By Constitution Staff

Since 1979, the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper has published the Oklahoma Conservative Index, rating state legislators on ten key votes, based on the criteria of limited government, individual liberty, free enterprise, constitutional principles, and traditional standards. By using whether a governor signed or vetoed a bill that reached his, or in the present case, her, desk, we can also assign a "Conservative Index" score to the governors since that first Index in 1979.

Based on this standard, our present governor, Mary Fallin, can claim the title as "most conservative" governor, although her 63% rating hardly casts her as a "hard-right" governor. She narrowly edged out former Governor Frank Keating, who had a 56% rating for his two terms in 1995-2003.

The "most liberal" governor? That designation would have to go to former Governor David Walters, with a dismal 18%! Other gubernatorial scores are George P. Nigh (33%); Henry Bellmon (46%); and Brad Henry, who barely finished out of the "cellar" above Walters, with a mere 20% score.

Some perspective is in order on these ratings. Democrat David Walters was governor for only four years, and had an overwhelmingly Democrat Legislature during those years. Most of the legislation presented to him during the "nineties" was of a liberal variety, and as a Democrat governor, he could be expected to sign such legislation. On the other hand, Democrat George Nigh had an even more Democrat-dominated Legislature, and he finished significantly ahead of both Henry and Walters, at 33%. In fact, Nigh was known to veto some particularly egregious liberal legislation on occasion.

Perhaps the most significant governor of the years of conservative ratings was Republican Frank Keating. Keating's veto pen worked overtime, killing many bad bills passed by a Democrat-run Oklahoma Legislature. Calvin Coolidge once said that it is better to kill a bad bill than to pass a good one, so Coolidge would have probably approved of Keating's performance, in that regard. Without Keating's dogged persistence, it not certain that Oklahoma would have ever passed a Right to Work law. Some liberal Democrat legislation did not even clear the Legislature, because it was known that it faced death when it got to the governor's office. Still, Keating signed some bills he should not have signed, bringing him down to 56%.

Mary Fallin, on the other hand, our current Republican governor, has actually vetoed good legislation passed by a strongly Republican legislative body, and signed some bills that a strongly conservative governor would have rejected with the veto. Interestingly, Fallin's 63% "Conservative Rating" is almost identical to the cumulative Conservative Index score she had for her four years of service in the Oklahoma House of Representatives (1990-1994), before her election as lieutenant governor. Her legislative score was only 59%. Although she voted for the infamous TARP bail-out in 2008, Fallin's voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives was actually better.

Another thing to consider is that governors have the opportunity for advancing or stalling conservative progress, beyond that of a single legislator. For example, Fallin's abuse of executive orders to basically make law, instead of carry out law, reminds some of abuses of recent presidents. As one Clinton aide, Paul Begala, once said of a Clinton executive order: "Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool." One is not surprised that a Democrat president would ignore the constitutional separation of powers, but it is disappointing that a Republican governor would enter into such mischief.

In some cases, the Republican-dominated Legislature has had to actually over-ride a veto from their own party's governor in order to enact some good gun rights legislation, and pass some other conservative bills. While Fallin wound up signing the repeal of Common Core, she was an early champion of the Common Core as President of the National Governor's Association, and the repeal fight took place in an atmosphere in which it was uncertain until her pen inked the bill whether she would sign or veto the repeal bill.

Still, Fallin did score higher than any other governor since 1979, Democrat or Republican.

Some may be surprised by the 46% of Governor Henry Bellmon, who, while a Republican, carried the (well-deserved) reputation as a middle of the road chief executive. (We are talking about his second governorship from 1987-1991, separated by many years from his first governorship, 1963-1967.) In 1989, Bellmon vetoed bad Democrat legislation in a manner similar to Keating did later in the next decade, and only got one "liberal" designation that year. Sadly, he switched over in 1990, and received only one "conservative" designation. That was the year that Bellmon bucked his own Republican Party by calling for a massive tax increase (HB 1017).

Some bills that are rated for the Conservative Index never make it to the governor's desk. This is because some bills used for the Conservative Index are only voted on in one house, or fail to pass in one of the two houses. Or, it might be a resolution, which does not require any action from the governor. Sometimes a bill does get a vote in both houses, but one house makes changes in what the other house did, and with the law-makers failing to reconcile the differences, the bill dies in conference. Nigh, for example, only had two actions to take in 1979, while Fallin had action to take on 9 of our bills this year, in which her score was 56%. For a closer examination of Governor Fallin's record this session, refer to the Conservative Index bill descriptions in the special supplement of this present issue.

Finally, this ratings of the governors should give some insight into the political leanings of the Oklahoma media, which considered Brad Henry a "moderate" governor. But 20% is hardly moderate. Frank Keating, on the other hand, was considered something of a strong conservative by the mainstream Oklahoma media, but his score was just 56%, which seem to make him a moderate conservative, with Brad Henry a solid liberal.