahoma Senate

Oklahoma sales tax holiday is this weekend — KOSU

Corporate relocations

Devon Energy plans to move headquarters to Houston in massive merger — KOSU

Devon’s in place in new Houston headquarters — OK Energy Today

What to know about Expand Energy’s move to Houston — News 9

Experts on why energy firms are leaving OKC — Yahoo Finance

The Inola smelter

Oklahoma AG files to halt Inola smelter project — Manufacturing Dive

Drummond files action to block Inola aluminum smelter — Oklahoma Attorney General

Oklahoma AG sues to stop construction of Trump-endorsed aluminum smelter in Inola — Oklahoma Voice

Inola smelter operator wants AG’s lawsuit moved to federal court — OK Energy Today

An aluminum plant is at the center of Oklahoma’s governor race — Canary Media

Oklahoma governor’s race: Drummond, Mazzei on Inola smelter and data centers — News on 6

Gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei explains change in stance on Inola smelter project — Ponca City Now

A Lesson In Mazzei Math — Oklahoma Gazette (op-ed)

State of Oklahoma ex rel. Drummond v. Century Aluminum Co. and Aluminum Oklahoma LLC, No. CV-2026-108, District Court of Rogers County, filed June 2, 2026

The Lich Vu case

Drummond dismisses criminal charge against Oklahoma City police officer — Oklahoma Attorney General

Oklahoma AG dismisses assault charge against police officer who threw 71-year-old to the ground — Associated Press

Drummond takes another case from Behenna, drops charge on OKCPD officer who slammed Lich Vu — NonDoc

Drummond dismisses charge against an Oklahoma City officer in elderly man’s injury case — KOKH

OK County DA’s charges against violent OKCPD officer dismissed by Okla AG Drummond — Oklahoma City Free Press

McCurtain County

Attorney General, OSBI conclude McCurtain County sheriff investigation — Oklahoma Attorney General

No charges for Oklahoma sheriff who talked of killing journalists, prosecutor says — Associated Press

Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond: McCurtain County sheriff can’t be removed from office — CNN

Oklahoma investigation into McCurtain County sheriff uncovers no crime, AG says — The Oklahoman

Federal litigation

Moyer v. Murray et al., No. 5:25-cv-00429, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, filed April 14, 2025 — docket

Moyer v. Murray et al., No. 25-6135, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit — docket | GovInfo

Payne County court records

State of Oklahoma v. Cook, Denshio, No. CF-1997-832 — Oklahoma State Courts Network

State of Oklahoma v. Cook, Deneshio Lamont, No. CF-2005-90 — Oklahoma State Courts Network

Cook, Denshio v. Lawson, Stormy Linn, No. FD-2023-292 — Oklahoma State Courts Network

State of Oklahoma v. Corley, Ky Dowdy, No. CF-2024-00161, District Court of Creek County — Oklahoma State Courts Network

Judicial Nominating Commission

Judicial Nominating Commission — Oklahoma Bar Association

JNC member roster — Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission

Judicial selection background and the 1967 origins of the commission — Oklahoma House of Representatives

Republican lawmakers push to reform Oklahoma’s top judicial selection process — KOSU

Senate passes ballot measure to overhaul Oklahoma judicial selection, but rejects Aug. 25 election — Oklahoma Voice

Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission Amendment (2026) — Ballotpedia

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