Democratic incumbent Jacob Rosecrants, facing no primary challenger, vies for a third term as the representative for District 46 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives as three Republican hopefuls compete for the party’s nomination.
Sassan Moghadam (R)
Sparked by the “unchecked” government’s “abuse” of power, Sassan Moghadam, owner of Aria Development, announced his campaign in April. Identifying himself as pro-business, police and medical marijuana, Moghadam vows that he will make a difference in the Oklahoma House.
According to his campaign website, Moghadam is a conservationist and advocate for the environment. He also noted that Cleveland “(feels) the pain” of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, government overreach and the economy.
Moghadam declined an interview with the Daily to further discuss his platform.
After immigrating to the U.S. in 1975, Moghadam graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from OU in 1980, according to a Facebook post from his campaign page. In 2020, Moghadam co-founded the grassroots organization Unite Norman, working to collect signatures in hopes of recalling city officials.
The organization served as a reaction to the city council’s decision to decrease Norman Police Department’s proposed budget increase by $865,000. Only one of five petitions collected enough signatures, but that petition against former Ward 3 Councilmember Alison Petrone was later invalidated in court.
In August 2020, Moghadam found himself under investigation from NPD following footage of him arguing with a group of teenagers outside a Unite Norman meeting, later throwing a brick at their vehicle as it backed away from him. Moghadam accused the teenagers of running over his foot.
Nancy Sangirardi (R)
Currently serving as chair of the Cleveland County Republican Party, Nancy Sangirardi is campaigning to win the party’s nomination, running twice before and making it past the primaries once.
A former teacher, Sangirargi aims to focus on educational matters with hopes of districts to be less about administrations and more about the staff.
“Teachers are the ones on the front lines, and they’re the ones that everybody needs to be working toward,” Sangirardi said. “How can we make their lives better?”
Sangirardi is outspoken against critical race theory, which she defined as a curriculum that teaches students that one race is superior to another. She recalled an anonymous survey she gave a group of her students about their views on abortion, where she had asked them to list their ethnicity, sexuality and gender.
She then plotted the answers based on the categories, saying it was an “eye-opening” assignment for everyone in the class. Sangirardi said she wouldn’t be able to do this assignment if she wasn’t allowed to teach about Roe v. Wade because of critical race theory.
Sangirardi also said she believes there are some teachers that truly teach based on their own opinions rather than curriculum, adding she’s seen “hypocrisy” in schools during her career.
“We had a teacher who had pictures of President Obama all over the classroom, all over the place. I wasn’t allowed to have one picture of Trump in mine, even though he too had been a president,” Sangirardi said.
The idea of school choice for Oklahoma students was presented in the Oklahoma legislation in Senate Bill 1647, a premise Sangirardi said she supports, believing that students should be able to go to school where their needs are best met.
One of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s main goals is to make Oklahoma a top ten state in education, a goal Sangirardi believes can be met by taking cellphones out of classrooms for both students and teachers, increasing parental involvement and emphasizing “basic skills” in curriculums.
Sangirardi is anti-abortion but understands there are situations where the mother’s life is threatened by pregnancy and “rare” circumstances of rape and incest. Besides these three conditions, she disagrees with its use as a contraceptive.
The National Rifle Association gave Sangirardi an “A” rating, though she said she would be OK with legislation increasing purchase times for buying a firearm.
“I don’t think the majority of gun owners would be upset if they had to wait a while longer in order to purchase a firearm. I think what the majority of them are afraid of is moving the line in the sand,” Sangirardi said.
A mother herself, her son Joe Sangirardi was the first openly gay president of the Student Government Association, known at the time as UOSA, at the University of Oklahoma. Sangirardi expressed how proud she was of her son but has felt some members of her party have looked at her differently because of her child.
Sangirardi noted Oklahoma’s 50th ranking in quality of life for women, adding one of her goals is to help women and children across the state. She said her passion for women’s rights has led some people in her party to refer to her as a RINO, or a Republican In Name Only.
House District 46 is impacted by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s controversial ACCESS Oklahoma turnpike plan, an authority Sangirardi is not “specifically happy” with. She is in support of an audit of the OTA and will support legislation that oversees OTA doings.
“My dad told me 50 years ago that we would never finish paying for these turnpikes, and he was right,” Sangirardi said. “They see it as a cash cow, and that’s why they keep building them and they keep charging us to use them.”
Kendra Wesson (R)
Accountant and Oklahoma native Kendra Wesson aims to focus on bringing transparency and properly budgeting taxpayer dollars to the Capitol. She also wants to “pursue excellence” in education, fund public safety and uphold Christian values.
According to her campaign website, Wesson has gathered several endorsements from statewide organizations including the Oklahoma 2nd Amendment Association and Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights. Locally, she’s endorsed by mayor-elect Larry Heikkila and the Norman chapter of the Fraternal Order of the Police.
Wesson did not respond to multiple email requests from the Daily for an interview to discuss her campaign priorities.
Wesson has ties to Unite Norman, actively participating in the organization’s food donation drive and community outreach incentives in February 2021.
Currently serving on the Le Monde International School's Board of Education, Wesson was outspoken against the City of Norman’s attempt to place a low-barrier warming shelter near the school.
Wesson is a co-chair of School Boards 4 Kids, a conservative education group, and has stated she is the Oklahoma chapter leader for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, a nonpartisan organization concerned with “intolerant orthodoxy” in educational settings.
In an article from The Frontier, Wesson is reported to speak against universities implementing critical race theory and encouraging preferred pronoun use at an Edmond education forum. On her campaign website, she states that she actively speaks out against critical race theory.
Jacob Rosecrants (D)
Jacob Rosecrants, a former teacher, was elected to represent House District 46 in 2017 and is hoping to be able to serve for a third term.
Rosecrants says his two biggest accomplishments were two bills, House Bill 1569 and HB 3286, passed back-to-back with bipartisan support. HB 1596, or the Play to Learn Act, ensures teachers’ ability to use play to encourage learning in kindergarten to third-grade classrooms. HB 3286 strengthens state stalking laws.
His next priority is passing a bill that requires 40 minutes of recess time for pre-K to eighth grade students. Rosecrants had conducted an interim study in 2021 on the subject, bringing in experts to show that recess improves academic scores, behavior and mental health.
Another issue Rosecrants focuses on is the mental health of veterans, specifically he wishes to pass a policy bill addressing the prevention of veteran suicide.
After spending several years in the classroom, education is one of the most important issues to Rosecrants. He is against school choice, saying, in reality, it’s defunding the public school system inflating a certain sector of educational institutions.
“Not all schools can rise because we haven’t funded it properly to make sure progress succeeds,” Rosecrants said. “It’s almost like starvation of our schools, barely making it by.”
Another popular education matter in Oklahoma is the idea of critical race theory, which Rosecrants said is in no “way, shape or form” a problem and isn’t truly happening in classrooms, calling the emphasis on it “fear-mongering.”
Rosecrants said Oklahoma can learn a lot about how to improve education by looking at states with higher education rankings, adding that funding schools and paying teachers sufficiently is important to encouraging creative progress rather than “simple survival.”
“In other states, we can fix (educational) problems and if you do some of the things that the educators at the Capitol are trying to propose, including myself, then you will see that can turn us around when it comes to education,” Rosecrants said.
On June 2, leaders of the Oklahoma House Democratic Caucus introduced the SAVE Act, focused on gun legislation, a set of bills Rosecrants fully supports, calling it gun “sense” and “safety” rather than control.
A piece of legislation Rosecrants wants to see passed as soon as “humanly possible” is the age at which individuals can buy an assault rifle or general firearm being raised from 18 to 21.
2SLGBTQ+ legislation is important to Rosecrants, as he is the father of a transgender child, something not publicly known prior to legislative efforts that went into passing bathroom bills — laws that prohibit transgender individuals from using the bathroom of the gender they identify as — during the last session.
Rosecrants called the recent push to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports, the banning of books discussing 2SLGBTQIA+ issues and anti-trans legislation “fear-mongering” on the part of the GOP, adding it’s very “dangerous” for young people to hear about the legislation.
“They have no actual knowledge of anybody who has a transgender child, and there’s plenty of people out there,” Rosecrants said. “So, they’re just pushing forward just so they can get reelected in the next election period.”
Rosecrants said he’s against the proposed Norman turnpikes, attending several events including the Pike Off OTA Capitol rally and several OTA town halls in March and April. While he tries to remain hopeful, Rosecrants recognizes that no community has successfully fought against a turnpike.
“I base everything in reality. I talked to folks like, ‘This is what we have, here’s what we need to do, but even if we do these things, it could still end up going against you.’ I want to make sure people understand that,” Rosecrants said.
However, Rosecrants said the next legislative steps include an interim study, which he may not be very involved in due to the election, and bills that hold the OTA more accountable to Oklahomans.
Rosecrants encouraged voter registration as soon as people become eligible for it and “stripping” politics from issues to facilitate solutions.
“Make sure you’re electing a person not just for the letter by their name, but for their actions,” Rosecrants said. “(Elect people) for what they actually will do, not what they say they’ll do, but for what they do.”
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.
