Oklahoma City, OK – The chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party on Wednesday called for Republican nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction Lloyd Roettger to come clean and explain the violation of Oklahoma’s campaign ethics laws by his troubled campaign.
Roettger has repeatedly used a public school’s fax machine to send in his ethics reports, encouraged public school employees to use taxpayer time and resources for his campaign’s benefit and may have accepted an illegal contribution from a non-US citizen.
“The more the public learns about Lloyd Roettger’s campaign, the more they’ll realize he’s not the person we should trust to be in charge of our children,” said state party chairman Jay Parmley.
On Roettger’s’ campaign contributions and expenditures report filed with the State Ethics Commission Roettger used a taxpayer funded fax machine in the Crutcho School District. Kermit V. Jones, Roettger’s campaign treasurer, is the Superintendent of Crutcho Schools.
Another Roettger campaign supporter hustling votes on the taxpayers’ dime includes Woodward School Superintendent Bill Denton. Denton issued a fundraising request on Roettger letterhead urging fellow educators to call him and listed a Woodward Public Schools phone number.
“The main reason Republicans can’t seize education as an issue is they have no sense of accountability,” said Parmley. “Our schools are going broke, and Lloyd Roettger is encouraging a few of their administrators to campaign rather than find common sense solutions for common problems.”
What may be the most disturbing about Roettger’s haphazard campaign is that nearly 1/6 of his overall donations may be illegal. Roettger has accepted a $5,000 in-kind contribution from an individual named Alexander Kritscher, who lives in Koeln, Germany. Law prohibits non-US citizens from attempting to influence elections with campaign donations.
“Roettger can’t even run his own campaign ethically, imagine what he would do to the state school system,” Parmley concluded.