OKLAHOMA CITY — State lawmakers voted to prohibit State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ ability to hire public relations firms to help him book appearances on national and cable television shows.

As part of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s new budget spending limits, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Oklahoma House of Representatives gave final approval to a bill that stops Walters from using state education funds to contract with PR firms who have not only been tied to Walters campaign for superintendent, but have also helped boost his profile nationally.

“I can’t believe that anybody in this room would think it would be okay to spend taxpayer dollars that needs to go to our teachers and our students to go to some kind of political campaign to go on FOX News,” said House Education Appropriations Chairman Mark McBride (R-Moore).

McBride along with House and Senate Republican leaders expressed concern more than two months ago that Walters was found to be contracting with PR firms using OSDE funds that specialized in getting him booked on cable news political and opinion programs. Those same firms also helped him create content for his social media pages that some say openly attacked teachers, teachers unions, public schools, LGBT Oklahomans, and others. Some of those firms are directly linked to people who worked on Walters’ 2022 campaign, McBride said.

“I’m doing this for the students, teachers, and the taxpayers. We’re required to look after taxpayer dollars,” McBride said.

McBride has openly expressed concern with Walters governing style since Walters took office a year and a half ago. At one point he said, “I don’t dislike the man. I dislike his ways.” But other House Republicans also stood up saying they were concerned money allocated for students was being diverted to boost Walters’ image nationally, possibly to help him with future political aspirations for a higher office.

“It is clear the legislature is prohibiting self-aggrandizement and self-aggrandizing behavior designed to elevate a public profile of a certain individual and not do the work the department is designed to do,” said State Representative Anthony Moore (R-Clinton).

But Walters’ supporters were very vocal and put up a fight.

“This is about censoring the current superintendent. That’s what it’s done. They tried to hijack the process,” said State Representative J.J. Humphrey. “If the voters want him out, they can vote him out.”

Humphrey and others said Walters was saving OSDE money by hiring cheaper outside contractors to do media relations for all sorts of programs instead of hiring communications bureaucrats who would require a competitive salary and benefits on the state’s dime.

“It’s being pushed in this bill that somehow the government is in a better position to serve the needs of the people of Oklahoma than a private entity. I think it would be disputed and would catch a lot of Republicans across this state off guard,” said State Representative Chad Caldwell (R-Enid).

Humphrey said previous State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister had more than a dozen communications officials under her tenure at OSDE.

In an effort to kill the bill, Walters sent two e-mails to Republican political allies in the House saying the bill would lead to the agency being prohibited from promoting school choice, teacher recruiting, teacher bonuses, the state’s Teacher of the Year program and would even lead to the taking down of OSDE’s website.

He also said if the bill was killed, he would abide by spending limits set forth by the legislature, but McBride openly said he did not trust Walters to keep his word.

Moore accused Walters and OSDE legal counsel of intentionally confusing promotional materials with informational materials that are the duty of OSDE when it came to their stated goals, programs, and missions. McBride and Moore said Senate and House legal staff believe the language of the bill would not force Walters do any of things he said the bill threatened to make him carry out.

Walter released a statement accusing McBride of being a political left wing operative doing the bidding of teachers unions who Walters said last year acted as “terrorists”.

Walters said, “What we’ve seen today is an unprecedented political attack against our agency by Mark McBride along with his hard left allies among the democrats, teachers unions, and LGBT groups. This is a sad and embarrassing day for the Oklahoma Legislature. If their concern were truly for good government, they would apply the same restrictions on all state agencies. Instead, we have seen a term-limited politician ignore the Constitution to blow a going away kiss to the unions.”

The final vote in the House was 57-35 and the vote increased to 66-25 when lawmakers were asked to approve an emergency allowing the bill to take effect July 1.