In a public forum May 12, Tulsa County Republican Chairman Melissa Myers announced that her office had contacted both Oklahoma Republican Candidates for Attorney General. Jon Echols confirmed immediately. Jeff Starling did not.
Myers said, “For the longest time, there was no response from Starling until just a few weeks ago, when he asserted he had another engagement. As a result, we will have a forum to get to know Jon Echols.”
Griffin Communications (TV 6 in Tulsa and TV 9 in OKC) have announced a televised forum tonight, May 18, in Oklahoma City. Let us hope they have a contract signed with Mr. Starling. To many Tulsans, Starling has not been seen and some suspect… well, a great many unacceptable things.
The Tulsa Republican Party Attorney General Forum was moderated by a broadcast personality. Jon Echols was first asked to introduce himself.
Echols: Thank you for having me here. My philosophy on debates and forums is any place, anytime, any chance I get to talk with voters, that’s what I want to do. I am a fifth-generation Oklahoman, but other than my salvation, the best part of me is right over there—my wife Kristen.
I am a lawyer. I am a small business owner. I served twelve years in the Oklahoma Legislature, And I am proud to be the conservative public safety candidate to be your next Attorney General. And I am so excited to get the answers tonight and to be here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thank you so much for having me.
Moderator: Are you willing to challenge the governor of your own party?
Echols: I’ve already done it twice. I’ll give you the first one. I called on my opponent to resign from Governor Stitt’s cabinet when Governor Stitt came out and bucked President Donald J. Trump on the immigration issue. When he came out and essentially said we need more illegal immigration. I am the guy that made illegal immigration a state crime in the State of Oklahoma. He was wrong then, and he’s wrong now.
We can have good-natured debate, but tonight, I am disappointed you are just hearing from me. This is the fourth debate my opponent has chosen not to show up on, or we could be having this conversation together right now. But to be clear, I am never afraid to call out anybody and not afraid to defend my record.
Moderator: How do you ensure that legal decisions are based on the law and not influenced by donors or party leadership?
Echols: One thing you know about me is I am not going to be influenced. I just gave seven thousand dollars back. But number two, when you are talking about a conservative attorney general, that’s a little bit different than a conservative legislator.
Think about it from the perspective of the courts for Justice Antonin Scalia and for Justice Clarence Thomas. What they say is they were ‘slaved to the law.’ What does that mean? That means whether they agreed with it or not, they would follow the law.
I am the second generation out of poverty. I am a poor kid from South Oklahoma City. We didn’t have any political connections and we still don’t. I am going to treat everyone, whether they’re from Nichols Hills or Southern Hills or the wrong side of the tracks the same. I am going to follow the law.
Moderator: How do you handle a St. Isidore issue with when most of the party and the governor is on the other side of the issue?
Echols: On St. Isidore first. I am a school choice person. In the St. Isidore case, I filed an amicus brief with the ACLJ. You’ll probably hear me talk about the ACLJ a lot. If you know anything about the American Center for Law and Justice. That’s the type of lawyer I am. I’m going to stand for your religious liberty.
I have a belief system that God gave children to their parents. That is what I believe the system is set up for, and I will continue to stand firmly in that belief system.
Moderator: What is the greatest legal threat facing Oklahoma citizens right now?
Echols: Illegal marijuana, specifically from China and the Mexican cartels. That is the greatest legal threat facing us right now inside the state of Oklahoma. The citizens voted for medical marijuana, but what has happened is we have been infiltrated by illegal foreign influence.
They will be gone and destroyed. And when I say that, and when I talk about what I’ve done as a legislator, it’s not to brag. I was the one that passed the law that gave the attorney general the authority [to act against illegal grows].
I am proud to have law enforcement’s back. We are going to shut down many of these Chinese backed or Mexican Cartel backed operations.
Moderator: What are your thoughts on the McGirt decision.
Echols: The McGirt decision was decided, frankly, on behalf of a real scumbag, Jesse McGirt, a child molester. The decision itself said for purposes of the Major Crimes Act. I am a law professor by training, and my team tells me don’t get too law professor, so we’ll try not to, but for purposes of the Major Crimes Act. That’s the big seven crimes and now tribes have jurisdiction over tribal citizens on tribal land. How do we unpack that? Here is my position as attorney general: we need more compacts, less lawsuits. We must come up with a way to deal with this problem that doesn’t involve federalizing Oklahoma law which [sends issues] to nine U.S. Supreme Court justices that can’t find Oklahoma on a map.
My plan is to work out these jurisdictional differences, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not that hard. We’ve had joint jurisdiction when it comes to native adoption, and it hasn’t been that hard.
Moderator: Was it a mistake for the city of Tulsa to enter into an agreement with the Muscogee Creek Nation? Or should that be a state level agreement?
Echols: It should be a state level agreement. Part of the problem is that we have a patchwork of jurisdictional issues. When I explain McGirt in the details, what you are going to hear me talk about is the victims of crime. Because at the end of the day, that’s who I am concerned about. When I talk about perpetrators getting justice, it’s because I am an ordained Southern Baptist deacon; I believe in a Lord that believes in justice. He believes in redemption too, but he also believes in justice.
We have a jurisdictional patchwork. I will say part of the reason Tulsa made the agreement is the failure of the state. Had the state come in and worked out functional agreements, Tulsa would have been covered.
Again, I am so proud to have these sixty sheriff endorsements. They are concerned [at times of arrest] about figuring out which tribal boundary covers which part of the state. Those endorsement attest that I am the guy that’s going to lead us to something that actually has justice for offenders and victims.
Moderator: The Oklahoma State Auditor’s Office published the results of several special audits that have identified millions of dollars in mishandled funds, for example, from Tulsa Public Schools. What criteria will you use to determine which audit results are worthy of formal prosecution?
Echols: We live in a state that has what I call soft corruption. The powerful get away with things that the rest of us just don’t get away with, and my race is a perfect example of that.
If you were stealing from the state of Oklahoma, you would be excited when I got out of the legislature. Because I was the guy that created LOFT [Oklahoma Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency], I was the guy that went to bat to call out corruption and theft. I have news for Oklahoma criminals: I am coming back as State Attorney General.
The reason that the state auditor can’t do their own audits dates back to the seventies. We had an out-of-control Democrat auditor who used the office as a weapon. Then the legislature overcorrected which government tends to do. Now we have an auditor who literally can’t call their own audit.
I think more people should be allowed to call for audits. I think audits are great things. I think you could say, for example, if the auditor called for an audit on their own, they would have to inform the Speaker of the House and the Senate. I would like to see the pendulum swing the other way in favor of more audits.
Guys, I created LOFT, and it took me three years to do it. Loft, when I talk about it, was DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] before DOGE. It existed hired its own internal accountants that could be embedded inside state agencies. Despite taking three years, I am a bulldog on protecting taxpayer dollars.
As attorney general, you are giving me an even bigger sword of law. I will be way more aggressive in making sure your taxpayer dollars are spent well. That’s part of the reason for my service inside the legislature; I am a small business owner. I am the only [candidate in this race] that’s ever tried a lawsuit within the state of Oklahoma.
You are going to elect me as attorney general to watch over your taxpayer dollars, and I will be very aggressive on day one. If I was attorney general right now, I would have already called for an audit on the Department of Mental Health.
I’d call one for the MCOs [Managed Care Organization]. That’s going to get some more super PAC ads against me because I think that’s who’s funding some of the [attack ads] now. The MCOs are taking advantage of our local providers inside Oklahoma, and I would call for a wellness care authority right now. An audit doesn’t mean something is wrong; an audit means we need to look under the hood to see what’s going on.
Moderator: This next question is on your view of Sharia Law in Oklahoma.
Echols: I will follow the law. First the law means the Constitution. Number two, it means statutes. I will not follow what I wish the law would be.
I am not shy of saying when I think the law is wrong. I’ve done that a lot, but at the end of the day, I will be someone that follows the law. I will hold everyone accountable to the law. And if I think the law is wrong, meaning it should be changed, then I will say that. But I will follow the Constitution above what I will follow statutorily.
As Attorney General, I would have investigated the proposal for a Broken Arrow Mosque. I am the only one in this race that sent people to the meetings to talk and listen to people about what was going on. The proposal was funded by a terrorist organization. We must investigate that. We must put a stop to that. I think the law should be clearer.
I believe in American law only for American courts. Period. Hard stop.
Moderator: The attorney general’s office has a consumer protection division for fraud and protection against foreclosure abuse. How do you plan on operating those divisions? Any different than what’s being done now?
Echols: A lot of people think the attorney general is a chief District Attorney. It’s not. But you hear me say as I go throughout the state, the attorney general is a lawyer for the taxpayers of Oklahoma. In addition to holding state government accountable, it has an entire consumer protection division, whose job is to make sure consumers are taken care of. By a show of hands, how many of you know if you were taken advantage of by a contractor? The attorney general has an entire division that can help.
For those watching on the internet, roughly five percent of the audience know that. How many of you know that the attorney general can help you with your Medicaid rates, for example, or your health insurance rates? Because it has an entire division in the consumer protection department to make sure, for example, to prosecute Medicaid fraud.
I am in politics because this is my service to the citizens of the state of Oklahoma. I do this because I want to make a difference.
One of my big initiatives is sending staff to go out and talk to citizens about the consumer protection division—to be front-facing, no different than congressional field reps. And I can do this with no extra money.
I’ll commit right now, I won’t ask for another dime from the legislature to run the attorney general’s office. We are going to be forward-facing to make sure the consumer protection division works for the people.
Moderator: How do you see the role of the Tenth Amendment in the Constitution protecting state authority.
Echoles: When I was in the legislature, we created what is called the Tenth Amendment Center in the attorney general’s office for the express purpose of protecting the citizens of the State of Oklahoma against an out-of-control federal government. Part of the reasons some old members of the Senate were mad at me is because they wouldn’t hear it, and I helped lead a rally at the state capitol to force the change.
Many of you were probably there when I was standing beside Don Spencer to get the Tenth Amendment Center passed. I am currently the only statewide candidate endorsed by the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association. I am incredibly proud of that.
The second amendment is the one that guards all the other amendments. The tenth amendment is the one right after it in my opinion. I am a federalist. What that means is, I believe all rights not specifically stated, all responsibilities not specifically stated in the constitution belong to the states. With President Donald Trump, as Attorney General, I am going to work hand in glove with him.
Moderator: On the same page, the next question is; when should the attorney general decide to act against the federal government?
Echols: Anytime the federal government oversteps its bounds, the attorney general of the state of Oklahoma is honor-bound and duty-bound to protect its citizens. Period. End of story.
Moderator: When would you join or lead multistate lawsuits?
Echols: That’s a great question. I know I keep going back to it, the ACLJ thing, but that tells you a lot about my general philosophies on conservatism and religious freedom. If you are looking for the type of attorney general that I am going to be, that’s going to be my duty. We are going to be joining in religious freedom cases. We are going to be leaders in the prolife movement on the national stage. We are going to be leaders in taking on these out-of-control leftist organizations. I am also going to be a leader in holding big business accountable when they’re doing things like grooming our children, which is happening inside things like Roblox and others. We’re going to hit all of them.
We’re going to address some of the ridiculous dark money ads that have just been absolutely lying about me. Guys, that’s funded by liberal out-of-state interests, because they are afraid of having me as attorney general. So as your next attorney general, we are going to be a lawyer for the people. We are going to join in conservative issues.
Moderator: The narrative your opponent is putting out there that you are a career politician looking for your next job. True or false?
Echols: I’ve heard that. That’s why I keep talking about what I’ve done in the capital. One of the things my opponent and I have in common is that I go around the state talking about myself as attorney general and he goes around the state talking about me for attorney general.
If you want to know what my record is, come to me and talk about it. Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t need another job. God has been good to us. I am the only one in this race, Republican or Democrat, that’s ever started a small business at their own risk.
If it wasn’t for the law, I would still be a poor kid from Southwest Twenty Third Street. My mom and dad met in law school, where my mom was a single mother, special education teacher going to law school at night, first generation to ever go. She’s passed away ten years ago; God bless her. I’ll see her again in heaven. But that’s where the law changed my life.
I love the law. I believe in the law. The attorney general’s office is my New York Yankees job. This is the job that I want to do, and I was born to do this. I am proud of my service to the state of Oklahoma, and I am proud of what I’ve done.
I’m going to hit three things at once because they’re all together, and I think we make a mistake when we hit them separately. I’m gonna hit illegal-grows, I’m gonna hit fentanyl, and I’m gonna hit human trafficking.
There’s a group of moms in Tulsa, moms and some dads, who have lost their children to fentanyl. Sadly, about half those children were traditional drug addicts. The other half just experimented one time with what they thought was [harmless] and it was laced with fentanyl and killed them. China has been making fentanyl or opium longer than we’ve been a country.
Fentanyl deaths in the rest of the country are going down. What does that have to do with human trafficking? Because it all comes in here together.
I am so proud to have been in the legislature when we created the human trafficking division that exists inside the attorney general’s office. And again, talking about the crossroads of America, I-35 and I-40 here. These law enforcement endorsements matter, and don’t listen to anybody that tells you they don’t. If you want to know what’s going on with human trafficking or with fentanyl, talk to your local sheriffs, talk to your local police because they live it everyday.
I will be the hardest attorney general in the country on human trafficking. It is a crisis inside the state of Oklahoma, and we will work with local law enforcement to do it.
Moderator: What do we do about the Oklahoma marijuana businesses?
Echols: The citizens of the state voted for passage of the medical marijuana question, so it is what it is good or bad, the citizens passed it. But now that we’ve done it and we’ve experimented with it for a while, we need to change it.
The Legislature should add some real penalties early on for hardcore illicit drugs. If you are not going to get somebody to get the mental health treatment that they need, and a lot of these are mental health problems. They’re not going to get the treatment that they need if there aren’t some types of consequences inside of that.
These are some real concrete solutions that I wish we would have passed. And think the best time to fix the shoplifting issue was four years ago when I tried to fix it. The second-best time is now; it’s kind of like planting a tree.
Moderator: Has an attorney general ever refused to defend a state law in court, and if so, what standard would you use?
Echols: Generally, no. The attorney general should not insert their will for the will of the Legislature. My standard is the U.S. Constitution. That’s it; that’s the standard.
If the legislature were to pass a bill tomorrow that says abortion on demand, and you can do partial birth abortion, I can’t defend that. I just can’t. I think that violates our Constitution. It’s not something I would do. I think the job is, to the extent possible, follow the making body.
Moderator: Attorney General opinions can be legally binding. Do you agree with the current process that what they say is law of the land?
Echols: I do. I think that’s a good thing. But let me tell you what I am going to do a little bit differently. I am going to review old attorney general opinions. We have eighty years of Democrat attorney general opinions that no Republican attorney general has reviewed something that’s routinely done by attorney generals in other states.
Moderator: What and who is God to you?
Echols: My Lord and Savior of my soul is who God is to me. The Apostle Paul says he is the chief among sinners, and I can only imagine what that makes me. But I am justified through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
My wife and I met at First Southern Baptist Church, Dell City. When I was fifteen years old, I saw her walking across the back of the church, I was done. We went to school together at Christian Heritage Academy. Then we got married.
Audience Question: We are seeing a rush of data centers come to Oklahoma. Could you talk about the changes in the law that made Oklahoma so attractive to them? Do you see a role for your consumer protection group in the amount of energy, water, and cost of all this?
Further, in the approval process, NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) have been used by big money and big PR firms, and they throw it at officials. Then officials throw it to the public as though that covers in secrecy all project details. Could you clarify?
Echols: I am going to hit both of those. My race is a good example of that. It truly is big business versus small business. It’s Oklahoma business versus Virginia business, and then huge publicly traded corporate business versus me, a seven-time small business entrepreneur.
NDAs are a terrible idea. They shouldn’t be used in state government. I would have supported the bill that would have gotten rid of them. When the governor was chasing Mitsubishi or whatever else. I wouldn’t sign the NDA.
Oklahoma can’t be the dumping ground for data centers. The way it became a dumping ground for wind, we can’t do that.
Here is what we must do in the State of Oklahoma. Number one, our water and number two, our electricity. I am going to implement a very specific plan on both of those. As to electricity, I am the lawyer for the rate payers when you elect me as your next attorney general and I will make sure that data centers pay for any increase, any cost that is associated so it doesn’t go on your electricity rates. I am running against the current Oklahoma Secretary of Energy, who hasn’t said that we have a difference on this issue.
The second issue is water. Data centers are massive users of water. One of the things the legislature did this year was pass a bill requiring reclaimed water for cooling, which would have cut about ninety five percent of the total water utilization.
Audience Question: You mentioned the marijuana and the fentanyl issues. Do you support tightening the ability to get it?
Echols: That’s a great question. I get beat up on this all the time because I am hard on illegal growers. There is nobody in the state harder; I’ve been going after them. I’ve been trying to chase them in the legislature for eight years. If you are legitimately in the medical marijuana business, then I am going to defend your right to do it; it’s the law. If you are a dispensary and check cards, not selling to kids or legally in the grow business, that’s legal.
I am offering something different. I passed the bill that allowed secret shopper programs at dispensaries. You know why every grocery store, every convenience store out there doesn’t sell beer to kids under twenty-one? Because ABLE goes around and checks it with a secret shopper program. OMMA has legal authority to have a secret shopper program. I know because I passed it; it was my bill. But they’re not doing enough of it. As the next attorney general, I will if they won’t step up.
As AG, I am going to ask for the same authority, and I am going to go do it. I think what we need to do is enforce the laws we have. That would solve ninety-nine percent of the problems with dispensaries.
A previous story by this writer on Jon Echols, February 17, 2026 is available here. To reach Jon Echols’ website, click here.
About the author: David Arnett’s beginning in print journalism was not planned in 1985 but covered by Rebecca Martin writing for the Columbia Journalism Review in 1987. After 11 years in print, he established TulsaToday online in 1996 and Straight Up on Substack in 2022 providing email subscriptions. In April 2026, he began the YouTube Channel, Straight Up Dave. Arnett is identified nationally as a “Veteran Oklahoma Political Journalist.”
Thank you for reading. Your comments are welcome below and/or by email.
Very thorough and well written. I have seen lots of hit pieces against Echoles and in Oklahoma, when the cards come in the mail and when you research their origin only to find out that the listed phone number only rings busy and the physical address is a mail box located in a strip mall, you know that the attack is a political ploy and not credible. Stirling seems to be the beneficiary of them here in Shawnee, so I will be backing Echoles.
Good review. Thanks.