Fuxa, Grellner Debate Ahead Of Senate District 21 Election

The two candidates vying for Oklahoma State Senate District 21 seat participated in a debate Wednesday ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

Former Oklahoma State University professor Robin Fuxa and Dr. Randy Grellner are seeking to succeed Sen. Tom Dugger (R-Stillwater), who opted not to run for a third term.

NonDoc reports that Grellner, who previously ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in 2022, secured nearly 80% of the Republican primary vote in June. Fuxa, who was part of OSU’s literacy education faculty before resigning to run, ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Fuxa, 46, hails from Chandler and graduated from Strother Public Schools, according to the NonDoc report. She has worked as a teacher in Bartlesville and Pawnee and earned her doctorate in education from OSU in 2012.

According to the same report, Grellner, 58, is a primary care doctor who practices in Cushing and part-time at an urgent care clinic affiliated with Stillwater Medical Center. Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed him to a short-term position on the State Board of Health in 2021, which ended in June. NonDoc notes that Grellner finished sixth in the 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat, ultimately won by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).

Opening Statements

Dr. Randy Grellner: Well, thank you both for having us, and thank you all for coming. My name is Dr. Grellner over in Cushing. I've been there for almost a quarter of century, practicing medicine and taking care of people in Senate District 21 and it's been quite a pleasure. I've been married for 34 years. I have … two sons, and it's just it's been a great time over there. I have a big stake in Oklahoma and the future of Oklahoma, and I want my grandkids to grow up here, (and) my great-grandkids to grow up in a state like I grew up in that was free, and have an ability to be successful. I have the expertise and the ability to be able to help drive health care reform, which is a big topic in this state, but really in America, as health care costs are out of control, and I have the ability, and I have connections with the oil and gas industry to help restart the oil and gas industry. If we don't start it, we're going to have major problems in this state, from a revenue standpoint, and agriculture struggling in this state. I was born and raised in Western Oklahoma, and agriculture is struggling. We've got to help those people through the tough times they're going through. Let's talk about health care just quickly. 20% state budget. There's a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in it, and we need to pull that out. We know because we've had several audits, and we need to pull that out, transfer that into rural health care, to help still water, Manford, Cushing, and then mental health. We have major issues in mental health. And then we go to oil and gas industry, the key driver of economics in this state. We have to help the oil and gas industry, and we have to be innovative how we do it. And then last agriculture, born and raised with agricultural background. It's struggling now we're going to lose our family farms. So these issues are important to voters. They're important to the state and to our survival and or success. So these are issues that are key and important to me. 

Dr. Robin Fuxa: I'm Dr. Robin Fuxa, I'm a fifth-generation Oklahoma and a 24-year educator. I grew up in Chandler, Oklahoma, just down the road on Route 66 there, and then, just before my junior year of high school, my family and I moved to Seminole, Oklahoma, where I graduated as one of 28 graduates from Strother High School. I grew up watching my folks, my three sisters, and I, watching my parents be people who showed up when they saw a need, whether that was helping build our church, or being a volunteer firefighter on my dad's side of the of that equation. Or, for my mother, started in-home day care when she saw that need or showed up anytime somebody was ill. And that's something I've tried to emulate. That's one of the reasons I became a teacher. I. In my career … let me back up to my education. I was an Elementary Ed major, and I am so proud to have gone on to teach in rural public schools, where at that time I also went on to to earn my master's degree in literacy and school library media, and ultimately my PhD in education. After several years in Public Ed, I went on to prepare teachers for the last 15 years. And so that was such a joy to send teachers across the state of Oklahoma to do this important work. But it was also really frustrating to write more references than I cared to count of educators fleeing our state because of the conditions we've made. I'm really proud of our family. My husband, Barry, and I have two amazing children. Emery is a freshman at Oklahoma State busy doing band things on campus right now, so can't be here tonight. And Carver is a fifth grader here in Stillwater public schools. We're proud Public Ed parents, and one of the reasons I'm running is to support and protect our public schools. But as an educator, you also have a window into folks' lives. We've got to expand health access. We've got to make sure folks have child care to get to work. We have to take legitimate steps around making sure veterans have the services they need. We need a real problem solver, not a partisan in this race.

What most qualifies you to serve in the Oklahoma legislature? What skills Do you possess that will be helpful to your constituents?

Fuxa: I've spent the last couple of decades as an educator working with all kinds of Oklahomans and their families, building strong relationships, and I've also spent the better part of a lot of time at the Capitol doing advocacy work, not just during the walkout, but the entire time since then, advocating with policymakers in both parties, and ultimately moving forward with legislation like the Inspire to teach scholarship that I helped draft to make sure we could get more educators in our classrooms. So I've been building those relationships at the Capitol. I've been doing this work for quite some time. It's just going to be a matter of getting in there and being able to cast my vote. I've been called upon as an expert in my field, to provide testimony and interim studies, again, with both parties running those meetings, and I will continue to provide that expertise as an educator, this is a big focus for our state right now. We've got to fund our schools. We've got to hold Ryan Walters accountable for the Havoc he is wreaking the misuse of our tax dollars that we see. We have to make certain that we are defending and protecting our public schools at the heart of our communities. They are the bedrock of democracy, and there are access to the American dream for every child in our communities. They're also the way we keep a thriving economy in the state of Oklahoma, we will not have that without strong Public Ed.

Grellner: Well, health care, obviously, would be a place where I'd have expertise. And in Cushing, there we in 2014 we put together an urgent care that everybody said, That's nuts, and towns too small for it, but we did it for a reason. Cushing is an oil and gas town, a town that needs services, and they were spending $2,500 for a smash finger at the ER … so how do you meet the needs of people? And that's the thing that I think we have to understand, is that our job is to serve and our job is to meet those needs and to and to come up with innovative solutions that help people. And we've already, we've created a Wellness Center also there in Cushing, and both of those are doing quite well because those are services people want, and they're a much cheaper way to provide access to people. I think the health care model we have right now with insurance, Medicare, those kind of things, it's going to be a long Titanic to turn, try to turn this ship, but they're going to have to change financially. The country can't afford it. The last thing I would say is that, you know, when you look at education, and we have good education, we have good education in this state, but we are funding education. And I talked to a senator last night, and said that we're funding it right now. We're number two in the region in funding, and last year was a treasure trove of you know, the biggest raise, the largest raise ever for teachers. Do we need to do more? Absolutely. We all know that. But there's only so much the state can do before we raise taxes. 

What is the biggest issue specifically facing Senate District 21? What is the biggest issue facing the state of Oklahoma as a whole?

Grellner: Well, let's start with number one or number two. OK, facing the state of Oklahoma, the biggest thing is management. OK, we're not a poor state. Oklahoma is not a poor state. We are a poorly managed state. You look at audits Cindy Byrd has done over the last several years, there is so much waste, fraud, and abuse that needs to be court out of that, and then that money can be redirected to services like education, like health care, oil and gas stimulation. And we, we can build infrastructure, but it's embarrassing how much waste, fraud and abuse is in this state. Let's go back to, you know, Senate District 21 health care access … it's terrible. When I started in medicine in 2001 we had 50 was rolling, and everybody was just busy as they could be. And then you started seeing retirements. People started retiring, people started leaving, going to larger communities, and our surgeons left, our OB-GYN left, and we shut down the OB floor, and we shut down the surgery floor, and things just kind of spiraled out of control. But health care is the issue. Rural Health Care is in tremendous strain, and infrastructure is falling apart, and we need to be able to shore that up.

Fuxa: So I talk to a lot of them upon doors, and there are two words that come out of folks mouths. When I ask, what are your hopes or concerns for this date? They say, my concern is Ryan Walters all the time, almost every door. It's astonishing, except it's really not, because when we talk about waste, fraud and abuse, he is the most glaring example in recent memory. So I don't know how a person who supported Ryan Walters, who uses the same partisan talking points and who sent him $1,000 waste, fraud and abuse. So that's my number one concern. That's what I hear on the doors all the time. Further, we are 2000 per child per year below the regional average on our public school funding. We are at the bottom of the region. There's no refuting that. Further, we have a 32% gap between what our teachers make and other bachelor holders in the state of Oklahoma. So when we hear that song and dance about how it's just the cost of living, that is an absolute piece of disinformation used to harm our public schools, we have a teacher Exodus, with over 30,000 leaving the classroom over a five-year period. They aren't coming back because of the conditions we've created. And we have to fix that. We made that through poor policy, we have to fix it through better policy. So that's number two. That's again, the fourth biggest gap in the country on that teacher pay penalty that also doesn't get into our support staff, those are the folks who make sure that children with special needs have their services met, that bus drivers get our kids to school. We are defunding our public schools and then blaming public schools for any woes that come from that that's ridiculous.

Would you vote for a quarter-point income tax cut?

Fuxa: No. Here's the reason Oklahoma isn't fiscally sound without a steady stream of income for our state, but the that we are a low tax burden state, I don't think we need to raise taxes, but we also can't decimate our public services, as we did from the period 2008 to 2018 but also for everyday Oklahomans, that makes no tangible difference. The bottom 20% would see about $20 annually. The next 20% bracket would see about $50 annually, and the middle would be about $100 or less annually. But what would make a substantive difference is if we revise the sales tax relief credit that's going to give folks it was $40 per person when it passed in 1990 we need to raise that, modernize that, and make it $200 per person per year, so that we can see a substantive difference, and people who really have actual needs will see that relief, as opposed to giving people who make the highest earning bracket thousands of dollars in their tax relief those who least need it. 

Grellner: Yes. Well, I would. And you know, the other night … my opponent opined about the $2 billion surplus in the state budget … when we went to look at that, and I think that there is 2 billion there, but there's $1.2 billion stashed away. And if anybody saw the report in our school systems, they are flush with cash. The money there was 600 million in there three years ago. Now it's 1.2 billion. And how much money does the government need to have in savings bonds? OK, that money needs to go back to the people who paid it, and then that money will create opportunities in the state for all of us. But I personally feel like I do a better job managing my money than the government does, and if it's all about the government taking over our lives and running our lives, then we're never going to get ahead, because I've never seen the government show up and you say, All right, I'm going to get some help here. Because it's never the case, right? If they knock on the door, you know, you got problems.

Fuxa: Number one, I have concerns about someone seeking to enter government if they don't think government can be helpful. Number two, when we leave $1 billion on the table in one year and $1.4 billion that's not rainy day fund. That's our tax dollars that the governor and the legislature decided to stick in the software when we have incredible needs in our public schools. We have hungry children. We need child care access. We need to expand health care access. We're going to have to do that with our money that the state has collected. We needed to put it to smart use.

Grellner: Well, I would say this, that the schools have $1.2 billion I was on the school board for seven years. That is a ton of money. OK, so we can talk about there are problems. We know there are social problems out there, but the government's job is not to fix every social problem in this country. OK, that's families. That's, you know, community members and community leaders. They need to get involved because what happens is, is when the government gives $10,000 cushion, guess what? They give $10,000 to everybody, and that becomes a huge financial burden on the state.

In the past 10 years, we've lived through two droughts worse than the Dust Bowl. Between the droughts and additional population growth, the state's Water 2060 plan has already proven inadequate. What does this state need to do to address water policy for municipalities, rural water districts, and farmers? 

Fuxa: We’re going to have to make smart choices about how we partner together to meet our drinking water needs, to meet our agricultural water needs, and to make sure that we can sustain the agriculture that my opponent claims is so important. But while we talk about and it is very important, we feed the nation in the state of Oklahoma, let me be very clear about that. My husband owns a family farm. My grandfather was an oil and gas. Let's not try to do that. OK, so, but agriculture feeds the country, and when Oklahoma tells our farmers that we're not going to take federal funds, that's how they get drought relief. That's how they get relief when crops fail. That's how they get crop replacement when we have a tornado or disease. So that's what we have to do to help our farmers. He had mentioned last time that he was potentially going to be able to supplant federal funds. How do we get the 13 billion from 1995 to 2023 plus that Oklahoma farmers had to accept because of crop failure, we're going to have to make sure that we accept those federal funds, because my opponent would either end up raising our taxes or telling farmers Good luck.

Grellner: Yeah, well, there is a program right now down around Altus that there's been a grant for $25 million to get water down into that reservoir down around Altus. But let's talk about groundwater. OK, that's the problem. We're pumping too much groundwater. We haven't had enough rain, and so we're not Refilling these aquifers. We have a business out in Western Oklahoma that does pump water for drinking and those kind of things for people. And it's a great business, but you have to go in and do hydrologic surveys before you pull this water out, to make sure you don't leave your neighbor, you know, dry and you're doing the right thing. So there's only a certain amount of water, but it is a private property right. OK? And we need to understand that when you buy surface, you get you have the oil, possibly the gas underneath, and then you also have the water rights to that area. And we cannot be just in impugning, you know, taking people's property rights. So Oklahoma, state is starting a new program, which will be, actually be state of the art. And this program will has a groundwater reclamation program with it. It's going to start this fall. It's a tremendous program, and I'm proud of Oklahoma State for looking at that. My grandpa told me years ago that water will be more important and more expensive than oil someday, and that's where we're going now.

What is the most important thing that the state of Oklahoma can do to improve health outcomes?

Grellner: OK, so Oklahoma is 47th and health outcomes in this country, and the biggest thing we can do is, number one, is we have, we have to get people exercising. We have to be doing the right things like that, and educating these people on healthy lifestyles. That's important. But I think when you look at, you know, when I was on the State Board of Health, we were looking at different things that you can do in different areas. You have to target everybody differently. You can't just come up with a government program that's going to fit Tisha Mingo and it's going to fit, you know, Waynoka Oklahoma. There's different needs, but we have to get the obesity problem under control in this country, and that's one of the biggest problems we have. And Americans are, I mean, hey, I like to eat too, but we have to get that under control.

Fuxa: So when we look at health outcomes, number one, we can't blame folks for the situations in which they find themselves. All kinds of health outcomes are tied to our access to care. So we've got to restore our care in rural areas. We've got to make sure we protect rural hospitals and rural pharmacies, we absolutely have to make sure that people have access to the resources they need. And so when we look at this diminishing tax model, when we claim that we don't need tax funds, we're just going to give it back, how are we then going to provide mental health services? How are we going to support folks access to that? How are we going to provide folks with access to the health elements they need? We need to make sure people don't live in grocery deserts. We need to make sure folks don't live in health care deserts. We need to make sure that folks have access to care for our bodies, for our minds. We absolutely have to make sure that people can take care of themselves. Every Oklahoman wants to be healthy. They want their children to be healthy, but we have to invest in Oklahomans in order to make sure that happens. That doesn't happen magically. It happens by our investing in our communities. We need to invest in food security. One in five children is food insecure. That's a terrible health need. We've got to invest in access to things like dental services. So many children don't have good access to dental care. We've got to make sure that we provide access to quality groceries, supplemental programs and options like our daily bread, try to provide that, but we have to do better to make sure kids have that and most importantly, they need access to a doctor. So I'll invest in scholarship support to make sure that we prepare Oklahomans for that field with a promise that they stay here and do that work. We can't do this without doctors.

Grellner: I would just say if you're insinuating that people are in a jam, and I don't feel sorry for them. I see them every day with health problems, and I feel very sorry for them because a lot of them are friends of mine. And obesity is by far the number one health problem we have here. And so we're, if we're going to drive that program and we're going to we're number one, it needs to be awareness. But number two, it needs how do we get active. How do we get the weight off? People and we're having success. I have a wellness clinic that's proven we're having success of getting this weight off people, and it's not near as expensive as investing at a bunch more hospitals, MRIs, and setting up a government program that will last forever. 

Do you believe Oklahoma should have a statewide vote on making abortion services legal to a greater extent? 

Fuxa: We have to make sure that women have access to care. 70% of Oklahoma OBGYN are considering leaving this state because of this inability to provide care for their patients. My opponent at a city elders event that is a Christian nationalist group that works to put people in government in order to impose religion on them. A very distorted version of Christianity bragged about denying care to a woman who was begging for it when she had a pregnancy that was not viable, and he, quote, said … it's not going to make it, but he insisted that she carry that to term against her wishes when she was begging for care that endangers her well, being, her health, her life, and his concern was imposing his extremism on his patient. I will trust Oklahoma families when they are in crisis. I will not try to impose a decision from the government on that situation, on a family and in need. I can imagine what I would have done in that horrible situation, but I can guarantee I'll trust families to make that call.

Grellner: She doesn't know the rest of the story. I followed up with that lady six years ago, and she thanked me for taking this child to turn that had a medical illness. She's got closure. And she and she got to see the baby alive when it was born, OK? And got spent 24 hours with this baby that she had carried for nine months. So I don't think that's irrational.

Grellner: I think if the state wants to do that, that's fine. I would not personally support it. And so I believe that life begins at conception, and that you have the DNA from the mother the Father, and then you have a separate entity that is its own entity and own DNA, and that the Constitution kicks into at that point in time, and we have to protect it for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

What do you like about how Superintendent Walters has approached improving Oklahoma's education, and educational outcomes, and what do you dislike about how Superintendent Walters has handled his job in the last two years?

Grellner: So let's remember Ryan Walters is an elected official. I'm not his boss. She'd never be his boss. He was elected by the state of Oklahoma by 57% which today in politics, is a landslide. I don't agree with everything Ryan Walters do, does or says. I think he, he, you know, I think he's too bombastic, but he did come in, and he has done everything he said he would do in the campaign, and people put him in office. Now we're going to hear about he stole money. He's up this and that he has never been charged for a crime, right? Has he been charged for a crime? 

Fuxa: Doesn't have to be charged with a crime …

Grellner: So you're not innocent in this country anymore? You're not innocent? You're proven guilty before you ever get charged. I mean, that's the kind of rhetoric we're seeing, and it's on both sides. I'm not defending, but we have to be very careful about where we go with all these things. Tulsa Public Schools. Got off the federal Watch List last week. OK, they were their schools were that terrible, and so you have poor kids that we all want to get educated, and they're sitting in a system that would not change, and nobody showed up to help there. Uh, everybody sit and watch those kids over the last several years fall farther behind. And I would have to agree that one thing he has done is he took he took that and on, and he's made improvement there.

Fuxa: Number one, Tulsa Public Schools was one of the many canaries in the coal mine we saw on this attack on public schools, their students oftentimes come from backgrounds of poverty. Our entire state has many students who suffered with trauma and then to go in. I've worked on to on the teacher Exodus for over a decade now, and I will tell you, the Tulsa public has struggled to get qualified teachers. That's what we need to do across the state, and Cushing and Manford and Stillwater everywhere. We have to restore qualified teachers to our state. But let's get back to Ryan Walters. He was absolutely there was a recent look. He was charged with gross negligence, not charged with a crime, but they said it was gross negligence when they just reviewed but we don't have to have a charge of a crime, despite some policymakers claims of that to impeach. We just have to have neglect of duty. We have absolutely seen that over and over, misuse of our tax dollars, blanket approval for X boxes and Christmas trees prior to entering office and before my opponent supported him. As a matter of fact, Walters had shown us who he was. So there is absolutely nothing redeeming about Ryan Walters. He attacks our children. He attacks our teachers. He's harmful to our public schools. He's harmful to our economy. He is a beacon that says, Stay out of Oklahoma. The country is watching us, and we need to take care of our schools and our kids and the heart of our rural communities in particular, they do not have a choice to go to even if they wanted it.

Do you think are OSU, Langston, and other state universities being funded adequately right now? If not? What specifically should the legislature invest in?

Fuxa: Yeah, so at the time of the teacher walk out, it's a little known fact that higher education funds had been slashed even worse than our public schools, which was 28% at that time, from the from 28 2008 to 2018 that was 28% it was up in the 30s, 30th percentile for higher education. So yes, we have restored some of that funding. We've got to get to work on doing it better, because the only way we make sure that everybody has access to opportunity in the state of Oklahoma is we actually fund our universities. We've got to make sure that we invest in those every dollar we put into higher ed, we get $9 back. That sounds like a pretty smart investment to me, not concerned about that. So we've got to make sure that we fund the programs that do things like the rural renewal initiative that is looking at ways to make sure we have rural thriving communities, doing research to see exactly what local needs are, listening to folks there and then putting that into place.

Grellner: Well, I would say that, and I know Dr. Shrum here at the university, and she's doing a bang-up job of getting money into the university through donations people. There's a lot of people in the state that have done very well, and they feel that they need to give back. And she's done tremendously well with that, we have increased funding to education by about 34% of the last two years. Do we do need to do more? Sure? We need to do more in health care. We need to do more in agriculture. We need more oil and gas. And you know, we don't have a printing press in Oklahoma. They have them in federal in the federal government, we're $35 trillion in debt in this country, every child born now owes half a million dollars the minute they're born. OK, how do we pay it all back? And I say that the government and we need to quit spending all the money we have because they're going to spend every penny you give them. You everybody knows that we're not, you know these, you know city governments and the county commissioners, they know if they don't spend it, they don't get it allocated again next year. OK, so you just see these things all balloon up, and we need to be making smart choices where we spend it and spend. That, you know, in areas that make the biggest bang for the buck in this state, whether that's education, agriculture, oil and gas or health care. I think tuition will have to go up at some point in time, and but it's $30,000 to send your kid here. I spent it. I just went through this process, 30,000 a year.

Do you believe anyone and everyone should be able to carry guns around college campuses?

Grellner: Well, it's totally acceptable in Texas. They, you know, they have you carry guns everywhere around there. Violent crime in Texas is the lowest it's ever been since 1966 because everybody wants to extrapolate the fact that you know guns cause increased violent crime, violent crime, and people are going to die from guns, because bad actors have guns. So if you do not have a felony, if you have no reason to have not be able to carry a gun from secondary to the Oklahoma law, then I think it's OK. I would not carry one. Personally, I think it's, you know, it's just for me. It's not a good look, you know. But I think that we need to. I think we need to, you know, the Second Amendment there for a reason. It's there to be able to pick to protect yourself and the society we're living in today. We don't know who's coming in or going at any point in time.

Fuxa: I grew up in a gun-owning family. I've hunted. My son just got his first year. I respect the Second Amendment, but we know that guns on campus increase the likelihood of deaths on campus. When I sat down to talk with the chief of police, when I've talked with law enforcement officers across levels of that, they're also asserting that we do not need guns on campus. It is actively harmful when someone totes a gun on campus. We should not be waiting until something happens to respond. But that's the position it puts law enforcement in, who were, by the way, against many of the measures that we have right now. Law Enforcement were against our open carry measure that Mary Fallin vetoed and then Gov. Stitt supported. So we've got to make sure our law enforcement officers are safe. We've got to make sure our students are safe. I have a freshman on campus that will harm our enrollment, that will harm our society, that will get people killed.

Do you support tribal sovereignty and the existence of these reservations? Or would you work with Gov. Kevin Stitt in his efforts to have Congress or the courts disestablish the reservations? 

Grellner: So the Supreme Court left us in a very much jam in this state when they came down and they did not make the final decision on the land that was initially given to the reservations. And then there was land sold off. And about 90% of all the reservations were sold off. The land was sold off, you know, by individuals in this state to another individual. That land is it the title is clouded. At this point in time. Nobody knows who owns it. And if we don't figure out what ownership is, then you can't sell it. Who wants to build on it? Oil and gas doesn't want to drill in southeast Oklahoma because they don't want to pay the property owner for the oil rights. And then come back 10 years later. And get sued and have to pay the oil rights again to another entity like the tribes. Now I would say that, you know, I treat a ton of Native Americans, Iowa tribes, Sac and Fox, you know, a ton of them over in my clinic, and that the people, the tribal people are as good a people as you'll find, but it's like with anything else. It's like a communistic society. When you get to the top and you have these people that are hired out of Las Vegas to run these casinos, there is corruption, and I know that surprises everybody, but there is corruption, and those people are taking a windfall off those casinos, and they're actually hurting the people that they're supposed to be helping.

Fuxa: There’s no confusion about land ownership, that's disinformation to foment fear our tribal sovereignty. Our tribal sovereignty is absolutely essential in Oklahoma. We can work together, and we do. We see many great examples of that. The Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma State have formed a partnership to work to provide rural doctors for our state, the Cherokee Nation also leased land to a school district for $1 per year for 30 years so they could build their school. It's ridiculous this antagonism that we see from the governor and many in our legislature. And I will continue to respect tribal sovereignty when I'm in office. I had the opportunity to work with the Pawnee Nation a great deal when I taught over there, this idea that there's some kind of threat through respecting the United States promises that it's made is absurd, and it's really problematic. 

Do you believe it would be fair for most tribal citizens and all non tribal citizens to pay state income tax, while some tribal citizens would not? Or would you support eliminating the state income tax to ensure even application of taxation?

Fuxa: I don't support eliminating this state tax, but I also recognize that we need to respect our tribal sovereign team. So when we look at this question, we've got to make sure that we look carefully at that. So for me, we live in both spaces. Everybody in the state of Oklahoma needs to pay taxes to the state of Oklahoma. I think that's pretty straightforward. We work together. We will all continue to do that.

Grellner: One thing that happened is we got off the wrong foot. I mean, Gov. Stitt has really taken it to the tribes, and it's unacceptable. The rhetoric has to stop, and everybody has to sit down in a room and have to figure this thing out. But right now, if you agree with McGirt, I mean, and you agree that, you know, we shouldn't worry about property rights, then we're not going to get taxes out of them. That's just plain and simple. And the Supreme Court most likely will turn that down when they go up and down the interstates that we all pay for they don't pay toll way fees. They don't pay excise tax on their cars. And if we want it that way, that's fine, but that comes at a cost. And if we're in Oklahoma, we're all Oklahomans, we're Oklahoma citizens, we're United States citizens, and they also are tribal members. And I think that's great, but I think we need to start working on repairing our relationships with the tribes, and I think we need to restore those relationships and rebuild them, and so we can all sit down and have a discussion and fix this deal. And I want to tell you who's blocking it is most you know, it tends to be people that benefit from blocking it, right? So go through your minds, who would benefit? Well, there's a lot of lawyers that would benefit from blocking this OK, because they get to go to trial all the time and fight all these things out. But right now, we're stuck with a deal in Tulsa where, if you run a red light and kill somebody that said Oklahoma, but not a tribal member, you have no penalties. You. Down the road and you're let off the hook. And that won't work for our society. We have to the rules need to be the same. 

Moderator: Just want to clarify real quick, tribes and the federal government still have the authority to prosecute a tribal citizen within the reservation. So, I mean, it's not like you're going to be not charged, necessarily. Now there's a charging decision to make, but yes.

Grellner: A lot of these are covered in federal court. Our federal courts are packed. You can't get in. You can't get on the docket. So what do they do? If they're non violent, they dismiss them. OK? So, nope. Law is not being carried out just law is not being carried out across the citizenship of this state fairly. And that is one of the deals we're supposed to have in a constitutional government. 

Fuxa: We've already made enormous progress on making sure that there's that collaboration between the federal government and tribal nations. It's ridiculous to claim that we can't have justice and respect tribal sovereignty. That's really problematic. We see that already happening. Number two, our tribal nations contribute staggering amounts of money to the Oklahoma economy. We have incredible contributions in health, education, tons of services we see provided those partnerships can be much stronger if we're not sitting in antagonism and trying to blame our tribal nations for anything that might be wrong.

Grellner: So there's a so basically, if they pay enough, we don't have we don't care if they follow the rules. That's what I'm hearing. And I'm going to tell you right now the law ought to be the law across the land, that it has to be something that we stand up for, and it's done, right? I'm not mad at them. We need to have better tribal relations. I just said that. But the fact of the matter is, you cannot have two standards in and that's what we're doing on the federal level. Trump gets thrown in jail and Hillary gets off which you contributed to.

Fuxa: There's absolutely no reason why prosecutions can't happen. They are happening when a crime is committed, folks are charged, justice is executed. So that's just again, disinformation, this notion of pointing toward federal politics as a way to try to incite strong feelings has nothing to do with the state of Oklahoma, and it's a tactic.

The Nov. 5 election here in Stillwater also includes a ballot question on whether to approve a new franchise agreement with OG&E to serve a private data center project. Do you have any concerns about this data center coming to Stillwater? 

Grellner: I would defer I live and Cushing, and I have not studied that very well, so I'm going to defer that question.

Fuxa: I've looked into that really carefully. I think that we have to always look carefully at a new opportunity. The data center is going in. It's going to give incredible amounts of funding to our public schools. It's going to be a driver of our economy. It's going to offer job opportunities. Do we want to make sure that adequate power is provided? Yes, so I'm in support of making sure that OG&E can do that, because I don't want to see our cost to our electricity go up in still water. So that's an easy yes for me, do we want to make sure that we try to make sure that we use our water carefully, that we use our energy carefully, absolutely but looking at the City Council on the excellent decisions they've made to make this, they've been studying this for years. They've been taking great care to make sure this works well for us, and I'm excited about this opportunity for our public schools and our local economy.

State Question 833 would authorize the creation of public infrastructure districts. These districts could be formed by local subdivisions with 100% support among property owners and the districts could levy a property tax for specific purposes. What do voters need to know about the potential impact of this proposal? And do you support or oppose SQ 833?

Grellner: OK, so does anybody understand this issue? Nobody knew about it when I brought it up four weeks ago, that are in politics. So this is a developing people that develop property when I was young, and what they've done over the years is you find a good piece of land, you go in there, you build the infrastructure on it, and then you sell lots to people that want to build a house. OK? That's kind of how the process. So there's risk for the developer, OK? And so what happens with this is that you take a piece of property that the city council or a municipality picks out, and this land, whatever, wherever it's at, if everybody agrees, all the landowners agree in it, … they can call this a, it's a PID, but it's a, it's a district, and they can put a millage on it, OK? And just like your schools, they'll put a millage on it, and you'll pay that over 15 years, 20 years, just like school, when we build new schools, the problem with that is, is it's not tracked always to the county's Tax Office. So when I if you sell a house that's on a PID they may not know that they're going to get another $700 tax bill every year, or $2,000 tax bill. So there's no transparency. And the other thing is, this bill is written. It is very vague, so the legislature is going to put whatever they want on so the developer ends up getting a better deal. I think it needs to be rewritten and bought back.

Fuxa: So the issue with this particular state question is that it can have one person who's the landowner. I, if I had the money and could buy a section of land and say, You know what, I'm the one owner in this property. And so my infrastructure that I want to put in is a swimming pool and a tennis court, and I want to make sure that we have, you know, maybe a cool water slide and those kinds of things that are luxuries that would drive up the property taxes in that place. So it would be lucrative for me as that landowner when I sell that property and develop it and let folks buy homes there. But the problem is that's going to drive folks away from things like school bonds and the neat things that we need for public supports. When we look at city needs and really want to look at building our city's infrastructure, those folks are going to say, wait a minute, my property tax is already too high because the developer put in a swimming pool and tennis courts and those kinds of things. And so I'm actively against this, because it's going to end up putting folks in a position of paying higher taxes while building luxuries potentially that won't benefit the greater community.

How do you respond to voters who you might meet who have concerns that maybe think Vice President Kamala Harris has been ineffective in public office on topics like the U.S. border security, or that she comes off as an insincere politician? 

Fuxa: I say that I'm focused on state issues for Oklahoma, that's what I've been working on for more than 20 years. I'm looking at funding our public schools. I'm looking at make sure we expand health access. I'm looking at the needs of Oklahomans, like child care access so folks can go to work. I'm making sure that we expand veteran services. My dad served in Vietnam. His dad served in the Battle of the Bulge. So I'm looking at state issues. Support whom you want at the national level. I'll support my person, but I'm going to make sure that I serve Oklahoma. I'm going to be a state policymaker, and that's what I'm preparing to do.

How do you respond if you meet voters who say they have concerns that former President Donald Trump supported the Jan. 6 insurrection improperly took classified documents from the White House and is maybe more focused on name-calling than uniting a divided country?

Grellner: He does do a lot of name-calling, and it's unacceptable. I don't agree with it. It's dehumanizing to other people, and I don't play that game. I think that when you look at the two choices we have, they're both imperfect, and as we, as I am, as everybody here, we're I tend to think we're all imperfect, but when you look at policy and you look at oil prices, now are up, it's killing our agricultural industry. We've shut down the Keystone pipeline. We've shut down numerous things in this country, drilling on federal lands, and we've just ratcheted back all this, which is hurting the average American and the kids that you know. Our electric costs are up. All of our infrastructure issues are up because oil and gas and those things are critical to this state, but they're critical to living. In the United States, like we live the comfort we live. If you want to do it on solar, we can try that. Rick, but that didn't work very good when it got real cold, and all we do is tend to subsidize solar and windmills in this country, and that's not going to pay very good dividends down the road there's inefficient, and so it when this in 1900 this country, this world, had 1 billion people with the production of the engine, combustion engine and oil and gas production, we now have 9 billion that we're able to feel feed. Stop that, and we're gonna have starvation. 

What led to your skepticism in common COVID treatments? And do you have any concerns that medical skepticism born during COVID could lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases as vaccine rates fall?

Grellner: The COVID pandemic woke me up. I had people going to the ER, they were told by our public health officials to stay home until you can't breathe and your lips are blue, and then they ran them in and put them on ventilators. It was a tragic situation. Nobody won in this pandemic. The American people didn't win. The people across this globe didn't win. Anybody that is prescribed ivermectin or used it would automatically know it was an amazing drug. It was hauled into ICUs in Tulsa, and people got up out of the ICU the next day. And so why? You know, our public health officials were asleep at the wheel, and when they are men's family, people I've known for 25 years, I'm going to go do and check and do research, and I found that it works, amazing, and I probably treated over 10,000 people with ivermectin from all across the nation. So nobody is an expert on this, except me, and so you can say whatever you want, I don't like the declining vaccination rates, but we do have research to do on vaccines, and I'll tell you, the COVID vaccine is gene therapy. It's not a vaccine. It encodes your mitochondria to make a protein called the spike protein. OK, a vaccine goes in your body, recognizes it, makes an antibody against that. It's a totally different approach, and so I do not agree with the COVID vaccines and the mRNA technology, (polio, measles) routinely. And parents have a choice. If they decide they don't want to give their kids vaccines, I support that. If they decide they want to give their kids vaccines, then we give them vaccines. That is parents choice, but they deserve informed consent, and we never had informed consent with a COVID vaccine.

Fuxa: This kind of mythology is exactly why Oklahoma had some of the highest deaths in the nation during the COVID-19 highest rates in the country because of that kind of misinformation. MRNA, vaccines were not new. There was one developed for COVID, but it was not the first of its kind. It does not alter our DNA in any form or fashion. So that's number one we are there is polio in the wastewater in parts of our country. Right now, measles outbreaks are occurring. Children are going to die because of this kind of vaccine skepticism that is being fomented by my opponent. We absolutely need data driven science and health decisions that are informed by that when the medical community has a strong consensus around something and someone is an outlier, we need to look at why my opponent is not endorsed by the State Medical Association. We need to ask ourselves why that would be.

Grellner: There are a bunch of left-wing hacks. That's why I wouldn't take their endorsement. But we will change that because it's unacceptable the way that they treated patients when COVID started, I never left the clinic for three years, I was there day in. Night, weekends, my partner, who's back here, we were there treating people. We didn't leave the I didn't take a vacation for three years because I'm taking care of people in my community that I love. OK? And you can say what you want to the COVID mRNA vaccine. There's a thing called reverse transcriptase you may want to study on this for tomorrow morning's debate, and that has the ability to reverse and plant that back in your DNA. It's been proven. And to say it not is a well, you have no expertise on it. You can read all you want to, but if all we're going to do is sit around and take the government's recommendations on stuff and live blindly and not question our government, OK, we the people, are the ones that have the power. And if you want to just sit blindly and take their information and not set it yourself and save lives, go ahead.

Fuxa: Somebody who's earned a PhD. I have high media literacy. I was a school library media specialist. I can look at a quality study and discern whether that is accurate or not. I can look at medical consensus and make an informed decision. That's been my job is to look at media and determine if it's accurate information or not.

Grellner: You have no clinical experience with it. And you can write a study any way you want to. I could write a study to make a drug B be the best cancer drug in the world because they didn't have cancer going into it. There are a lot of studies that are have true misinformation, not just this disinformation we're hearing about. So you have no clinical experience, you have no right to even answer this question.

How do you respond when voters say they want a Senator with a better chance to pass bills and any chance of developing leadership-level influence?

Fuxa: I've already talked about my work across parties. I've looked at ways to work across parties, because I've been doing that for over a decade, providing testimony invited by policymakers, Representative tally, Rep. Johns, Rep. McBride, Rep. Baker, I've worked with Rep. Ranson, Sen. Kurt, who's here tonight. I've had lots of conversations with folks in those committee meetings about our education needs and other efforts. Senator ranzen, of course, back there, I think I said your name. Just want to make sure I give you the shout out, but we I've been building those skills for a long time. I can collaborate across what we need to get to work with folks to get things done. We already moved forward the inspired to teach scholarship. That was a big win when I'm not even office yet, so I'm really excited to see what I can do when I get in there. I'm a strong collaborator as an educator. That's been a skill I've been building for my entire career. My opponent says that he woke up in 2020 This is a skill that takes some time to build. I've been building those relationships for quite some time, and I look forward to continuing that work.

What advantages could Senate District 21 residents see by electing a member to the majority caucus?

Grellner: Well, you'll have no representation, If you put a minority in there, from the standpoint of she won't, they're going to stop her bills. They're not going to you'll have no representing this district. And I think I can represent this district. I think my values are very similar with the values of this district, and I think that you know that I am a great choice for the center district.

Fuxa: So one of the reasons I'm running is after having provided that evidence for what we need to do in education, we see party line votes over and over and over again. One of the benefits of being in the minority caucus is I will not be pressured. When we saw the school voucher bill go through, which provides 700 million to private schools with no oversight and lesser outcomes, they went from person to person and pressured individuals keeping the vote open for hours the first time because they have control over their own party. Unfortunately, I'll be able to do what I need to do to serve the community.

Closing Statements 

Grellner: We've, we've heard two different visions tonight of really, two people that really want to do a good job. First Senate District, 21 I don't doubt her office. Authenticity. In that I doubt our qualifications. You've heard my opponent would like government to have more power over your lives. I want government to have less power over your lives. I don't think they should determine what you do to your children. I don't think they should determine, you know, what any of the things that they want to regulate at this point in time, when I was raised, it was a free country, and I think we deserve to go back to that. I want to govern it. You know, when you think about any of the issues we talked about tonight, it's always been about more money, OK? And so it's, you know, health care. I want to increase your taxes and grow government. Education. We're going to increase your taxes and grow government and agriculture. We've got a problem. We're going to increase taxes and give it out to the farmers, oil and gas. Increase taxes, give it out. You know, increase taxes and grow government. That's not the way this country wants to go, and this district wants to go. This district wants government to get out of their lives, and they want to go paying the taxes that we're paying. Our ad valorem tax are killing us, our personal and property taxes are killing us, and our state income tax are killing growth in this state. And so I think that Oklahomans, for the most part, are independent thinkers, and they can solve it on their own. There are obviously times when the government needs to get involved, but it doesn't need to be at every time that we raise taxes and pay for another government program. So that is my deal. I served in this district for 23 years, serving the people with a true heart and with somebody that really cared about the people I've taken care of, and I will continue to practice medicine in this district. I've been trusted by a lot of people, and there's been a lot of things said about me that I'm radical, and mailers going out. And if radical is believing in the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, I'm guilty. If you want a better future for Oklahoma, get out and vote on Nov. 5 and to Dr. Randy Grellner to the state Senate stat. 

Fuxa: So as I said, before, I'm a fifth-generation Oklahoman. Both of my grandfathers worked in oil and gas. Most of my mom's family, some of whom are my donors, still work in that industry. Two of my brothers-in-law ranchers. My husband, as I said, owns a family farm that's been passed down for generations. I'm really proud of that for Oklahoma, but we're too often faced with false dichotomies. We can support those ways of life fund our public schools and make sure that food insecure children have their needs met voices that actively harm our citizens, we need people who show up to serve. If you fundamentally do not believe that government can do any good, you should not enter it. We've seen systematic defunding of our public schools, supports support for folks like Ryan Walters, who is the poster child for fraud, waste and abuse. We've got to hold him accountable. We've got to fund our schools. We've got to expand health access. We've got to make sure folks have child care. We have work to do in Oklahoma, and I am ready to do it. I've knocked 1000s of doors across this district talking, and I was accused of partisanship the last time we met for criticizing Ryan Walters. If my opponent had been talking with folks, he'd know that's the number one concern across parties in the state of Oklahoma, he is actively harming us. We need to get him out of office. We need to serve our communities.