OKLAHOMA CITY — Republican Governor Kevin Stitt was sworn in to his second term Monday afternoon, surrounded by his wife and five of his six children. Stitt, a native of Tulsa, took the oath of office on the south steps of the State Capitol building.
The governor was sworn in by John Kane, Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Stitt’s oath followed those of Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell and other statewide officers.
Stitt used his inaugural speech to talk about the accomplishments of his administration, saying that before he became governor the state’s “government was not working and was not generating the promises of certainty and stability for the people of Oklahoma.” The governor also doubled down on his call to make Oklahoma a top 10 state and spent a good portion of his speech calling for changes in the state’s education system.
“It’s time to rethink education in Oklahoma,” he said. “It’s time for the tough conversations to address what’s working and what is not. It’s time to teach kids how to think, not what to think.”
Stitt said the state must give students more access to learning methods “that fit their unique needs.”
“We need more schools - not less schools like the fear mongers claimed when we called for change,” he said. “We have examples of this emerging all across our state, like the Aviation Academy in Norman which is preparing today’s youth to become pilots and airline mechanics.”
Speaking about state government, Stitt said Oklahoma wasn’t growing and securing new opportunities like the rest of the nation.
“We began to see that we have everything we need to break the cycles of the booms and the busts,” he said. “With our vast land and abundant natural resources, with our people and work ethic, with our faith in God and with our shared history as a state, we could build a stronger economy and more sustainable Oklahoma.”
Oklahomans reelected him, the governor said, to make state government “more limited and more accountable.”
Stitt pointed to the Department of Corrections as an example.
“Four years ago, the Legislature gave the executive branch the ability to hire the director to run the agency under a unified vision,” he said. “As a result, we closed four prisons, safely reduced the number of inmates by over 5,000; we gave our frontline professionals a much-needed pay raise; and we saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. We did this while reducing crime and leading the nation in the lowest recidivism rate.”
Stitt also criticized the federal government and, echoing themes of some state lawmakers aid he would fight to “protect our way of life in Oklahoma.”
“Together, we will protect our way of life in Oklahoma. We will protect a farmer’s right to work on their land and raise their livestock. We will protect an unborn child’s right to live,” the governor said. “We will protect the religious liberty for all and everyone’s right to worship freely. We will protect parents’ rights to raise and educate their children without government intervention. We will protect citizens’ right to speak and think freely. And always, always... we will stand up and defend individual freedoms over government control.”
The governor ended his speech quoting former president Abraham Lincoln and urging Oklahomans to “focus here at home where we are all Oklahomans.”