In a debate between Senate District 21 hopefuls Robin Fuxa and Dr. Randy Grellner, the two candidates worked to discredit one another, one questioning his opponent’s qualifications and the other accusing her opponent of promoting “disinformation.”
The candidates agreed on little — except for their shared skepticism of State Question 833 — throughout the course of the debate, which was held in a packed auditorium in the Stillwater Public Library and streamed online by News 9. Their opinions diverged almost immediately after opening statements when Fuxa and Grellner were asked what they believe to be the biggest issues facing both Senate District 21 and the state as a whole. Grellner said the biggest problem in Oklahoma is management.
“Oklahoma is not a poor state. We are a poorly-managed state,” he said.
Grellner, a Republican, said State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd’s audits should be used to identify “waste, fraud and abuse” and redirect mismanaged funds, namely to one of the most pressing local issues he mentioned — rural health care, especially mental health care. Grellner, a physician who practices primary care in Cushing, repeatedly mentioned rural health care as one of his top issues throughout the night. He also mentioned supporting the oil and gas industry and the agriculture industry among his top concerns.
Asked the same question, Fuxa zeroed in on one particular target she sees as an issue for the state.
“I talk to a lot of people on the doors, and there are two words that come out of folks’ mouths when I ask people, ‘What are your hopes and concerns for this state?’ They say, ‘My concern is Ryan Walters,'” said Fuxa, a Democrat. “When we talk about ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ he is the most glaring example in recent memory.”
‘A beacon that says stay out of Oklahoma’
Similar to Grellner’s focus on health care, Fuxa emphasized issues she has noticed in her own professional background. A public school teacher in Bartlesville and Pawnee, Fuxa received her doctorate from Oklahoma State University and joined its literacy education faculty. She castigated Walters during the debate, saying he exhibited neglect of duty worthy of impeachment for “misuse of tax dollars” and his handling of pandemic-era federal relief dollars.
“There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Ryan Walters,” Fuxa said. “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.'”
Grellner took a softer stance on Walters, although he said he finds the state superintendent “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,” Grellner said. “Now we’re going to hear about, ‘He stole money. He’s done this and that.’ He has never been charged for a crime, right? Has he ever been charged for a crime?”
Grellner turned and asked the question directly to Fuxa.
“A person doesn’t have to be charged with a crime to be impeached,” Fuxa said.
Grellner scoffed at the answer.
“Really? 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,” Grellner said.
The candidates continued their disagreements on public education when the conversation turned to the state’s public colleges and universities. Perhaps most notably, Grellner said he would support legislation overturning Oklahoma’s prohibition on carrying firearms on college campuses, while said she Fuxa would not.
“I would not carry one personally. I think it’s, you know, it’s just for me, it’s not a good look,” Grellner said, drawing a few laughs from the audience, before continuing, “The Second Amendment is there for a reason. It’s there to be able to pick to protect yourself, and in the society we’re living in today, we don’t know who’s coming in and going at any point in time.”
Fuxa said she grew up in a gun-owning family, noting her son just hunted his first deer, but she said she has had conversations with law enforcement officers who are not in favor of guns on college campuses owing to concerns such policy would endanger both students and officers.
“I respect the Second Amendment, but we know that guns on campus increases the likelihood of deaths on campus,” she said.
Beyond the issue of firearms on campus, the candidates disagreed over how much public funding universities should receive in the first place.
“The only way we make sure that everybody has access to opportunity in the state of Oklahoma is we actually fund our universities,” Fuxa said. “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.”
Crediting OSU President Kayse Shrum for her fundraising efforts, Grellner said increases to university funding are better when they come from private donors, not state budget increases, and he said he would not support a funding increase for higher education next session.
“I say that government needs to get more efficient, and we need to quit spending all the money we have, because they’re going to spend every penny you give them,” Grellner said.
‘The rhetoric has to stop’
Alongside his criticism of high government spending, Grellner said he would support a quarter-point income tax cut this spring, a proposal that failed to receive a vote in the Oklahoma State Senate last year as the Legislature’s upper change chose to eliminate the state portion of sales tax on groceries instead.
Fuxa disagreed.
“Oklahoma isn’t fiscally sound without a steady stream of income for our state,” she said. “I don’t think we need to raise taxes, but we also can’t decimate our public services.”
Grellner countered by pointing to the record state savings that the Legislature and Gov. Kevin Stitt have prioritized in recent years.
“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,” Grellner said. “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 and running our lives, then we’re never going to get ahead.”
Fuxa pushed back on Grellner’s rhetoric.
“I have concerns with someone seeking to enter government if they don’t think government can be helpful,” she responded.
Also on the topic of income tax, the candidates discussed the pending Oklahoma Supreme Court appeal of Alicia Stroble, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation who has cited state code and federal precedent to argue she should be exempt from state income taxation because she earns money through her tribe and lives within its Indian Country reservation boundaries.
Fuxa said she wants to respect tribal sovereignty and suggested that compacts with tribal nations could ensure that all of their citizens continue to pay income tax if the Supreme Court rules in Stroble’s favor. She said she was not “fully committed to the notion that one would be exempt fully from tax to the state.”
“For me, we live in both spaces — everybody in the state of Oklahoma needs to pay taxes to the state of Oklahoma,” she said.
Grellner took the question as an opportunity to address the chilly relationship between the state government and the tribes from a wider standpoint, criticizing Gov. Kevin Stitt for his aggressive approach.
“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 (we) have to figure this thing out,” he said.
But Grellner did criticize the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which functionally affirmed eastern Oklahoma as a series of Indian Country reservations where only tribes and the federal government have jurisdiction to prosecute Indigenous people accused of crimes.
Grellner said the ruling has created legal ambiguities in Oklahoma, going so far as to claim a hit-and-run perpetrator would not be held accountable if they were a tribal citizen.
“We’re stuck with a deal in Tulsa where if you run a red light and kill somebody that’s an Oklahoman, but not a tribal member, you have no penalties, you go down the road and you’re let off the hook,” Grellner said.
When a moderator noted that tribal and federal authorities still have the authority to prosecute tribal citizens, Grellner said federal courts are too inundated to keep up with all offenses.
“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 nonviolent, they dismiss them,” Grellner said.
Fuxa criticized the idea tribal citizens who commit crimes aren’t prosecuted, saying tribal and federal authorities collaborate to make sure justice is served. She also credited the tribes for contributing to the state’s economy.
“We have incredible contributions in health, education — tons of services we see provided,” Fuxa said. “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 fired back.
“So basically, if they pay enough, we don’t care if they follow the rules. That’s what I’m hearing. And I want to tell you, right now, the law ought to be the law across the land,” he said. “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.”
The comment drew groans from half of the crowd and applause from the other half.
In response, Fuxa reiterated that tribal and federal authorities are handling prosecutions of Indigenous people in eastern Oklahoma and took exception to the comparison of former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“There’s absolutely no reason why prosecutions can’t happen. They are happening,” she said. “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 state of Oklahoma.”
‘You have no right to even answer this question’
Asked if the candidates would support turning over the question of expanding abortion rights to the voters of Oklahoma, Grellner said “No” but Fuxa said “Yes,” arguing that Oklahoma’s stringent abortion laws make it difficult for doctors to provide full care to women.
“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,” Fuxa said. “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. (…) I will trust Oklahoma families when they’re in crisis. I will not try to impose a decision from the government on that situation.”
Grellner did not dispute encouraging the woman to carry the baby to term, but he said Fuxa was missing the rest of the story.
“I followed up with that lady six years ago, and she thanked me for taking this child to term 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 to spend 24 hours with this baby that she had carried for nine months, so I don’t think that’s irrational,” he said.
Grellner said if the state wanted to put abortion on a ballot, “that’s fine,” but clarified he’s personally opposed. He said he believes “the Constitution kicks in” at conception, protecting the child’s right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The candidates’ discussion of health care became even more contentious when they turned their attention to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Grellner defending his widespread prescription of ivermectin, which is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of COVID but that some medical providers swore by as the world struggled to combat the novel coronavirus.
“I have people that I take care of that are friends, family, people I’ve known for 25 years. I’m going to go do and check to do research, and I found that it worked amazing, and I probably treated over 10,000 people with ivermectin from all across the nation,” Grellner said, turning to Fuxa. “Nobody is an expert on this, except me, and so, you can say whatever you want.”
Grellner’s website says he is “against inconsistent mask mandates and vaccine mandates.” Asked if he is concerned by declining vaccination rates for preventable diseases like polio and measles, Grellner said vaccinations are a matter of personal choice, and he said the COVID vaccine should not be considered a typical vaccine.
“I don’t like declining vaccination rates, but we do have research to do on vaccines, and I’ll tell you, the COVID vaccine is gene therapy,” Grellner said. “It’s not a vaccine. It encodes your mitochondria to make a protein called the spike protein.”
As for diseases that have been nearly eradicated by vaccination, Grellner said, “We give those routinely.”
“I would say this: Parents have a choice,” Grellner said. “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.”
Fuxa said Grellner was pushing a dangerous narrative.
“This kind of mythology is exactly why Oklahoma had some of the highest deaths in the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fuxa said. “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. (…) Children are going to die because of this kind of vaccine skepticism that is being fomented by my opponent.”
Fuxa said voters should ask themselves why Grellner is not endorsed by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, a statement that drew quick return fire from Grellner.
“Because they’re a bunch of left-wing hacks,” Grellner said, drawing applause from his supporters in the audience. “You can say what you want to, the COVID mRNA vaccine, there’s a thing called reverse transcriptase (…) and that has the ability to reverse and plant that back in your DNA. It’s been proven, and to say it’s not is — well, you have no expertise on it.”
Viruses such as HIV and Hepatitis B use reverse transcriptase to replicate. Studies show the virus that causes COVID-19 may also be able to reverse transcribe into the human genome. One study found evidence an mRNA COVID vaccine could cause reverse transcription in liver cells in vitro, but one of the study’s reviewers called the experimental model “scientifically incompetent,” in part because the vaccine dosage used in the study was much higher than what is given to patients, and in part because live subjects can mount immune responses that in vitro cells are unable to.
In response to Grellner saying she lacked expertise on the topic, Fuxa said studying for her doctorate taught her how to read research critically.
“As somebody who’s earned a Ph.D, I have high media literacy,” Fuxa said. “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 maintained practice is more illuminating than theory.
“You have no clinical experience with it, and you can write a study any way you want to,” Grellner said. “I can write a study to make ‘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 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.”
The Senate District 21 candidates are campaigning to succeed state Sen. Tom Dugger (R-Stillwater), who chose not to seek a third term in office. They will appear on the ballot of the Nov. 5 general election for residents of most of Stillwater, Cushing, a large swath of Payne County and the northwestern corner of Creek County. Early voting for the election is set to begin Wednesday, Oct. 30.
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Watch the full Senate District 21 debate
