Oklahoma’s primary and special elections are on June 28, and three candidates are running for District 44’s open spot in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
Republican R.J. Harris has no contest for the Republican nomination whereas Democrats Kate Bierman and Jared Deck will be on the June 28 primary ballot.
This opening comes after Rep. Emily Virgin (D-Norman) termed out from the seat after her start in 2012. In her time, she served as the house minority leader for the Democratic party from 2019 until 2022.
Kate Bierman (D)
Kate Bierman said she plans, if elected, to legislate for funds to repair or replace state-owned buildings.
She said the state, specifically the Democratic party, needs someone with local perspective and experience to legislate for funding that will benefit complexes like the Griffin Memorial Hospital.
“What we don't have at the Capitol is anyone really carrying that local government perspective, or very many legislators at all, who have any working government experience or working budget experience before they make it to the Capitol,” Bierman said in an interview with OU Daily. “There's not a single democratic legislator at the Capitol who's ever served on city council, as an example.”
Prior to her campaign, Bierman represented Ward 1 on the Norman City Council. She said she experienced how a government with resources available helps constituents.
In 2020, Bierman voted for an $865,000 proposed budget cut to Norman Police Department’s proposed budget increase, leading to an effort from the grassroots organization Unite Norman to recall her and four other council members, though Bierman’s petition later failed and did not face a recall election.
Bierman said Deck and she are not running against each other, but are instead just running for the same seat and their biggest difference is that she has more experience.
“I’ve already demonstrated my ability to put my own campaign promises into action,” Bierman said. “I’ve seen how many candidates have run for office and made promises that they’re simply not able to keep because they don’t quite understand how things work on the back end.”
Bierman, a Vermont native, said there’s been a shift toward a more progressive Norman since she moved here in June 2009. Although she likes the shift toward progressivism, she said she wasn’t brought up in party infrastructure and has not ran in any prior partisan races.
Bierman said she wants to represent all parties, especially Republicans, as she believes her party shares many of the same values as them.
“I want my words and my actions in this primary to reflect that,” she said. “I want them to talk to me and find out how I feel about the issues facing them in their daily lives, not how closely I adhere to any particular party messaging.”
Bierman said after being a Normanite for a little over 10 years, she’s enjoyed the community, especially since she chose it as her home.
She grew up in a small town with the University of Vermont being located close. Norman’s college town experience provides her a familiar feeling of what it was like growing up close to the University of Vermont.
“I really like the feel of living in a community that cares about the university — cares about education, arts, walkability,” Bierman said. “When I found Norman, it was very intentional and a very easy choice to stay here.”
Jared Deck (D)
Jared Deck decided he wanted to run for House District 44 because he felt that the government had let down its constituents in their greatest times. He moved from Weatherford, Oklahoma, to Norman five years ago after his wife had an opportunity to work at the University of Oklahoma.
“It’s a place that people come for an education and they come for opportunity,” Deck said. “That’s what it’s been for our family. Even though it may seem to have its trials, it is a community that I am hopeful can lead.”
He said his western Oklahoma upbringing will help him, if elected, to represent specifically the district, but also the state. His parents raised him to be a critical thinker in a conservative community, he said.
“I’m quite accustomed to being the only Democrat in the room,” he said. “Already having knowledge of rural issues as well as Norman area issues is vital. … The key is to be able to communicate with people who think in a different way. I'm not an expert in other people's lives. So, I have to listen and I have to see the human in the person across the aisle from me.”
One of his priorities, if elected, is to help reduce medical debt. He wants to increase the budget for Oklahoma’s uncompensated care fund to help solve medical debt.
The care fund gives money to federally qualified health centers for care they provide to uninsured individuals. Norman’s Variety Care health centers like the Family Practice, Pediatric and Mental Health centers all qualify for the state’s uncompensated care fund, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
This is Deck’s first political race as a candidate, but he said he has no worries about what he is getting himself into.
“I’m not a stranger to the Capitol or the advocacy work on statewide issues,” Deck said. “I've been doing grassroots organizing for 15 years that is necessary to bring progressive ideas back to relevance in our state. We've been successful because our efforts have been rooted in organizing and we've been mission minded, not ambition minded.”
Rep. Merelyn Bell (D-Norman) and Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) both endorsed Deck.
Deck used to own retail businesses, but with education he gained in the music department at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, he was able to have a music career playing in 11 states on his annual tour.
Deck has been involved with nonprofits, political organizing and advocacy work for 15 years. He is a board member with the Moore Norman Technology Center and is on the board of directors for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.
He said working on those boards has granted him a good perspective of what it is like for specific systems, like education. He wants to increase funding toward public and higher education.
“We need to be empowering students to move on to successful lives,” Deck said. “I'm hopeful that we can fund public education and higher education specifically, in a way that will begin to reduce the burden on students and their families. Our state needs serious leaders who value science and compassion and who put human rights before special interest.”
RJ Harris (R)
RJ Harris, a veteran and descendant of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, said there needs to be more legislators fighting for personal liberties and freedoms. He said a key difference between him and the two Democrats running for this district is the liberal philosophy toward issues that are being talked about nationally.
“I don’t agree with the defund police boom, and I don’t agree with the teaching of critical race theory,” he said. “I think the national (Democratic) Party has started to bleed into Oklahoma and they’ve come through Norman. I’m just willing to say: ‘Not here, not in my town.’”
His 32 years in the Oklahoma National Guard has prepared him for the state Capitol, Harris said. He started to get involved with politics starting in 2008, when he helped Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy.
Harris ran for the 4th Congressional District twice, once when he started his own political career in 2010 as a Republican, and another in 2012 as an Independent. His candidacy in 2012 was a late one as he was originally running for U.S. president as a Libertarian, but dropped out of the race in April 2012.
Harris announced his run as a gubernatorial candidate for the 2014 election on the Democratic side in August 2013. His campaign lasted five months and he did not run for any positions since then, until now.
Harris said it was easy to make the decision to run for House District 44 because Norman infringed upon rights like medical freedom.
“I very much disagreed with the leadership of Norman under the pandemic to mandate masks and vaccinations and these types of things on people, as I viewed them as a very egregious infringement onto our individual liberties,” Harris said. “There was definitely some overreach there.”
Harris said he believes the war on drugs nationally and locally has been a complete failure, and he supports the legalization of marijuana.
“It's been an ongoing example of government overreach into people's personal lives, to deal with issues that are more medical than they thought to be legal,” Harris said. “I think that needs to end. We're starting to see some of it around the country with the legalization of marijuana. To me, that's just a part of it. You can kind of see where when I say that I'm for liberty and freedom.”
Recently through the Legislature, House Bill 1647, the Oklahoma Empowerment Act, was struck down. This legislation would have provided a voucher for students to attend private schools. Harris agreed with giving Oklahoma students the choice to go to school regardless of their zip code and financial status.
“(I support) total, one-hundred percent school choice where the parents and the students can pick the school that they want to go to — they go there and their state money follows them,” Harris said.
Harris was born in California, but while living in Arizona he decided to move to Norman in 2006. He had already lived in Oklahoma before because his family spent some of his childhood in the Miami area.
After moving to Norman, he attended OU for his undergraduate degree and law school.
“It took me four years to get through OU law because I got deployed in the middle of it,” he said. “I got deployed to Afghanistan, so I had to take a break there. I came back and finished after Afghanistan.”
Harris said what makes the country, state and tribal nations great in this country has been the freedoms.
“I would encourage people to look for candidates at all levels of government who are promising to fight to defend people’s constitutional rights and freedoms to the maximum extent possible,” Harris said. “I hope that my constituents will look for someone who will articulate that they will fight for their freedom of liberty and protect them from government overreach into their home.”
The primary and special elections are on June 28. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. To find your polling location and see a sample ballot for your precinct, go to the OK Voter Portal.
Early voting is on the Thursday and Friday before elections from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Saturday immediately before the election. No excuse is needed to vote early.
