Ryan Walters wants Oklahoma taxpayers to buy 55,000 Trump bibles for public schools

A new document limits the types of bibles that the state will purchase. Only the Trump Bible appears to meet the criteria.

This newsletter is free, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!

---

I mentioned last week that Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters was planning to spend $6,000,000 on New King James Version bibles for teachers across the state. (His office had budgeted $3 million already and he was requesting another $3 million from legislators in their upcoming budget.)

Ryan Walters, about to say something thoughtless (screenshot via Facebook)

I also noted that Oklahoma only has about 43,000 public school teachers, most of whom don’t teach classes that would need a Bible under Walters’ own plans, but that even if you bought a copy of the book for every single one of them, it would come out to $139.53 per Bible. A complete waste of money.

Walters also said during a meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Education that the bibles he wanted to purchase need to be “New King James Version editions” (as opposed to the more archaic KJV) with no commentary. He said it would be okay, though, if the books included historical documents like the U.S. Constitution.

All of that appeared to describe the infamous Donald Trump bibles that the candidate was hawking earlier this year… except that the Trump bibles used the (copyright-free) KJV translation. So not a perfect match.

Walters has now released his “Request for Proposal” for all those bibles—basically asking book publishers to bid on supplying Oklahoma schools with all those bibles, with the lowest bid meeting all the requirements getting the contract.

And wouldn’t you know it: All the requirements describe the Trump Bible just perfectly.

Walters says he needs 55,000 bibles that contain the KJV translation (so much for the “New KJV” translation he mentioned earlier). Why that translation? For “historical accuracy,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.

Additional documents are no longer optional. The books “must include” the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Bill of Rights. All of which—coincidentally, I’m sure—happen to be included in the (already-printed) Trump Bibles… along with the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”

Oh. And the books need to be leather-bound. For some reason.

And they need to be shipped to schools within two weeks of the contract being signed. Which, in practice, means the bibles need to already be printed and ready to go. Maybe they’re just sitting in a warehouse somewhere waiting to be shipped…

It’s not hard to read between the lines: Ryan Walters thinks he’s found a “neutral” way to send Trump his share of over $3 million in taxpayer dollars.

We know that because the requirements for these bibles make no sense, financially or academically.

When reporters at Oklahoma Watch asked one of the largest Christian booksellers in the country if they carried anything matching what Walters wanted, the response was an unequivocal no.

A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters. 

2,900 versions of the same book… and none of them would be good enough for Walters. (The Trump Bible is only available through a specific website.)

In fact, there appears to be just one other version of the Bible that meets all the requirements… and it’s a different Trump-endorsed Bible that costs $89.99 (plus shipping).

Walters couldn’t have made his intentions more clear unless he specified that the bibles need to have a giant “T” on the front cover. (It’s just a cross, he would inevitably argue.)

It’s possible all of this violates state law:

“The [Request for Proposal] on its face seems fair, but with additional scrutiny, we can see there are very few Bibles on the market that would meet these criteria, and all of them have been endorsed by former President Donald Trump,” Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice Executive Director Colleen McCarty said.

Former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said the request for proposals might violate state law.

“It appears to me that this bid is anything but competitive,” Edmondson said. “It adds to the basic specification other requirements that have nothing to do with the text. The special binding and inclusion of government documents will exclude almost all bidders. If the bid specs exclude most bidders unnecessarily, I could consider that a violation.”

Edmondson makes a good point: There’s no good reason the books need to include specific documents from U.S. history or have leather binding. If the goal of the RFP is to get the best price for a project funded by taxpayers, these unnecessary restrictions do nothing but drive up the costs and limit the options. Which is especially idiotic since the KJV translations are already freely available online. Even a basic run-of-the-mill KJV bible runs a few bucks, tops.

There’s no good reason to spend $60 per book unless the real goal here is to send money to Trump and improve Walters’ standing in the GOP so he can eventually be appointed as Secretary of Education under a future Trump Administration.

There’s another problem with the RFP, too. The window for bids is only open for two weeks instead of the standard four. Which only makes sense if you’re simply waiting for one company to send in a bid proposal.

All of this is for a policy that has no legal weight anyway. Walters insisted via memo that teachers needed these bibles, and many superintendents of large public school districts have already told Walters they have no intention of playing along.

The question now is whether current Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who’s been a surprising advocate for church/state separation despite being a Republican, will initiate any kind of investigation. Remember that many other Oklahoma Republicans have already called for a formal investigation into Walters and his office due to a number of concerns that have nothing to do with his Christian Nationalism.

Until then, however, Oklahoma is stuck with an education leader who doesn’t give a damn about education. Walters is only interested in promoting himself. Students across the state remain worse off because of his selfishness and faith-based ignorance. Even if he’s allowed to waste millions of dollars for these Trump bibles, educators don’t want them, don’t need them, and would be better served by chucking the books in the trash the second they receive them. Nothing is stopping teachers from referencing the Bible if they think it’s relevant, but no one can force them to pretend the Trump Bible is the best way to teach American history.

In a state full of Republican embarrassments, Walters remains the undisputed king.

---