Oklahoma’s District 16 state Senate election has been nothing short of surprises.
Democratic state Sen. John Sparks, who has represented District 16 since 2006, will not be on the ballot this year due to term limits. His departure sets the stage for an interesting race for the district.
Republican candidate Becki Maldonado has no political experience, switched party affiliation from Republican to Democrat for two days in April and won the Republican primary runoff after her opponent, Ed Crocker, withdrew from the race.
Mary Boren, the Democratic candidate, has political experience, a famous last name and won the Democratic primary runoff after her opponent, Claudia Griffith, died.
The general election for Senate District 16, which covers west and central Norman and follows I-35 down to Noble and Purcell, according to the Oklahoma State Legislature District 16 map, will take place on Nov. 6.
An unexpected death
The race for the Democratic Senate District 16 seat was derailed early on after the unexpected death of Griffith.
Boren beat Griffith in the Democratic primary runoff for Senate District 16 on Aug. 28, 2018, according to Ballotpedia.
However, Griffith died from a heart attack on July 14, 2018, a little over a month before the runoff.
Griffith had been a state representative of House District 45 since 2014 and was seen as a leader and inspiration by those she had worked with, the Norman Transcript reported.
The race between Boren and Griffith was a very close one. In June, Griffith had 32.8 percent of the vote in the Senate District 16 primary, while Boren had 34.5 percent, according to Ballotpedia.
Boren said she was extremely sad when she heard the news of Griffith’s passing and was also sad for Griffith’s family and supporters.
“It was very hard to stay motivated to campaign because I knew that so many people would be grieving, and the activity around campaigning would trigger all of that loss,” Boren said. “So, I really wanted to just pull away and try to not be disruptive or be a distraction toward their grief because I really value what healthy grieving is like.”
While Boren said she was at a loss for how to continue her campaign, she was encouraged to keep fighting when one of Griffith’s former volunteers asked if she could volunteer in Boren’s campaign.
Boren said Griffith used to be her state representative, and that she had always admired her and wants to continue the legacy she left behind.
“One thing I admired a lot about Claudia is that she was very aware that Oklahomans are very good neighbors and that the Oklahoma standard is a real thing,” Boren said. “She kept having a vision that we could live at the state Capitol like we do when we help clean up after a storm. I admired that about her campaign, and I felt like I could carry that forward.”
Switching parties
Maldonado, a teacher, temporarily switched her party allegiance to the Democratic party in April out of frustration at Republican legislators’ response to the teacher walkout before filing to run for the Senate District 16, the Norman Transcript reported.
“The teacher walkout wasn’t just out of nowhere,” Maldonado told the Norman Transcript. “We’ve watched education be slammed over and over again. It had gotten to the point where, if you’re going to be that disrespectful, even though I’m a member of your party, and you’re going to say these things to my face, then I don’t want to be associated with you.”
However, before the switch was official, she filed to run for the Senate seat as a Republican, the Norman Transcript reported. Her voter registration change wasn’t processed until Sept. 1.
Maldonado said she got a notification in the mail in early September informing her that her party affiliation had been switched to Democrat.
“I drove to the election board and got it switched back,” Maldonado said. “(The switch to Democrat) didn’t even take place until September, and then I was a Democrat for like two days and then switched it back.”
When the story of Maldonado’s party switching was leaked to the media and printed, Maldonado said one of her constituents took a screenshot the Republican party’s Facebook page post written by the Cleveland County Chair of the Republican Party Mike Edwards, which said the party was going to be taking actions against her.
The state Senate election rules state that a candidate must be registered with their party for at least six months if they want to file to run on a party ticket, the Norman Transcript reported.
“There was supposed to be an executive committee meeting, in which I could defend myself, and then they would decide the steps to take against me,” Maldonado said. “So, that was going on for like a whole week, and then the day before we were supposed to have that meeting, (Edwards) called me and said ‘Oh, I canceled it.'”
However, Maldonado said that as far as she knows, she has the support of the Cleveland County Republican Party.
“I mean, nothing has changed, and I’ve talked to a lot of people who are higher up in the chain, and they’re supportive of me, and lower down,” Maldonado said. “We have these weird, knee-jerk reactions that we have to stop. Before we react, let’s find out what’s going on, and I think that will help us out a lot here in Oklahoma.”
Boren’s relation to and relationship with former OU President David Boren
Boren is related by marriage to former OU President David Boren, who is the first cousin of her father-in-law, according to Boren’s website.
Boren said she and her husband, Nathan Boren, who is a doctor at OU’s Goddard Health Center, only saw President Boren at family reunions for a while and wanted to “stay out of his hair” and “not bug him.”
However, Boren said she was advised by Sandy Garrett, former superintendent of public instruction, to speak with President Boren when she first started her campaign.
“I said, ‘Well, Sandy, he really makes me nervous, and I feel like an 8-year-old in a little starched dress,’ because I wanted to impress him so much, and he just has that effect on people,” Boren said. “Also, since I married in, I didn’t want to seem like I assumed that I was entitled to anything.”
Despite her nerves, Boren sent President Boren an email asking if she could meet with him, and he agreed to do so.
“I sat down with him, and he listened, and he was very gracious and gave me advice,” Boren said. “He said to make sure you give people the chance to teach you, so ask people for their help and their ideas and opinions.”
President Boren has also supported Boren’s campaign financially, which Boren said was very validating.
“Once I saw that he was willing to support my campaign financially, then I knew that he believed in me and that I really needed to get my act together and fight hard and do the best campaign that I could possibly imagine,” Boren said. “When you have the support of somebody like that, you don’t want to let them down.”
Candidate differences
Boren said she is running a “good neighbor campaign,” focusing on the renewal of Oklahoma citizens’ trust in lawmakers, supporting schools and stabilizing the budget.
“When people don’t have trust in each other, then they don’t trust to pay their taxes or to increase revenue for critical needs because they are fearful of where the money is going to go to, or that their neighbor is going to take advantage of it,” Boren said. “We’ve had a lot of dismantling of our funding structure in Oklahoma over the last 10 years, and we’ve got to change that. We need to fully fund our classrooms and our lecture halls, which means you have to fund the teacher, the space, the resources, scholarships and access to affordable ways to pay for college.”
Maldonado’s main focus is to develop new sources of revenue to fully fund education and the other core services of the government, helping waitlist families and increasing the minimum wage, according to Maldonado’s website.
On her website, Maldonado explained that there is a 12-year waiting list for families who have loved ones who are developmentally disabled and that there are 181 families in Senate District 16 on the waitlist to receive a Medicaid-funded Home and Community-Based Services waiver for support.
If elected, she will join the Waiting List Caucus and fight for these families to help get them the resources they need to thrive.
While their campaigns are similar in some ways, both women have differing opinions regarding why they feel they are the better candidate for Senate District 16.
Boren said that she admires Maldonado, but feels that she has a lot more experience because she has worked at the state Capitol and worked with the state regents and the State Department of Education.
“I think (Maldonado) has a commitment to the well-being of people with disabilities, and I think she has a lot of experience in that area that she’s very passionate about,” Boren said. “I feel that my experience is much broader than just within the education setting because I have a law degree, and I’ve worked and advocated for people in the courtroom.”
While Boren feels she has more experience than Maldonado, Maldonado said that she thinks Boren is too partisan.
“(Boren) is definitely more partisan than I am,” Maldonado said. “I am a very middle-of-the-road and moderate Republican, and I really feel like bipartisanship is the way that we’re going to start solving these problems.”
Maldonado and Boren attended the candidate forum hosted by the Norman Chamber of Commerce and Norman on Oct. 17, where they gave their final remarks on the type of senator they would be if elected.
“I see my role as a senator as one of listening, networking and being able to solve these systematic problems,” Maldonado said. “So, that means listening to individuals, but it also means listening to business owners, small businesses and large corporations to see how we can make win-win deals to enhance our culture of community here in Oklahoma.”
Boren’s final statement started with her saying that Oklahomans are “good neighbors” and “hard-working.”
“I will make sure that all Oklahomans are heard and respected because we know that you all and our voters deserve that kind of dignity,” Boren said. “They also need state senators and state legislators who are able to learn. As a school counselor, one of my jobs was to make sure that the climate in our schools was civil and that problems were solved quickly, and I hope that the voters of Oklahoma and Senate District 16 vote for me, so that I would be able to take that same value system to the state Capitol.”
