By Alyssa Sperrazza
Staff Writer
The Republican race for House District 41 has been a highly contested one that will be decided Tuesday during the runoff election.
Replacing Rep. John Enns, R-Enid who is not able to run for re-election due to term limits.
A runoff election to decide the Republican candidate will take place Tuesday, August 28.
The two candidates, Roxanne Pollard and Denise Crosswhite Hader, were within 1,000 votes of each other, according to the State Election Board results, with Pollard taking 36.89 percent and Hader taking 29.83.
Neither woman has held office before but both expressed their hope that should they be elected, big changes would occur.
Following the teacher strikes that caught national attention, Pollard said, if elected, her focus would remain on public schools and the changes that teachers asked to be made.
“We’ve done a lot of good things in education this past year but there’s a whole lot more that needs to be done,” Pollard said. “Our grandchildren that are all in school are in public education and that is what I will continue to support.”
Hader is taking a different approach to education, shifting the focus from the teachers to the parents.
“My goal would be to empower parents,” Hader said. “They are their children’s primary teachers. They need options as to what works best for that family, for their unique children with unique gifts and learning styles. So I’m a big supporter of all different kinds of educational options.”
Shifting the focus from classrooms to the roads the school buses drive on, Hader said that would be her main priority.
“Infrastructure doesn’t pick winners and losers. It serves everyone equally as a core function of government,” she said.
Pollard also acknowledged how vital roads are for Oklahomans, acknowledging that the state doesn’t have the best track record in rural areas.
“Our rural roads are in the top ten of the worst roads in rural areas,” Pollard said. “So we need to continue with some accountability for that and we also need to continue to be able to fund our public transportation.”
Fixing roads and other infrastructure costs money, and when asked about budget priorities, both candidates agreed that auditing and accountability are required.
“We continue to talk about more and more spending and more and more funds, but let’s be accountable with the money we already have before we try to increase taxes,” Hader said.
“The entire state budget is taxpayer’s dollars.”
A nationwide prison strike began Aug. 21 and is planning to last until Sept. 9, prompting a nationwide discussion on prison reform. And just this past June, the Prison Policy Initiative gave Oklahoma the title of “the world’s prison capital.” Pollard said she’s tired of the state being at the top of every bad list and the bottom of every good list.
“We need to continue to find ways like we have in the past with our drug court, and not send the low-class things that happen, to not send those people to jail and rather look at other ways we could help them.”
