Ryan Walters’ outside PR contract should be banned, GOP lawmaker says
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Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters would be barred from spending state funds on a national publicity contract with Washington, D.C.-based Vought Strategies under spending limits a Republican lawmaker said he would introduce as part of the fiscal 2025 state budget.
Their services aren’t an appropriate use of public money because they prop up Walters’ political aspirations, former state auditor Gary Jones, House Speaker Charles McCall, and others said.
Walters hired Vought Strategies to book media interviews and write op-eds for $200 per hour. The initial contract is for four months with three one-year extensions possible, for a potential total of at least $210,000.
It could be substantially more. Vought’s bid for $5,000 per month, dated Nov. 9, was made part of the contract as an attachment. Also incorporated in the contract is a more detailed pricing proposal dated Nov. 14 totaling $5,000 per week.
The contract says the more recent version supersedes earlier versions.
The Oklahoma Department of Education paid Vought Strategies $20,000 for September to January, before the contract went into effect, and agreed to $30,000 for the initial contract period of March through June, public records show.
Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, wants to end that type of agency spending. McBride proposed spending limits tied to the fiscal 2025 budget, including one to prohibit the Education Department and Board of Education from spending state money on third-party services related to advertising, securing media interviews, public relations, or public promotion.
Additional spending limits proposed by McBride, who is serving his final term in the House due to term limits and is chairman of the Appropriations and Budget Education subcommittee, relate to federal education funding.
McCall, R-Atoka, said in March he supports placing spending limits on Walters’ agency.
“My view of it is you should not be spending state funds, taxpayer dollars, for personal promotion,” McCall said. “I’m sure the House, this cycle, will certainly commit to a limits bill, including the education budget, to specifically prohibit that type of expenditure going forward. But I’m certainly very surprised to hear that money is being used for that anywhere in state government.”
Even Gov. Kevin Stitt, a staunch supporter of Walters, in response to questions about the Vought contract, said all taxpayer spending should be scrutinized and that it’s a fair point to ask questions of every agency that hires PR firms.
Ryan Walters says the contract is needed for teacher recruitment. But pitches made do not address teacher recruitment
Walters has said the contract is needed to help with teacher recruitment. None of the email pitches obtained by Oklahoma Watch and FOX 25 in a joint investigation published March 13 address that topic. Vought Strategies pitched interviews about fentanyl and the southern border, drag queens in the classroom, teacher unions, library books and his appointment of Chaya Raichik, the far-right social media influencer behind Libs of TikTok, to a library advisory committee.
“There’s a big difference between hiring a PR firm to do public relations for the state and hiring one to promote yourself on a national level,” McBride said.
The contract went through the state’s competitive bidding process but failed to attract any competition. The purpose of competitive bidding is to prevent favoritism and corruption, and save taxpayers money.
The Department of Education issued a request for proposals in October for national media communications. After a three-week window to submit bids (one week shorter than recommended), Vought submitted the only proposal.
The agency’s only vendor qualification was 10 years of experience placing national media bookings.
Education department staff pushed for approval of Vought, even though her firm lacked the necessary insurance, emails obtained under the Oklahoma Open Records Act revealed.
“The agency is urgently in need of these services,” the department’s procurement officer, Rebecca Thompson, wrote in a Feb. 12 email to the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services, known as OMES.
The agency’s legal counsel, Bryan Cleveland, had objected because Vought Strategies didn’t have any liability insurance. At one point, the entire contract was put on hold. Ultimately, Vought provided a certificate demonstrating a $1 million policy for workers’ compensation and employer’s liability. That fell short of the state’s requirements, but the agency accepted the additional risk.
The contract calls for a liability policy limit of $5 million.
A different contract was awarded at about the same time under similar circumstances. Precision Outreach was the only bidder for a contract to produce videos and social media posts. The company, based in Texas, had already worked for the agency, producing the anti-teacher-union video shown at a State Board of Education meeting May 25 that infuriated teachers and parents in the room, some of whom walked out in protest, as well as a video that implied transgender students are a threat to school safety. The agency paid Precision Outreach $22,500 last year for that work.
On March 4, the Department awarded Precision Outreach a contract estimated at $50,000 to create 10 social media posts and two videos per month for $7,500 a month, according to records obtained by FOX 25 (KOKH-TV). It’s for the same timeframe as Vought’s contract.
Contracts go to political pals
Mary Vought, president and founder of Vought Strategies, is a political pal of Walters’ right-hand man and campaign manager, Matt Langston.
Also connected to Langston is Jess Fields, head of Texas-based Precision Outreach.
“I personally do think it’s very questionable the association of these groups with Matt Langston,” McBride said.
Langston is the agency’s chief policy advisor and Walters’ campaign manager.
Walters’ campaign has paid Langston’s company, Engage Right, a total of $21,500 since 2022, expenditure reports show. The most recent payment was $5,000 on March 4.
Vought and Langston have traveled in the same political circles since at least 2011, when they both worked for U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.
Vought recently joined The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, a framework for ultra-conservative policy changes written for the potential return of President Donald Trump. One of the main tenets of Project 2025 is eliminating the U.S. Department of Education by moving some programs to other federal agencies and shuttering others.
Vought’s husband is Russell Vought, a close ally of Trump who served in his administration. Russ Vought has been a key advisor to the House Freedom Caucus, a faction of hard-right Republican lawmakers. He’s president of The Center for Renewing America, a think tank preparing for a second Trump term that is developing policies aligned with Christian nationalist ideas, according to Politico.
Fields, the owner of Precision Outreach, unsuccessfully ran for a House seat in Texas in 2016. Fields’ senior campaign advisor was Langston. Fields’ campaign paid more than $100,000 to Axiom Strategies, where Langston was vice president, and $9,000 to Matt Langston directly, FOX 25 reported.
Claims of contract extension were untrue
In a March interview with FOX 25 reporter Wendy Suares, Education Department Spokesman Dan Isett said some email pitches pre-date the March 6 contract because the department had an earlier contract. They didn’t. The department used its discretionary spending authority to hire Vought temporarily.
When asked about rules that bar bidders from communicating with the agency until a contract is finalized, Isett told FOX 25 he had an email from central purchasing saying the agency could legally continue working with Vought while competitive bidding was underway. OMES conducted a thorough search of its emails at the request of Oklahoma Watch and didn’t locate an email that fits that description.
The Department of Education has only partially responded to Oklahoma Watch’s requests under the Oklahoma Open Records Act that would provide answers to questions about the contract. A March 13 request for contracts and payment records has been partially filled; a request filed April 26 for communications with Vought Strategies remains unfilled.
Isett did not respond to Oklahoma Watch’s request to interview Langston, Vought or David Martin, the department’s director of accountability, who oversaw some aspects of the contract. Vought did not return an emailed request for an interview or clarification on payments.
Jennifer Palmer has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2016 and covers education. Contact her at (405) 761-0093 or jpalmer@oklahomawatch.org. Follow her on Twitter @jpalmerOKC.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters' Vought Strategies contract should be banned: lawmaker
