OMG, is Gary Jones a Pot Head!
Once politicians get away from their scripted talking points they can sometimes find themselves tripping over answers and showing their true colors. Last week we saw this with current State Auditor and Gubernatorial candidate Gary Jones on an answer he gave about smoking marijuana.
The candidate forum was held at Randal University in Moore, seven of the twelve announced candidates for Governor answered questions submitted by the crowd that Tuesday night. A good accounting of the high points can be found here or you can watch the entire video here.
The candidates appearing were Gary Richardson, Gary Jones, Dan Fisher, Connie Johnson, Joe "exotic" Maldonado, Rex Lawhorn, and Chris Powell. Richardson of course is the conservative favorite in the race, a lawer that previously ranas an independent in 2002. Jones is a former GOP State Chairman, more of a liberal Republican than most. Dan Fisher is the radical right abolitionist preacher from Yukon and a former state representative. Johnson is a former legislator and pot legalization activist. Maldonado is an openly gay zookeeper (scary combination, that...). Lawhorn is a small businessman from Broken Arrow. Powell works for the OKC police department. Of the entire group only Richardson has enough financial backing, the credentials, and widespread support for a serious run at the Governor's office.
Refusing to attend were Republicans Mick Cornett, current liberal Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, and controversial mortgage broker Kevin Stitt. Drew Edmondson, the only current Democrat running for the office, and Independent candidate Norman Jay Brow also refused to attend. They answered a variety of questions detailed below.
When asked about taxes and tax credits. Maldonado said taxes were too high and advocated taxing marijuana after legalizing it. Richardson said that raising taxes is not the answer, that all departments need auditing before we decide if our taxes are too high or too low, and that tax credits are excessive. Fisher said that taxes were too high and blamed government (?). Powell gave a somewhat convoluted answer on incentives, crony capitalism, and the need for a one year cycle to review. Jones said that some taxes were too high but also that some taxes were too low. Specifically he advocated raising the GPT oil/gas tax to 5% and inferred that a 7% state income tax and GPT tax were warranted. Johnson advocated that the 1% isn't paying enough tax and that the other 98% is being asked to accept their taxes being raised. She was silent on the missing 1%.
On education Lawhorn advocated consolidating administrative functions of school districts. Richardson was against consolidation of schools. Fisher bemoaned the overhead and waste. Powell said that the larger school districts like OKC and Tulsa were wasteful because they were unresponsive to the parents. Jones said that the other states have education problems too and called for audits and pushing more students into vocational schools instead of college. Johnson said to just fund education first with "new revenue streams", legalizing pot and taxing it to fund education. Maldonado bemoaned the issuance of emergency certifications and the lack of discipline in schools.
On Mental health Richardson says we need to better understand what we are dealing with but that government has a proper role to play. Fisher blamed the leaders and a broken system. Powell said that police are not trained as mental health experts and that agencies need to be trained on how to deal with the mentally ill. Jones seemed to be mostly concerned that financial interests are at fault with the mental health professionals and called Oklahoma a "traumatized state" that will have a larger mental health problem than physical health problem by 2020. Lawhorn blamed the system and said that we need to monitor children closer to catch problems early and dealing with them in the educational system.
Maldonado provided some entertainment with his answer when he asked Richardson if he had ever thought about suicide or if he had ever taken meth. Richardson of course said no, then Maldonado turned to Gary Jones and got Jones to admit to smoking marijuana, the point being according to Maldonado that if you haven't been through something you wouldn't understand it. Jones later offered that he had smoked pot only once and "deeply regretted it." Sure.... never inhaled.... wasn't Gary Jones serving as Democrat county official about the time of the Clinton presidency?
On prisons, Maldonado said drug users need taken out of prison and put into treatment and job programs. Fisher said that private companies do a better job at prisons and that government messes things up. Powell advocated being more selective on who we lock up in prison. Jones bemoaned tough on crime policies and advocated spending more money on prison rehabilitation. Johnson blamed the war on drugs and the number of women in Oklahoma prisons. Lawhorn claimed that 52% of prisoners were for smoking weed (a highly unlikely statistic) for self medication. Maldonado blamed the good old boy system with officers stopping people to keep the tow trucks busy and the local judges and lawyers making a living. Richardson is opposed to private prisons and said that as Governor he would put all prosecutors through a one week training program that focused on obtaining justice above throwing people in prison.
A wide variety of responses for sure, most of which are meaningless as there was only one candidate with enough backing to make a serious run for Governor, Gary Richardson of course. The rest are running for ego or worse, completely delusional. But the admission of Gary Jones of illegal post smoking in the past was enough to make the entire forum newsworthy.
