OKLAHOMA CITY – Danny Williams’ new two-year term as the State Representative for House District 28 began Wednesday – 26 years after his last term in that office expired.
Williams, 71, now a registered Republican, defeated his Democrat opponent in the November 3 general election by a margin of 73% to 27%.
“I’m excited” to be back in the Legislature, he said. “The unique aspect is that although I’ll be coming in as a ‘freshman’, I’ve been there for six years already.” He’s “coming back to the Capitol with experience.”
Because of term limits, none of his former colleagues is still in the Legislature. However, he will find at least one familiar face: Mark Tygret, now the House Fiscal Director, joined the House staff in 1988, the year Williams was first elected to the Legislature.
ISSUES THEN, TODAY ‘NOT THAT DIFFERENT’
“The issues back then and today really aren’t that different,” Williams said. “Education, health care, roads and bridges, economic opportunity – still the same as it was 25-30 years ago.”
In addition, when Williams served in the House before (1989-94), David Walters was Governor “and we had to cut the state budget” because of a revenue decline, Williams recalled. “There’s a lot more excitement about spending money than there is in cutting budgets,” he quipped.
Williams left the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1994 after three terms to run for Governor on the Democratic ticket. He placed third in a four-way primary contest won by Jack Mildren, who was defeated in the general election by Republican Frank Keating. In 1994, the House of Representatives had 68 Democrats (including Williams) and 33 Republicans (including Frank Lucas, who was elected to Congress later that year, and Mary Fallin, who later was elected to Congress plus two terms as Governor).
Today the 101-member House has 82 Republicans, and consequently, Williams contends his colleagues must specialize.
INTERNET PLAYS BIG ROLE TODAY
Expansion of internet service “around the state to areas where they have no access now” will be one of his priority issues when the Legislature convenes next year. “I think I can provide some valuable information about that issue” because of his “firsthand experience,” he said.
Williams has been in the wireless internet business since 2000 and owns Statewide Communications, a small company that provides high-speed internet service to rural Oklahomans. He said he got involved in the business when he served in the Legislature the first time.
“Our business has exploded since last spring, because of the need,” he said Monday. “It’s all over the country. My suppliers sometimes don’t have what we need because of the growth. The need is amazing.”
In a related matter, Williams wants to “take another look at education,” he said. “We need to consider new ways of delivering education” to school students. “We shouldn’t be locked into the past.”
For example, distant “virtual” learning has become a necessity in schools throughout Oklahoma and across the nation because of the coronavirus pandemic. “People tend to be traditional,” so accepting change is difficult, Williams noted. “But the University of Phoenix has been producing graduates for years” by virtual education, and Epic is providing “quality education” via distance learning methods, he said.
Williams wants to improve educational opportunities for convicts, in order to help them become productive citizens after they are released from prison. “We need to revisit good-behavior credits,” he said, to help relieve the pressure on the inmate population and to provide inmates with an incentive to modify their behavior.
SWITCHED TO GOP 7 OR 8 YEARS AGO
He said he switched his political affiliation seven or eight years ago.
“I have always been pro-life and pro-gun,” he said. “I’m a Christian guy and my life has been built on the Ten Commandments.” The Democratic Party “walked away from that,” Williams said. “I
wasn’t welcome in the Democratic Party, so I became a Republican.”
On his Facebook page Williams, who studied religion and philosophy at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, says he opposes abortion and pledges to “defend our rights to worship,” “promote parental rights,” “defend the traditional family from attacks by the media and the left,” “stop socialism at every turn,” “limit the government” and “create jobs for rural Oklahoma through increased access to broadband.”
Besides his campaign for Governor, Williams, who lives near Seminole, ran for the state Senate District 28 seat in 2014 and placed second in a field of five GOP candidates.
Constitutional 12-year term limits for legislators were mandated by State Question 632, which went into effect in 1991. Nevertheless, Williams could serve in the House for 10 more years (if he’s re-elected, of course) because his second term in the Legislature actually began in mid-November 1990; thus, only his 1993-94 term counts against his term limits.
Both houses of the Legislature will convene at noon on January 5, 2021, to officially organize and then adjourn.
The First Regular Session of the 58th Oklahoma Legislature will convene at noon February 1, 2021. The agenda will feature a joint session of the House and Senate to hear a “State of the State” message from Gov. Kevin Stitt, and for first reading of hundreds of House and Senate bills and resolutions.