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Oklahoma
Posted: Mar 27, 2026 9:26 AMUpdated: Mar 27, 2026 9:28 AM
CAPITOL CALL Powered by Phillips 66 3-27-26
Tom Davis
State Representative Judd Strom was our lone panelist on KWON's CAPITOL CALL Powered by Phillips 66 on Friday. Strom made news earlier this week with the House passage of a bipartisan package of government oversight and ethics reforms that now moves to the Senate following concerns about gaps in spending accountability.
Strom said, "After years of reading audit reports about missing or misspent millions such as the Swadley’s scandal and health department gaps, I thought it reached a breaking point. Instead of waiting for "someone else" to fix it, I decided to take the lead on this." He added, "I realized that with a 12-year term limit, time is running out. I'm in my 8th year and the window to act is closing."
Strom said he put together a specialized "crew that wasn't a partisan hit squad, but "dollar hawks," including CPAs and a Democratic accountant, Andy Fugate. Strom siad, "We spent their summer in the basement of the auditor's office and dug through 20 years of scandals, looking for the common threads that allowed the waste to happen."
The group identifed 20 failure points and broke them down into eight pieces of legislation designed to act as "guardrails" for over 300 state agencies. Strom said they aren't just passing bills; they are "putting teeth" into laws that have been ignored since 1974.
Strom also talked about a call for a State Constitutional Convention and he warned about "opening the whole can of worms" just to fix obsolete laws. If voters answer a state question to open a State Constitutional Convention, he proposed a "Gap Year" to suspend a regular session on order to focus on the convention and all the work it will require.
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