Sen. Corn Blasts Failure of Adair Nomination

State Sen. Kenneth Corn said he was embarrassed that the Senate Education Committee had failed to approve the nomination of a former Speaker of the House. Monday morning, the nomination of Larry Adair to the State Board of Education died in a tie vote of 7-7 that fell along party lines.

"This is a slap in the face to a man who has devoted his entire life to helping Oklahoma. He’s a former educator who dedicated himself to building a better future for our young people, and he brought that dedication with him to the State Legislature,” said Corn, D-Poteau. “Instead of taking advantage of his experience and life-long desire to help Oklahoma’s children, Republicans serving on that committee decided to play partisan politics.”

Corn said one of the objections was over bills that were not heard when Adair was Speaker of the House.

“That’s like us holding Senator Glenn Coffee responsible for all the bills that weren’t heard in the State Senate. Committee chairmen also make those decisions—it’s not all controlled by the leaders of either chamber,” Corn said. “I also know for a fact that Speaker Adair supported language for open transfer and charter schools while he was still in the legislature.”

Corn said he also disagreed that the nomination was in violation of state law.

“First of all, that’s just one interpretation of what the law says. There have been times in the past we’ve approved nominations, particularly to the OSU Board of Regents, that some argued were in violation of the law, but those have held, and Democrats voted to change the law to help enable Burns Hargis to become President of OSU at an earlier date,” Corn said. “Yet in this instance, Senate Republicans are using their interpretation as an excuse to deny the nomination of one of the best qualified individuals we could possibly have. I think it’s really a black eye for the State Senate and a loss for Oklahoma school children.”