Kris Steele: The Next Oklahoma House Speaker?

As Republicans struggle all over America to reclaim their identity, Oklahoma House Republicans face a tough decision this fall as they face an election for the next Speaker of the House.

The Republican’s rules state that an election must be held between the middle of October and November 15th, and two members are the leading candidates: Speaker Pro Tem Kris Steele of Shawnee and Appropriations Chairman Ken Miller of Edmond.

Steele, an associate pastor at a Shawnee Methodist church, is the early favorite over Miller.   But conservative Republicans outside the house GOP caucus are wary of Steel’s liberal tendencies, and the liberal-leaning and indolent Oklahoma press has done nothing to expose those flaws. “Republicans in Oklahoma aren’t going to know a damn thing about this race, and the ‘aw-shucks’ liberal ab out to become Speaker,” one political insider, an avowed Steele critic, says about the election.

Many observers around the Capitol for the last decade have expressed amusement to OKPNS over reports that Rep. Steele may rise to the highest position in the House and recalled details of his interesting political career.

First elected to the state House of Representatives at the age of 25, Steele had barely begun his second term when he launched an ill-advised campaign for the Senate seat vacated by Brad Henry.  Steele’s bid for the Senate was unsuccessful, and he returned to his relatively safe House seat where he forged a strong friendship with disgraced ex-Speaker Lance Cargill, then considered a rising star among House Republicans. Their shared ambition and closeness in age – Steele is just a few years younger than Cargill – led to them being a team inside and outside the Capitol, with their families eventually vacationing together.

As Cargill rose through the ranks, first as floor leader and then as a leading candidate for Speaker, Steele was right there at his side, assisting with Cargill’s ‘strategery.’  “Then the two had an abrupt falling out and battle lines were drawn,” says one former member. Despite Steele’s claims in a recent AP article that their relationship ended over Steele’s discomfort with Cargill’s fundraising and political tactics, concerns that were not raised until more than a year and half later (probably because of persistent rumors that Steele has a few fundraising skeletons of his own), insiders say the real cause for the fracture between the once tight pair was that Cargill would not promise Steele the position of Majority Floor Leader, the one caucus leadership position that is appointed by the Speaker.

“When Cargill wouldn’t promise the position to him, Steele recruited a candidate who would,” said another longtime presence at the Capitol. Within days freshman legislator Dan Sullivan declared his candidacy for Speaker and caucus members still remember the unusual move of the two campaigning together as a ticket: Sullivan for Speaker and Steele for Floor Leader. The caucus chose Cargill as Speaker, and Steele was relegated to a minimal role in the caucus.

Insiders say Steele clawed his way back into power in 2008 (one said Steele did so by “double-crossing” Rep. Gus Blackwell) by becoming Speaker Pro Tempore. But just weeks into his new role, members say he frequently vacated the chair and was already out campaigning for the position of Speaker Designate – nearly 11 months before the scheduled election and 20 months before the caucus would officially select a new speaker. Steele returned to the successful caucus election strategies he recommended to Cargill years earlier.

“It’s ironic that he used the very same tactics he once criticized Cargill for,” one member says.  Steele then took the unprecedented step of collecting pledge cards from members during the legislative session – a practice that former Speaker Todd Hiett reportedly prohibited and one member called so “distracting and divisive” that the Senate Republicans’ caucus rules explicitly ban it.

Another source says Steele may be “the most blindly ambitious member the House Republicans have ever seen,” but has successfully learned to cloak that ambition with his “quiet demeanor, aw-shucks s peech and ministerial facade.”

Whether Kris Steele will, in fact, become the next Speaker – something many caucus members apparently still doubt very seriously – will be determined by the House Republicans sometime this fall.