From Kanye Wests sex tape with some Kim Kardashian doppelgänger to Mitt Romneys 47 percent tape, several such recordings surfaced last month including one featuring leaders of the State Chamber of Oklahoma.
In the recording, chamber President and CEO Fred Morgan and chamber COO Chad Warmington talk politics at a July 17 meeting on Northeastern State Universitys Broken Arrow campus.
The recording was posted online by OK SAFE, also known as Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a so-called patriot group.
The recording doesnt have anything too questionable. There are no baby-eating or Hail Satan! pronouncements, damn the luck. For the most part, the pair discuss lobbying at the state Capitol.
Oh, but all that tax-cut stuff the Legislature was divided over last session? Doesnt matter.
The Legislature spends a lot of time talking about things that just dont matter I mean, they want to talk about tax cuts and all that stuff, Warmington said. If there arent even jobs, why dont we worry about getting people into the jobs first, before we worry about the tax cuts, you know? A bit later, Warmington adds that tax cuts are important, but that the chamber needs to refocus legislators on education issues.
On the recording, he also defended the chambers recent move to evaluate appellate judges based on rulings that affect businesses, an idea that a few legislators assailed as an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.
We spend all our time to recruit good business candidates, we get them elected, we get them educated, we get them to vote the right way on a bill, and then the bill goes to the [state] Supreme Court and gets struck down, Warmington said.
So we figured, weve got some work to do making sure that the business community and the
elected and the people that vote understand who these judges are.
... All were going to do is provide some criteria by which you [can
evaluate] judges. So, thats what were doing there.
Oh, so thats what theyre doing there.