Stitt Snit: “Quit this S-it”
If I had known how much fun it would be to title these entries, I would have started this platform years ago. Four rhymes in a row? Not too shabby.
If you are reading this piece from another state, you may not know about Kevin Stitt. He’s our second-term governor and arch-conservative who regularly complicates civilized life in Oklahoma. He has taken positions against common-sense gun laws and seems to have a special animus toward transgendered citizens. Native communities view him as an antagonist, despite the fact that he is part of the Cherokee nation. That hasn’t stopped him from opposing tribal sovereignty.
And it goes on and on, week by week. Just last week, he confounded standards of health care by issuing a nonsensical order about reproductive freedom. There is nothing he won’t do to interfere with the agency of women. Now he wants an oath from Medicaid providers that they will not even think about performing abortions. That’s only a slight exaggeration, but given that abortion is already illegal, you have to wonder about this kind of piling on.
Yet every so often Stitt does the right thing. When Trump sicced the feds on the State of Illinois, the last thing I expected was opposition from Kevin Stitt. The issue at hand was the question of immigration, the One Essential Cause to Rule Them All. Other governors have used it to punch up their poll numbers and Stitt, himself, has done a great deal of harm. Persons without documents are always in his crosshairs, and he has worked to render their lives untenable.
Yet he loudly rebuked the efforts of the Administration to interfere with law enforcement in Illinois. What, he asked, were the rights of states if they could be trampled this way by the Saurons in Washington? Against expectation, he took the President to task.
OK, you’re thinking, this wasn’t an act of mercy, but the assertion of traditional Republican “values.” I say that's true, but it was out of step with Stitt’s colleagues. He took the risk of a contrarian position in exactly the realm where Republicans to a person are most disciplined and consistent, brooking no dissent. The proof is that almost no one joined him. Kevin Stitt went this one alone.
Whatever his motive, I commend our governor. Persons without documents are better off today in Oklahoma than they were before Kevin Stitt described his commitment. I don’t care how he got to his destination, but I hope that other governors emulate his resistance.