Oklahoma Democrats are calling for an impeachment probe of Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, citing a range of recent issues, including bomb threats against a school district following one of Walters’ provocative social media posts.
In a statement Tuesday, state House Democrats said they’ve made a formal request to the GOP speaker to set up a bipartisan committee to investigate whether there’s sufficient evidence to impeach Walters. The Democratic caucus cited Walters’ “consistent pattern of inflammatory language aimed at our public education teachers, outright lies and targeted attacks on local control.”
Walters, a Republican firebrand known for focusing on culture war issues, has ushered in the nation’s first religious charter school, promised to “put God back in schools” and threatened to take over the state’s largest school district in Tulsa, a showdown that pushed out the local superintendent — all within his first eight months in office.
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In a statement Tuesday, state House Democrats said they’ve made a formal request to the GOP speaker to set up a bipartisan committee to investigate whether there’s sufficient evidence to impeach Walters.
The Democratic caucus cited Walters’ “consistent pattern of inflammatory language aimed at our public education teachers, outright lies and targeted attacks on local control.”
“In seeking to remove a popularly elected constitutional officer, they represent a direct threat to our democracy,” Dan Isett, an Oklahoma Department of Education spokesperson, said in an email.
Last week, McCall condemned the threats against Union Public Schools and said he’d like to see “political activism surrounding education eliminated,” and that “Oklahoma’s elected leaders should not be adding fuel to the fires of controversy.”
John Federline, assistant superintendent of Union Public Schools, said last week that nearly a third of the district’s 15,000 students were either absent or picked up early by their parents after the threats.
Last year, Boston Children’s Hospital faced several bomb threats after a series of posts by right-wing social media accounts, including Libs of TikTok.
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