Ryan Walters's yearlong feud with a top education official might have thawed. What changed?

After almost a year of growing tension, state Rep. Mark McBride and state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters surprised many at the Capitol last week when suddenly they were making nice.

Behind the scenes, however, the new 'friendship' between the pair was the culmination of a months-long effort by increasingly frustrated House leadership to rein in Walters, according to several people familiar with the efforts.

Those efforts included pointed, closed door meetings with Walters, House Speaker Charles McCall and other leaders, as well as a legislative subpoena to Walters for documents. The effort intensified as internal polls showed Walters' popularity in freefall, interviews with people familiar with the situation said.

It also helped that McBride, once considered Walters' arch nemesis, is a pragmatic politician and, at the same time, a player in leadership circles.

During a Jan. 10 House budget hearing, Walters and the Oklahoma State Department of Education submitted the agency's yearly budget request to lawmakers. Walters spent most of the two-hour session outlining the rationale behind his funding requests for a handful of new proposals. The discussion was cordial, and Walters freely answered questions from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

After the meeting, McBride said he was pleased. “We met last week and I think the big reset was, 'Hey, this is appropriation and budget. I’m not (on the) policy committee,' " McBride said. "This is about the money going to things (in education). I don’t want to hear about certain things. Just come in here and tell me what we’re going to do to improve student outcomes and teachers. Those are my two big things – have been for a long time."

The hearing marked a major change in a relationship that, throughout most of last year, was more akin to a well-publicized feud rather than a policy discussion between two state political leaders.

A yearlong fight between a lawmaker and the state schools superintendent

Late last year, the tension between Walters and McBride, R-Moore, had grown to the point that McBride and fellow lawmaker Rep. Rhonda Baker, R-Yukon, issued a legislative subpoena on Dec. 19, forcing Walters to supply information the pair said they'd sought since the fall.

That legislative subpoena, rare for a state lawmaker, was also signed by House Speaker McCall. In fact, it was the speaker's signature on the subpoena that raised the profile of the problem, McBride said.

“The speaker is very balanced. He’s not a guy that’s just going to put his name on a subpoena just because. It had reached that level of — what would you call it — level of frustration that I said, ‘What do we do?’ There are other things we could have done but, the thing is, they could have called me anything they wanted," McBride said. "They call me all kinds of names. I never did anything but ask questions, and they didn’t want to answer them. The superintendent answered questions yesterday."

That subpoena became the capstone to a yearlong range war that included:

• A debate that grew so ugly during the 2023 spring legislative session that Walters was "cut out of budget negotiations" with members of the House leadership because of his behavior, a source told The Oklahoman. "In the House, they were just exhausted by dealing with him," said a source, close to the situation who asked not to be identified. "So they worked the budget without him."

• Radio silence in July. Two months after the legislative session ended, McBride asked the Education Department for information about a teacher bonus recruitment program that Walters had announced in the spring. McBride didn't receive the information until he subpoenaed Walters in December.

• Extreme political rhetoric. Walters shared a posting on TikTok, which resulted in a bomb threat made against Ellen Ochoa Elementary School in Tulsa on Aug. 22. Officials said the threat appeared to be in retaliation for a librarian's public post. Walters shared the post to his superintendent account, with the caption stating, "Woke ideology is real, and I am here to stop it." After the incident, Democrats began calling for his impeachment.

• Silence again in the fall. In late October, McBride said he’d been caught off guard by the resignation of the Education Department's program manager for grant development and compliance. That resignation was one of a series of resignations that occurred after Walters took over the department. At that time, McBride said, “I really don’t know what’s going on over there. Nobody does. There is some lack of transparency.”

• Adviser's letter in October. The resignations came at the same time McBride made yet another request for information from the Education Department. After that request, McBride said he and Baker received a note from Walters’ top adviser, Matt Langston, that read, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

House Republican leaders push back

Langston's letter was slipped under McBride’s office door at the Capitol after working hours. The letter sparked a furious response from the House's Republican leadership. Sources told The Oklahoman that McCall met with Walters "and let him know that type of behavior was completely uncalled for and inappropriate."

Langston, however, made the issue even more explosive when he responded to the subpoena, telling The Oklahoman that McBride had "made up false narratives and has yet to show a serious effort to improve education in Oklahoma. All Oklahomans should question his political and ideological stances.”

Langston's statement, though, did not address the contents of the subpoena. Days after the incident, the House's second-in-command, Majority Leader Jon Echols, blistered Walters and Langston during an appearance on a televised talk show.

"Policy differences are fine, but what you saw was Chairman McBride, who is chairman of the Education committee, asking for information from the state Department of Education," the normally low-key Echols said during an appearance on KWTV. "And while it's well known that Chairman McBride and Ryan Walters don't get along, what's not well known, and what is not well taken, is the childish antics of a Texan, by the way, who is the chief of staff of the state superintendent, flaunting the Open Records Act and speaking nonsense to an elected official."

Langston's letter, Echols said, was beneath the dignity of the state Education Department. "I was disgusted, never seen anything like it. It was embarrassing."

After the incident, Walters sent a letter to some legislators defending his department’s handling of what normally are routine applications for millions of dollars of federal reimbursement funds. McBride, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, wasn’t included.

By December, the atmosphere between McBride and Walters had become so toxic that some legislative leaders were openly speaking about the possibility of impeachment.

Then in January, the tension between McBride and Walters quickly melted.

Speaking after last week's meeting, McBride said he was pleased by the change. “I think it went awesome. It went how I wanted it to go. It was calm. We got questions answered," he said. "We all showed each other respect."

"Like I said earlier, I think we need to reset. Am I going to agree with Ryan, or is he going to agree with me, on some of the other issues that are out there? No, probably not. But as far as funding for public education, that needs to be our focus in this room and before my committee.”

So what caused the thaw?

Walters quickly replied to McBride and Baker's legislative subpoena and later, spoke at a House budget hearing, praising McBride and acting as if the pair had a long history of working together.

"We’ve been able to work together. We’ve had a lot of great discussions," Walters said after the budget hearing. "I appreciated his feedback in the hearing today."

I appreciated his commentary. I think we’re going to have a great (legislative) session. I really look forward to working together to improve Oklahoma education. I think it was a great hearing today. They asked a lot of great questions and gave us a lot of great feedback.”

So what exactly happened?

According to several people closely familiar with the situation, the effort to rein Walters in began last spring. During 2023 budget negotiations, House leaders began sending Walters a series of messages, some quiet and some direct.

House leadership also barred Walters and Langston from the common education budget negotiations. House leaders let Walters know they had issues with his staff and how he was operating the Education Department, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Still, it took more than one message.

After Walters failed to provide information requested by McBride during the summer, the House again quietly put the education leader on notice. Then, in October, following Langston's letter, Walters was contacted directly by McCall.

That meeting, one of the people familiar with it said, wasn't pretty.

"He got chewed out pretty good," the person said. "There was no room for doubt. Walters knew he and Langston had pissed a bunch of people off and that included the speaker and the majority floor leader."

McBride said Walters' meeting with McCall sparked a subsequent conversation between Walters, himself and Baker.

"We had a very good conversation," McBride said. "He asked me what I wanted in the committee hearing, and I shared with him that I just wanted to hear the budget. My job isn’t this other stuff. My job is to fund education. It changed the tone. It was kind of a reset. He and I are not going to change our opinions. I’m still going to push back on things, but hopefully we can do this in a different manner and be adults and not childish name-calling.”While McCall's signature on the Walters subpoena was unexpected, it was Echols' appearance on television that resonated with Walters and other lawmakers. Echols, who normally works quietly within the GOP caucus, is not known for his temper or his public statements. After Langston's letter, Echols was absolutely furious, and his rare public demonstration of anger got Walters' attention.

Other facts came into play, too.

While the complaints and public expressions of frustration raised the tension between Walters and the House, they weren't the only thing that forced Walters to change his attitude. A series of polls, taken late in the year, showed that Walters' numbers are weak.

At least three different polls — one conducted by the governor's office, one by the House and one by the Senate — each showed Walters about 20 points down from his previous high.

Before the polls, many state lawmakers believed Walters had control of a large, loud group of supporters and numbers that made him all but invincible. This imagined strength prevented most lawmakers from questioning Walters' decisions and pushing back against Walters' extreme rhetoric.

"The numbers were really bad," one of the people familiar with them said. "They showed Walters really underwater and showed that people were tired of 'career politicians.' The polls showed Walters that voters think he is just a extremist trying to score political points. The polls showed him weak. When the caucus saw those numbers, they realized that Walters wasn't bulletproof after all."

After word of the polls got around, those polls and the House leadership's public anger at Walters, the person said, showed the rank and file that the state schools superintendent "was no longer the golden boy."

"Nothing is secret around politics," McBride said. "He (Walters) would have surely heard about what his polling numbers (are). I’ve heard of five polls that are out there. They’re not public polls, but individuals I’ve talked to, four, I’ve seen two and talked with people that knew about the other two. They were not favorable."

Still, problems with Walters continued, McBride said, and Walters left the House with no choice but to issue a subpoena.

"That’s a rare move, but it was the only move that we had," McBride said. "I went to the speaker and said, ‘Hey, I can’t get information. Anything I get is sarcasm from a staffer and we need answers.’ I think that was the changing point, the subpoena. I know he reached out to the speaker. He he turned over the stuff in a very timely manner and the childish behavior stopped."

"I don’t think Ryan was involved in that. If he was, I would be disappointed.”

Since then, Walters' relationship with House leadership has improved, but with the legislative session set to begin in about three weeks, Walters, one of the people familiar with the situation told The Oklahoman, "will need all the help he can get."

"Few people want to deal with him," the person said. "They will listen if he can be reasonable, but if he gets out on a limb again, he'll fall."

For McBride and other House members, even with the thaw, there are still questions that Walters — and only Walters — needs to answer.

“We still have lots of questions. As a matter of fact, somewhere around here, we’ve got a stack of questions that we’re working on sending over there that I didn’t want asked during the meeting," McBride said. "I tried to keep it to appropriations and budget. I didn’t hear the word ‘woke.’ The Democrats were behaved."

I know there were a lot of people angry about the press release he did (the other day, about not working with three nonprofit education service groups). I had some members come to me and I said, ‘We’re not going down (that road). I just read that thing and we’re just not going there.’”

Langston, who is Walters' de facto chief adviser, did not attend when Walters presented the proposed Education Department budget to House members. McBride said that was a good thing.

“If we want to have a good relationship going forward, he (Langston) probably doesn’t need to come over to the building," McBride said. "That would help things a lot.”The Oklahoman asked a spokesman for Walters for an opportunity to speak with the superintendent after another recent legislative meeting, seeking Walters' perspective on how his relationship with the Legislature has changed. The spokesman declined to make Walters available for an interview. In addition, neither McCall nor his spokesman could be reached for comment.And McBride? Right now, he's just waiting and trying to help write a budget.

"We’ve got a job to do. He has a job to do. We want to stay focused on good policy and the budget. I did not have a lot of problems with his budget. Are we going to implement his whole budget? Well, I don’t know," the lawmaker said. "That will be a negotiation. But as far as a leash? I still have my views on education and a lot of what my problem with him has been the rule of law. There are some things that you can do and some things you can’t. He pushes the envelope. I think that will be a place where him and I disagree, but hopefully, we can disagree in a different manner going forward.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters' feud with committee chairman is thawing. Here's why.