Several stories were coming from the state legislative chambers that caught my attention over the past few weeks that are worth mentioning. In Michigan, the state is pushing hard for citizens to voluntarily house migrants on a state website, something that is raising concerns over if the state will eventually begin a violation of the 3rd Amendment regarding quartering people against the will of the landowners or renters. There is also potential overdramatization on the Republican side regarding transgender issues because of the death of a recent “non-binary” student in which an Oklahoma state lawmaker had less-than-flattering words and where the appointment of a controversial media figure by the state Superintendent of Education is drawing ire because of various reasons including her not living in Oklahoma. Also, a state legislator in Virginia is throwing what amounts to a hissy fit over what possibly could be misconstrued as a misunderstanding, but is generally not a justifiable reason for walking out of legislative session anyway.
Let’s get to the stories.
Volunteers Needed to Support Refugee Resettlement Efforts in Michigan
Starting off with Michigan, the website comes from the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Opportunity where the text encourages people to become a sponsor of someone through Welcome Corps or to sponsor someone from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, or from Ukraine. The issue with this proposal is that if disincentivizing illegal immigration was the goal, this undermined the goal entirely with whoever signs up for this proposal. Whoever does sign up for this proposal is taking the gamble of hoping that the person they are assigned with is able to be acclimated with American culture and then prosper into independence at some point. If not enough people sign up for this venture, the question then becomes if the state legislature can somehow force accommodations to be made by average citizens.
While I have spoken about how immigration can be a benefit, especially from the country of Cuba because of how it undermines the communist messaging of utopia with people leaving instead of staying and starting families, the issue is the methodology at work. Is this process the proper asylum from existential threats or is this a means of bypassing the legal paperwork that other migrants are having to undergo and wait years for entry for to get American citizenship for? I can understand that immigration reform needs to happen, but endorsing line-cutting and illegality in the name of “feels” isn’t going to remedy a situation that is already incentivized enough by weakness on the issue by the federal government.
Oklahoma Republican calls LGBTQ people ‘filth’ when asked about death of nonbinary student (msn.com)
Moving onto the subject of the death of Nex Benedict, there has been back-and-forth surrounding the cause of death and what contributed to it (I don’t see the point in being rude to the dead, so I will honor their pronoun choice since it has no bearing on my life), but GOP lawmakers have managed once again to botch their handling of a sensitive issue in Oklahoma by using the worst language. While last week the crackpot of the week was state legislator Kevin West (R-OK) proposing putting women on a list who received abortion to potentially receive discrimination from the government later, this week it’s fellow Republican state senator Tom Woods (R-OK) who said that his heart went out to the family, but “We are a religious state. We are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we’re a Christian state.” That report comes from Raw Story.
That comment using the language filth raises the question of would Woods even be wishing the family any well wishes at all if he felt that he was obligated to show some restraint in how much he didn’t like certain groups of people. I’ve written my piece many times about how the excesses over pronouns and gender/sexual expression has gone too far to the left in some cases, but calling an entire group of people “filth” even if they are unpopular in abstract political language is only going to make them more sympathetic. For the Oklahoma GOP, this is just another example after weeks of repeated controversies that show how the party is actually trying to destroy it’s long-standing dominance over state politics. We’ll see how the 2026 gubernatorial election goes when Governor Kevin Stitt, who underperformed in 2022, will be term-limited and the even more controversial and cringe Superintendent Ryan Walters will likely contest the office (all office holders are Republican).
Ryan Walters (politician) – Wikipedia (The list of controversies is on the page in their sources)
2026 Oklahoma gubernatorial election – Wikipedia
This also comes as Walters has decided to hire Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik was appointed to a position within the state’s education department despite not living within the state of Oklahoma. Technically speaking, if there isn’t a law preventing a non-Oklahoman from telling an Oklahoman how to conduct their educational system, that’s a failure on the part of the state legislature and the Governor. From a 10th Amendment perspective and the general perspective of officeholders representing the people that they are commanding, Raichik should either be required to move to Oklahoma in order to take the job in question or refuse it in good faith. That would constitute an example of good government. Then again, Ryan Walters is more concerned about combatting anything other than his own controversies in office which usually means having LGBT, minorities, or whatever group he can have as a problem to blame as the real issue to focus on.
Concluding on Virginia, one would think that lawmakers are supposed to have thicker skin than average people. By being entrusted to have the power to pass laws that can fundamentally change the living conditions of thousands or millions of people, concessions to that power include privacy, anonymity from your votes and your donors, and being vulnerable to being criticized with mean names online, in person, and by accident, sometimes all in one day for weeks on end. Some people aren’t built for that life, others try to get immunity from difficulty by simply acting like a crybaby. In the case of state senator Danica Roem (D-VA), she was upset that Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears called her “sir” (she is transgender) to which she barged out of the room.
Obviously, I am using the female pronouns to be respectful by choice, but imagine that Roem becomes a congresswoman or Senator and has to go overseas to a country that doesn’t even allow consensual gay relations without the threat of death. She won’t be able to leave the important meetings, just like she did the Virginia lawmaking chamber of that country, just because Vladimir Putin is xenophobic. More importantly, let’s assume the worst-case scenario that Winsome Sears was being mean just to be mean (I’m not implying she was, this is hypothetical), Roem gets a taxpayer salary to take the abuse for her constituents. If she can’t handle something as redundant as pronouns without being horrifically offended, what is she going to do when sensitive and delicate legislation that is heavy on heart gets to committee? Her constituents will deserve better, but they’ll be held to the bigotry of low expectations waiting for everyone to get over “decorum”.
The Conservatarian Millennial 
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