www.thecentersquare.com – By Thérèse Boudreaux | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-31 16:20:00
(The Center Square) – Many older individuals and primary caretakers receiving food stamps could face work requirements if recently introduced Republican legislation becomes law.
Currently, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) does not impose work requirements on able-bodied adults with no dependents over the age of 54. It also exempts able-bodied adults who are primary caretakers of a dependent child from work requirements.
But theSNAP Reform and Upward Mobility Act, reintroduced by U.S. Rep. John Brecheen, R-Okla., with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, would change that. Brecheen said the SNAP status quo “has created a culture of dependency instead of opportunity,” necessitating reform.
“For decades, the federal government has grossly mismanaged SNAP, loosening eligibility requirements, allowing more recipients to be totally exempt from work requirements, and overseeing massive fraud and abuse,” the lawmaker said. “It’s time to return to commonsense policies that promote our American values of hard work and individual responsibility.”
The bill would change the work requirement age from 54 to 64 and require able-bodied primary caretakers to work once one or more of the dependent children turns seven years old. For married couples with a dependent over the age of six, the work requirement hours can be fulfilled jointly.
It would also amend how U.S. poverty levels are determined, require participating states to increasingly match federal SNAP funds, and crack down on fraud, including by permanently disqualifying food stamp recipients from future benefits if they commit fraud.
In 2024, the federal government spent $93.6 million in taxpayer dollars on SNAP benefits. More than 42 million individuals received these benefits in September 2024, averaging $189.55 a month,according to datafrom the United States Department of Agriculture, which runs the program.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, who some pollsters predict is eyeing a run for governor in 2026, now has a team on the state’s payroll who have built their resumes managing political campaigns.
One recent hire is Matt Mohler, a political strategist from Florida. Another is Chad Gallagher, who founded a consulting company and is a longtime advisor to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
They join another political operative at the agency, Matt Langston, who is Walters’ chief policy advisor. Langston ran Walters’ 2022 campaign for superintendent and joined the staff in January 2023. He runs a Texas-based firm, Engage Right.
Mohler was a special projects manager at Florida Power & Light for the past four years, according to his LinkedIn profile, and a senior strategist at Front Line Strategies for 17 years until May 2024. Front Line Strategies is one of Florida’s most prominent political consulting firms. Front Line and its founder, Brett Doster, have worked with Jeb Bush, Pam Bondi and Mitt Romney, according to Florida Politics, a news site covering campaigns and politics in Florida.
Langston, too, worked for Front Line Strategies. He was a consultant there from 2012-2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Gallagher, in addition to advising Huckabee, founded Legacy Consulting, a firm that works on political campaigns, messaging and crisis management. He lobbies for Huck PAC, Huckabee’s political vehicle. Gallagher also managed public relations for the Duggar family, of the reality TV show “19 Kids and Counting,” in the wake of abuse allegations against one of the family members. A jury convicted Josh Duggar of possessing child pornography in 2021.
Legacy Consulting lobbies for ClassWallet in Arkansas, which was awarded $63 million in contracts to manage Arkansas’ private school voucher program. Gallagher, with his wife, founded a private Christian school.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” said Appleseed Center for Law and Justice Executive Director Colleen McCarty. “It sure looks as though he’s assembling a campaign team on the public payroll. If he is, those can be crimes, and Oklahoma has convicted elected officials for a lot less.”
Agency Won’t Explain Paychecks
Langston is one of the Department of Education’s highest-paid employees, collecting $130,000 in 2024 and more than $69,000 in the first three months of 2025, according to state payroll records.
Gallagher, a temporary senior advisor hired in February, is paid $46.15 an hour — or nearly $96,000 per year, according to the agency. He collected $3,692 in March for 80 hours of work.
Mohler is the department’s chief of staff. He started Jan. 20, and collected four payments worth a combined $76,000 from the state in February and March, his first two months on the payroll, records show. All the payments were coded as regular pay.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department, Grace Kim, refused to answer questions about the payments or confirm Mohler or Gallagher’s salary, even though that information is public record. Kim said the department does not comment on personnel matters.
“It’s quite concerning, the amount of money they are getting paid and understanding their background,” said Rep. Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City. “It doesn’t seem like they are there to help the superintendent or the agency figure out how to improve our education outcomes.”
Munson is the minority leader for the House and is running for governor.
Walters’ new hires coincided with the departures of key staff from the agency. Those include Andrea Fielding, Kourtney Heard, David Martin, Dan Isett, and Tucker Cross.
Isett resigned as the department’s director of communications after 18 months on the job. Even though Isett earned a salary of $115,000, he collected $76,000 in February, payroll records show.
In December, Walters awarded more than $600,000 in end-of-year bonuses to staff at the agency. Most received an amount equal to 2.5% of their annual salary, but a select few received significantly more.
Langston received nearly $45,000 in January, $34,000 more than a typical paycheck.
The agency has refused to explain whether that amount is a bonus, a raise, or both.
Langston did not respond to a voicemail or an email.
In June, a group of state lawmakers asked Attorney General Gentner Drummond to investigate Langston’s employment status amid concerns that he is a ghost employee, which former Rep. Mark McBride, who initiated the request, defined as an individual who is listed on the payroll but does not actually perform the duties associated with their position. That, he said, would constitute a misuse of public funds and undermine public trust.
Drummond declined to pursue the investigation.
Walters is halfway through his 4-year term, but his 2022 campaign remains active. Ethics Commission records show that Walters’ campaign has made just one payment to Langston’s firm, Engage Right, since the 2022 election. It was for $5,000 on March 4, 2024. Those reports go through the end of 2024.
Engage Right nonetheless has continued sending emails for the campaign, including one on Nov. 8, recapping the 2024 election results. Labeled highly confidential and not for distribution, the email claims Oklahoma’s results — in the presidential, state supreme court and legislative races — validate Walters’ platform.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Left-Leaning
The content presents a critical view of Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and his hiring practices, which involves bringing political operatives into positions within the education department. The focus on potential misuse of public funds, allegations of ghost employment, and the comments from political figures such as the minority leader, Rep. Cyndi Munson, suggest a skepticism towards Walters’ actions and his administration. The involvement of consulting firms with ties to established Republican figures and the negative framing of Walters’ decisions may indicate a partisan perspective aligned with left-leaning viewpoints on governmental accountability and education policy. Additionally, the critical tone surrounding the bonuses and salaries within the administration supports this bias.
The chief of staff for Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ used messaging app Signal to communicate and coordinate policy with groups opposed to environmental, social and governance standards, according to an open records lawsuit.
In a deposition taken in February, Chief of Staff Jordan Harvey said she used the app in late 2022 and early 2023. At the time, the newly elected treasurer was figuring out how to implement the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act. The law directs the treasurer to create a list of prohibited financial firms for state or local vendors who had corporate policies perceived to be hostile to fossil fuels.
Harvey said she has Signal installed on a personal cell phone. She received briefing documents on Signal from organizations opposed to ESG efforts that she then forwarded to personal and work email addresses. That was before she was issued a state cell phone, Harvey said in the deposition. Selected portions of the deposition were filed as an exhibit in the lawsuit in March.
“I set my communication not to delete,” Harvey said in the deposition about her personal use of Signal. “The other person or people on the thread have the same ability to set the deletion time period. And then all parties on that thread are subject to that.”
Harvey said the treasurer’s officer turned over the documents she received on Signal under an open records request. She said the office could not provide the related messages from Signal because they disappeared by the time the records request was made in July 2023.
Records already provided by the treasurer’s office show that Harvey sent an email to the governor’s office in May 2023 with documents attached referencing Net-Zero Asset Managers Alliance emissions goals and questions.
“These are from our friends in DC that came about 2 months ago to meet with Treasurer Russ and the Governor,” the email said. “They are a little more targeted questions.”
In the deposition, Harvey said that email referenced three groups active in the anti-ESG efforts across the country: State Financial Officers Foundation, Heritage Action for America and Consumers’ Research Inc.
That trio of anti-ESG groups are now opposing efforts by the plaintiff, Alabama-based FOIA Professional Services LLC, to have them produce their sides of the Signal messages to Harvey.
Attorneys for the State Financial Officers Foundation, Heritage Action for America and Consumers’ Research Inc. asked Oklahoma’s attorney general for help in quashing subpoenas for records. They argued the groups were engaging in protected political speech when they communicated with officials from the treasurer’s office and they were being dragged into a dispute where they are not covered by the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
“Plaintiff’s attempt to gain access to withheld documents from nongovernmental sources through these subpoenas is the definition of a backdoor attempt to evade the ORA prior to any court decision on applicable exemptions and privileges,” the attorney general’s office wrote in an April 8 court filing.
The treasurer’s office, through a spokeswoman, said it does not comment on active litigation.
It is unknown for whom FOIA Professional Services was working when it requested the records from the treasurer’s office in July 2023. The organization filed the open records lawsuit in Oklahoma County district court in October.
“Our clients range from small businesses and government contractors to law firms and Fortune 500 companies,” the company said on its website. “However, we are a fully confidential service. Our clients’ names are not available and their requests are made 100% anonymously.”
Approved Messaging Apps?
The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services said there’s no statewide list of approved apps for state devices. Those decisions are left to individual agencies, spokeswoman Christa Helfrey said last week.
“Policies and procedures are in place for all applicable agencies, including but not limited to CIO (chief information officer) standards and the Open Records Act,” Helfrey said. “Agencies can also create additional policies and procedures specific to that agency.”
The attorney general’s office said it reminds public agencies and employees that apart from a few exceptions, records regarding government business on personal devices are subject to the law. In response to media questions in late 2023, it advised against using third-party messaging apps.
“The Office of the Attorney General strongly discourages public officials from using third-party messaging applications when communicating about public business,” the statement said. “Electronic communications such as emails and text messages that concern public business are records under the Open Records Act. It does not matter whether an electronic communication is on a personal or public device. If the communication concerns public business and is not exempt from production or able to be kept confidential, then it must be produced on request.”
When an Oklahoma Watch reporter asked Gov. Kevin Stitt about using Signal last month, he claimed not to know much about the app and joked that he wasn’t tech-savvy. But Stitt said he sometimes used another messaging app, WhatsApp, to communicate with contacts in other countries.
“I do have WhatsApp, so if I’m traveling overseas, that seems to be the method over there,” Stitt said at a March 26 news conference at the Capitol. “I still get phone calls from some of the Asian folks we met when I was over there. That seems to be how they contact me. But that’s the only messaging app that I have on my personal phone. I’ve never Signaled; I don’t know what Signal is.”
Enforcement of the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act is on hold after a retiree, Don Keenan, challenged its constitutionality and what he called political interference in the state’s pension plans. Keenan is a retiree getting a pension from the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System. Trustees for the system took an exemption to the anti-ESG law in August 2023 so it wouldn’t have to divest up to $6 billion in investments with BlackRock Inc., one of the companies on Oklahoma’s restricted financial companies list. Oklahoma County District Judge Sheila Stinson issued a permanent injunction in September, prohibiting enforcement of the law. The attorney general is appealing that order to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Assessment: Center-Left
The content primarily discusses a case involving the Oklahoma Treasurer’s office’s use of the messaging app Signal to coordinate against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. This focus on scrutinizing the actions of government officials, especially regarding their ties to anti-ESG groups, indicates a stance that is critical of conservative policies that favor fossil fuel interests. The mention of groups like the State Financial Officers Foundation and Heritage Action for America, known for their opposition to ESG principles, suggests an alignment with more progressive or left-leaning viewpoints, particularly concerning environmental accountability and transparency in government actions. The overall tone and content suggest a preference for transparency in governance, especially when policies impact social and environmental standards, which aligns with center-left ideology.
SUMMARY: The 4th Annual Oilfield Technical Services Clay Shooting event supports the Warriors Rest Foundation, which assists first responders like police, fire, EMTs, and dispatchers facing emotional trauma. The foundation focuses on providing peer support programs to help these professionals cope with the high-stress situations they encounter. The event has sold out, but sponsorship opportunities remain, with $500 station sponsorships available to support educational initiatives for first responders. Donations can be made through the Warriors Rest website, www.warriorsrest.org, which is being updated to enhance social media engagement and provide further information.
The Warrior’s Rest Foundation’s 4th annual Oilfield Technical Services Clay Shooting event returns April 25th.
Stay informed about Oklahoma news and weather! Follow KFOR News 4 on our website and social channels.
