A Very OK Podcast
Episode 49: “God, I Need a Drink”
August 19, 2025
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and usually with me is Dr. Bob Blackburn. But he is not able to make it this time because his wife, Debbie, recently passed away. But we have a great person who is stepping in for him, and that is Dr. Matthew Pearce. And, Matt has been with the Oklahoma Historical Society for quite some time. You’ve heard him on this podcast a couple of different times in his role as state historian, as recently as our April podcast, where we talked about the history of the state flag.
Matt Pearce: Right.
Thompson: Matt, it’s great to be with you again.
Pearce: Thank you for having me. I’m glad I was able to to fill in on such short notice. There are some big shoes to fill for stepping in for Dr. Bob, but happy to happy to support.
Thompson: Well, it is big shoes to fill, but I know you always do a great job on this podcast, and if there’s anybody who knows and understands this history, it’s you. And so I am thrilled to have you with us here today. And it’s been a little bit of a wild and sad week kind of here as we’re recording this at the Oklahoma Historical Society. Of course, Governor George Nigh passed away a couple of weeks ago, and then, Dr. Blackburn’s wife Debbie has passed away. And then we just found out recently that Jeff Briley, a long-time Oklahoma Historical Society staff, who was deputy director of the museum and was in charge of our collections for many, many years and, there wasn’t a collections item in our building that Jeff Briley didn’t know the story behind it and didn’t have a good story to tell about it. And, I will just start off talking a little bit about Jeff, and those of you who knew him know he came to work every day excited to come to work. He it was such a bright and just a light. Always enjoyed talking to him and hearing him his stories. And he retired last year, and it was it was great for him. He’d worked here for so many years, and he had so many projects that he wanted to do. Mostly that revolved around fixing his cars, and we are going to miss him a lot.
Pearce: He always, one thing that always struck me about Jeff was how excited he was about the History Center, about the collections. And in that regard, I think it made him, he was a great advocate for the OHS and the types of things and programs that we can offer to the public. That’s something I always was struck by with, with him, even though I really never had a chance to interact him much with my day-to-day work. But to have someone like that who was passionate about what they did and was eager to share those stories with anyone who was wanting to listen, something I always take away from him.
Thompson: Anybody who knows Jeff knows that an encounter with him in your day always made your day better. Yeah. And then, and then, Debbie Blackburn passed away, and she had been battling some illness for quite a while behind the scenes. And Debbie served in the state house of Representatives for 12 years. She was a passionate advocate for historic preservation, and she passed a bill allowing for the 20 percent state historic tax credit.
Pearce: Yeah, yeah. And I think we’ve just, again, it’s another one, and we’ve lost some, some very good friends of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And especially speaking about the state tax credit for someone like me who was involved in historic preservation, that state tax credit is essential. And so her role in getting that state tax credit enacted in some in, in some respects, I wouldn’t be where I am without, you know, individuals being able to take advantage of that tax credit, which provided that job for me. And, to help people navigate that process.
Thompson: Well, and you talk about economic development in the state, the preservation of some of our most iconic buildings, like the Skirvin Hotel. None of that happens without the work of Debbie Blackburn, and she was well-respected on both sides of the aisle. And so it’s a big loss not only for Dr. Blackburn and his family, but for the entire state of Oklahoma. And then finally, Governor George Nigh, which he has been on this podcast twice. I'm so thrilled we were able to have him in here to talk with us. But just a giant in Oklahoma politics. A man who began his public service career in 1950, was the youngest state legislature, legislator in the state house and then, in 1958, elected the youngest lieutenant governor in the nation and then went on, he served two full terms of governor that he was elected to and two partial terms due to resignations, and he was a man who was always encouraging. He was always friendly. He loved being in a room full of people. He loved talking about the adoption of the song “Oklahoma!” as our state song. And there wasn’t, if you knew George Night for five minutes, George Nigh was your friend.
Pearce: Yeah. And again, Oklahoma’s four-time governor. And you have someone who dedicated his life to public service. You know, I was reading, something that I didn’t know until after was reading about more about George Nigh after his passing, but the fact that, he hitched rides to like campaign stops or, you know, when he was first running for the state legislature. And that’s just something that was just, I was struck by that. Just by someone who was, you know, that dedicated to running for public office and to serve and relying on the the generosity of others to get to where he needed to go. And that was something that that just kind of stuck with me and made me think about maybe how that helped influence his, his style and politics and his, his, his ideology.
Thompson: Well, and he was making public appearances right up to about three weeks before he passed. You know, he loved Oklahoma. Of course, anybody who’s ever heard him speak has heard him talk about Oklahoma with an exclamation point. And he was promoting and touting this state and going and speaking to groups right up to the very end. And, at 98 years old, he passed away, and we will sorely miss him. He was just such a light and such a good person. And of course, our condolences go out to his wife, Donna, and the rest of the Nigh family because he was a friend of the Oklahoma Historical Society. We inducted him a couple of years ago into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, both he and Donna. And well-deserved, by the way, that wasn’t just an honorary thing. He loved history. He was a history teacher. But he also, in the 1980s, did a lot for the Oklahoma Historical Society when he worked with us to rewrite our constitution and bylaws and state laws governing us to bring us into the modern era. And it was, it’s something that has shaped our future from the 1980s forward. So, George Nigh, we’re going to miss you for sure.
Pearce: Yeah.
Thompson: Well, let’s get into our topic for today, and we have a great one. I’m really excited about talking about this with you. And we’ve kind of talked in the corridors off and on as we’ve found things in our research, but we’re going to be tackling the weird, wild history of alcohol policy in the state of Oklahoma. And just like almost anything we touch in this podcast, it is not just your typical straight down the line history. There are crazy characters, there are interesting laws, and the pathway to get from there, starting in the territorial era, both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, to get to us where we are now. You know, later on, our special guest on this podcast will be Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, and she’s going to tell us about her efforts to modernize Oklahoma’s alcohol laws after long last, that finally came about in 2018. So we have we have a lot to cover, don’t we?
Pearce: Yes, we do. And and in many cases, think of this as maybe a taste of maybe some potential topics to come, because there’s so many different avenues that that we could go into. But hopefully, you know, we can provide some good context on the history of alcohol, you know, in what is now Oklahoma. And, you know, and again, I think with, with Congresswoman Bice’s interview, you know, bringing us into the present, I think it’s a good example of how, you know, the, how relevant history can be. I mean, the the state question was only, you know, approved or ratified in 2018, not even 10 years ago. And, and so just kind of how, how, how relevant history can be for some of these topics.
Thompson: Well, we just mentioned George Nigh. And he presided over the senate when the senate was debating putting the referendum on the ballot. And then he was governor when liquor by the drink was passed. So just, he was in these two major decisions that happened throughout his time in public service. So I thought I’d start out with a quote here because there’s a famous philosopher named Homer Simpson, who was once giving a toast, and he said, “To alcohol, the cause of and solution to, all of life’s problems.” And I think no one could put it in quite that way. But, Homer, I think encapsulated all the issues that we deal with. Alcohol can certainly be, a, relaxing. It can be a respite. But of course, we know many of the struggles that people have with alcohol, and it can cause many, many problems. And we don’t want to gloss over that during our discussion.
Pearce: Exactly.
Thompson: And another quote that I found, and, this is by Will Rogers. Will Rogers was quoted as saying that “Wine had such an effect on Noah’s health that it was all he could do to live 950 years. He was the first to discover a use for water, and that was to float a boat on. But as a beverage, he knew it was a total failure.” And then the other Will Rogers quote that many people are familiar with is “Oklahomans will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” So Matt, let’s get into, let’s go back. You know, Oklahoma starts as Indian Territory. And let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you found in your research about how does alcohol policy start. And, and the federal government took, you know, took a pretty strict view of dealing with alcohol as it related to our Native American tribes and and the interaction with them. So let’s start there.
Pearce: Yeah. Well, I think it’s important to to note how, you know, alcohol, we can look at alcohol in the context of, of colonization, and settlement and how those forces were imposed upon, upon Native peoples, even in the 15th and 16th centuries, where, you know, alcohol is part and parcel with efforts by colonists to obtain land, to obtain resources, such as furs, deer skins, and so forth. Alcohol or perceptions of alcohol is influencing especially how missionaries perceived the perceived impacts of alcohol on Native societies, that that perception is influencing the efforts of missionaries and their efforts to, quote unquote, civilize and educate American Indians. And then, you know, as you mentioned, alcohol and the regulation of alcohol is integral to the, you know, initial you know, federal Indian laws and colonial laws that were never meant to try to regulate trade and commerce in Indian country. And the liquor trade was quite lucrative for Europeans and later American settlers and traders in obtaining resources and in turn, you know, the liquor trade could be absolutely destabilizing and devastating to Native communities. Native societies such as the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, they would have been exposed to the ill effects of alcohol as early as the 17th century in what’s now the southeastern United States because of of forces such as the deerskin trade, which was really valuable and fairly highly profitable trade during the colonial period, because deerskin could be used for so many different, different things in terms of fur, for leather, and so forth. And, so you had European hunters go into the, you know, the, the interior of what’s now the southeastern United States and work with Native groups to, to hunt down, herds of deer to where you had hundreds of thousands of deer skins being exported from Charleston and Savannah. And one of the key ways that that traders used to obtain, you know, to obtain hides and, and so forth was by trading alcohol with Native groups. And so, and it wasn’t uncommon for fur traders to use watered down rum, or watered down whiskey, you know, to, you know, to their advantage to trade with Native peoples. There’s one British merchant who remarked quote, "it is certain there’s nothing the Indians like better than rum and nothing the traders have have rather to give." And the exchange of alcohol for deer skins, furs, those things were occurring even though you had colonial governments such as the British government and later the American government tried to prohibit the trade of alcohol, or to prevent unlicensed traders from even operating in Indian country. So it’s within that context that Native peoples are having to to grapple with the forces, they’re already having to grapple with the forces of colonization. You know, the some settlers’ desires for land, interacting with a, with a market economy where, which of course, they recognize there’s tremendous value in that because there’s a number of goods that they can obtain that can make their lives, their lives easier. But there’s also the presence of alcohol. And that kind of upsets the scales, and it has some devastating effects.
Thompson: Well let’s be quite honest. We have never been a teetotaling people in the United States. Alcohol was prevalent from the very beginning. And of course there were some religious groups who eschewed alcohol, but for the most part it was prevalent. It was available, it was consumed heartily, and even we almost fought another revolution over alcohol, the Whiskey Rebellion.
Pearce: Right.
Thompson: And so this was something that has been prevalent. And then as we get ready for Indian tribes to be removed into the Indian Territory, we have alcohol playing a part in that.
Pearce: Right. And so I think, you know, your point about alcohol’s prevalence. I mean, there’s a, there was a book that came out in the early 1980s, I forget the author’s name, but the title of the book is called The Alcoholic Republic. And it the whole argument is about the importance of, of alcohol to American politics at the time. And, and also alcohol was integral to the agricultural economy. Of course, so much of early American agriculture centered on corn cultivation. And there’s there are really two ways that a farmer could get corn to market. One was they could use it to fatten livestock, namely hogs. And of course, you could transport those animals on hoof to where they needed to go for slaughtering and distribution. The other was whiskey. And so that wasn’t all that uncommon for farmers to, you know, they, or for merchants to set up a grist mill so they could process corn meal, but also a distillery so that they could make whiskey.
Thompson: Right.
Pearce: And so it was, you know, it was just everywhere. And, and again, kind of tying back to these forces of, of colonization and ultimately Indian removal, and you have, have traders and merchants that are seeking to take advantage of Native peoples during forced removal. There were constantly reports of whiskey peddlers who set up shop along the various Trails of Tears, as Native peoples were forcibly removed into Indian Territory. Literally taking, merchants taking advantage of people when they were at their absolute worst and when they were at their absolute most vulnerable. And bear in mind, this is when even at the time when the US government had signed treaties with various nations to facilitate processes of the process of forced removal, and included in those treaties were provisions that the US government was going to assist Native peoples in prohibiting the, you know, the sale and transport of alcohol in Indian Territory. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit, for instance, had that provision in it. And also those treaties would also empower Native nations to set up their own police forces to regulate and and try to restrict the transport of, of alcohol in their, in their nation. So it's alcohol, whiskey, rum. It’s tied to American agriculture. It's tied, it’s just integral to American politics. And, even as the US government is negotiating and establishing treaties and establishing federal legislation to try to try to dictate what can go on in Indian country, alcohol is certainly playing a role in that as well, in terms of how it how it can be regulated.
Thompson: You know, alcohol was prohibited. So once we get the Five Tribes that move into Indian Territory and they set up their their own reservations, alcohol was prohibited in there. And in 1824 you have the establishment of Fort Gibson and Fort Towson. And both of those forts were tasked with keeping out of alcohol, out of the territory and with, you know, if they did find whiskey peddlers of arresting them, confiscating or destroying the liquor that they were carrying. And, but it was a case of not enough manpower to do the job and kind of a slap on the wrist once somebody would get caught.
Pearce: And I think also they’re recognizing how the alcohol trade is, is furthering, could help facilitate, broader aims and broader goals for settlement and, and subjugation. And so because you have these forts that are established in Indian Territory, when one of their responsibilities is to police, you know, help police those, those reservations. But the sutler store, you know, owner might, had no qualms with, you know, sending an order for whiskey, you know, to a distillery along the Red River or or in Arkansas and, or you had, you know, there reports of army, you know, army officials at Fort Leavenworth who would you know, they would constantly report how many barrels of whiskey were heading up the Missouri River to fur trading outposts, and also recognizing the the pallets of furs that were coming back down the Missouri and just fully recognizing they knew alcohol was involved in those negotiations and in those trades, but also looking the other way because they recognize it was facilitating American expansion.
Thompson: Yeah. And so, we even have an example. You were telling me this story the other day as we were preparing for this podcast of a Lighthorseman who had confiscated some alcohol that had been ordered by the Army.
Pearce: Yes, and so this was in, you know, the within the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. I forget the the year I think it was around 1850, and it was, it was an order. So for context, of course, there were, you know, we might talk about this little bit later, but, you know, one, you know, folks familiar with Oklahoma history might, might know about the whiskey towns that were along the the border of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. Well, prior to that, you know, prior to the Twin Territories era, you had whiskey towns that were along the borders of Indian Territory, including the Red River. So it wasn’t all that uncommon for army officials to comment and complain about, you know, the presence of distilleries and, and whiskey peddlers that were just come across the Red River. And in one of these cases, it was the, it was the, sutler for Fort Arbuckle, that had of course, had submitted, an order and included a few barrels of whiskey. And so the whiskey is coming across the Red River and being transported through the Chickasaw Nation, if I recall correctly. And, a Lighthorseman stops the trader, confiscates and destroys the whiskey, as was per their, their tribal constitution within their in their tribal laws, states that that Lighthorseman had the authority to do that. And the army officials were upset that the Lighthorseman had had done this and ordered that that individual be arrested and held at Fort Arbuckle and the Chickasaw Council ultimately had to pay damages for, for just the fact that a Lighthorseman was doing their job and keeping whiskey out of the reservation. Whiskey that, you know, the sutler had had ordered. And so then that just goes to show the, the dynamics that were at play in terms of federal, you know, federal law, tribal law, Indian law and, you know, merchants, individual ambitions and economic goals and trying to make a profit. And it creates a very messy legal landscape in Indian Territory.
Thompson: In 1890, you have Oklahoma Territory that is created out of the Unassigned Lands because of the 1889 land run, and alcohol flowed freely in the territory. And there were saloons, and this is one of the things that I find funny. If any of you watched the Bass Reeves television show that was done by Taylor Sheridan, you can see in when he goes to Checotah to, there’s a saloon in Checotah which would not have been there. Not that there would have been alcohol in Checotah, but it wouldn't have been a saloon that someone could have gone into and gotten alcohol like your traditional Old West town. But that would have been the case in Oklahoma Territory.
Pearce: Yeah. And so it wasn’t all that, you know, it was pretty common for, you know, during the land openings that oftentimes that was the first business that was established would be the saloon, whether it was in, you know, Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Enid, any of those towns that were associated with land openings that those, you know, the saloon was usually one of the first businesses that opened. And again, because it was a highly profitable business, because alcohol was fairly, was tied to everyday life. Now, there were some accounts of alcohol usage by the late 19th century seem to be somewhat on the decline compared to during the, you know, during the era of the early republic. You know, for, for a variety of reasons. But still, it was a very lucrative business that especially if someone was looking to make money fairly quickly, they could do so.
Thompson: In 1890, the federal government passed the Wilson Act, and the Wilson Act made all intoxicating liquor subject to the state or laws of the territory, before it had really been regulated mostly by the federal government. And they realized that this was a difficult proposition at best. And so this act said that each state or territory could regulate alcohol how it saw fit. It allowed that any state or territory could regulate alcohol where or how it saw fit, regardless of where it was produced. And so this was key to Oklahoma eventually being able to have its own laws regarding alcohol. But I want to talk about the political situation in the 1880s, 1890s and early 1900s, because this is a pretty fascinating time. We’ve talked about this many times, but Oklahoma was formed in the zenith of the Progressive and the Populist Movement, but entrenched in that progressive and Populist Movement is the temperance movement. And this idea of, you had the Anti-Saloon League, you had the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and they waged war against legalized sale of alcohol in Oklahoma Territory and many other states across the nation. But these movements, so you had the temperance movement, the Progressive Movement, and even the women’s suffrage movement, they were all tied in with each other. And there was this sense that people were recognizing that alcohol contributed to social evils, drunkenness among men, abuse of women. You had people that would not show up to work because they were incapacitated. And so these temperance movements got tied in with the suffrage movement, which is the ability to give women the right to vote and the Progressive and Populist Movement. And, of course, Oklahoma’s growing up all during the middle of this. And we’re grappling with this. Yeah.
Pearce: So I mean, by the by the 1890s, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union is the largest female political organization in the United States, had a very, tremendous influence, especially in states across the Midwest and into the Southern Plains, including in Oklahoma. And it was a fairly significant transformation because temperance as a movement emerged in the 1830s. It is kind of a product of, it was an outgrowth of all those different reform movements that came out of the Second Great Awakening and of of that era and was but was largely on the margins. But then by the 1880s, 1890s had really, you know, picked up steam and picked up support, for a number of reasons, not just the, as you mentioned, the you know, there was always those moral concerns about, concerns about public drunkenness and especially from women’s perspective, the effects that that could have on the household about, you know, concerns about their husbands coming home, coming home drunk and so, so concerns about domestic violence and also concerns about just the economic well-being of the household. If the husband’s out spending all of their well-earned money on on alcohol, how can they how can they provide for his family? There’s also significant changes going on in terms of, of of urbanization during the 1880s and 1890s, immigration, So new groups of people coming in, new groups that have their own traditions and, and uses concerning concerning alcohol use and, and so a number of just other changes and also just women are finding ways to become more politically active. Bear in mind, this is all before women have the right to vote. And so, you know, alcohol or temperance was one way in which, you know, you had women that could express their political voice and, and it could they could do so in ways that business is still very much within this era of of separate spheres, where politics was seen as, that was the realm of men, because it was rough and tumble. It was you know, it was seen as just that was where men need to be. Whereas women were responsible for, for the home. But they saw temperance as, as a means to kind of extend their, their moral, women’s perceived moral authority, you know, into the political spheres, like how much smoother would politics be if men were, were not having, were not drunk all the time and so forth, and so it was a it’s really a tremendous transformation that takes place during the late 19th century. And then you also have kind of the influence of of corporate interests as well. You had the Anti-Saloon League, which is more of the corporate business side of temperance, because you have, you know, the Rockefellers and those individuals that are recognizing they’re all about efficiency and all about making workers more efficient. And one way they see of doing that is well, by preventing, you know, by prohibiting the use of alcohol.
Thompson: And proficiency improves when you’re not drunk.
Pearce: Exactly. So, so you have so you have this kind of confluence of events, and also because the workplace is becoming much more dangerous. And so because these are you know, this is industrialization, industries. And so, so there’s just this you just have this confluence of, of kind of traditional Midwestern evangelical moral concerns with efforts to adapt to a more modern industrial society and seeing the potential ill effects of alcohol in that society. And so you just see a growing and broadening coalition that helps contribute to Prohibition.
Thompson: Yeah. And if you want to, you can go up to the Oklahoma Territorial Museum in Guthrie, and you can see one of Carry Nation’s hatchets on display that she used to bust up beer barrels and whiskey barrels and all of those kinds of things. And, you can see that at the at our museum up there. Yeah, but I want to talk about how, so 1906, the Enabling Act was passed and it mandated Prohibition in, in Indian Territory, or what was the former Indian Territory for 21 years. Now this is interesting as you’re trying to form a state and you’re trying to come up with a, a constitution and a set of laws. And this is one of the many complicating factors of joining Indian Territory and Oklahoma together to form of state. And we’ve talked about a few of those in the past before, but how do you say you can’t have any alcohol in one half of the state, and the other state, the other part of the state is a free for all. And so the, the tide was, and the drys, you know, you’re going to hear this phrase, the wets and the drys, but drys were for Prohibition of alcohol. The wets were for, you know, liberalization of alcohol. And so the drys really were better, better connected politically. They were better organized politically, and they were able to get it together. A lot of people think that that Prohibition was ensconced in what we voted on in the constitution on September 17, 1907. Actually, it was a separate measure. And so that separate measure ended up passing by a vote of 130,000 to 112,000. That made Oklahoma the only state to enter the Union with prohibition of alcohol in the constitution.
Pearce: And as I recall, they they added it as a separate measure because they were concerned that the issue might sink the constitution, if I remember correctly. And so that was partly why they added it at, you know, had it after the fact.
Thompson: That’s right.
Pearce: And so and again, like this, the idea of having separate laws for Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, again, a lot of that’s a product of, of history, the fact that Indian Territory was already subject to this mess of these, these different sovereignties where you had federal regulations, you had the Native nations with their respective laws in terms of of regulating this. And then you have the establishment of Oklahoma Territory through the Enabling Act and, you know, more liberal alcohol laws there. And so you just have a mess of, of a messy legal framework that tries to try to regulate this, that, that statehood. Statehood ultimately resolved, but did so in favor of outright Prohibition across the state.
Thompson: In 1908, the Billups Law was passed by the state, and that set up a dispensary system where you could get a prescription if you were quote unquote “ill” and be able to get liquor. And, of course, that was never very successful because bootleg liquor was so prevalent in the state that it ultimately ended up being, in 1911, this whole thing was killed. And so, over the next few years, there would be many attempts to repeal Prohibition in Oklahoma that were not successful. And then, of course, in 1919, you have the 18th Amendment that’s ratified, which brings Prohibition not only to Oklahoma, which already had it, but the rest of the country. And that sets up the whole underworld. You know, if you’ve seen The Untouchables , you know about Al Capone. That was all alcohol. That’s it was underworld bootlegging of alcohol during the Prohibition era.
Pearce: Well, it’s important to remember with with Prohibition, and nationwide, it was enacted as a wartime emergency because of course, it was enacted, the initial Prohibition laws were enacted during World War I. You know, when the United States enters the war and you have, you know, you know, a couple of reasons for that. One was anti-immigration sentiment, namely, anti-German sentiment. So, you know, opposition against German brewers. And then second, because, you know, the things that you need to make alcohol, grain in particular, was also valuable for food and, you know, other things. So, you know, it was implemented as a wartime measure to, you know, redirect production from alcohol towards food. And initially, you know, initially seen as a wartime emergency, but because you had these various social forces behind Prohibition at various state levels, including Oklahoma, you know, it was the war that kind of gave the final push to enact Prohibition at the national level.
Thompson: Yeah. In 1932, Prohibition is repealed. And in 1933, Congress passes the Cullen- Harrison Act, which redefines beer and wine with an alcohol content lower than 3.2 percent by weight as non-intoxicating. And so in Oklahoma, in 1933, the legislature passes a law that approves the sale of 3.2 beer, and that goes to a referendum, and the summer of 1933, and it passes by more than 95,000 votes. So now we have the ability to buy 3.2 beer, which is called non-intoxicating beer, in Oklahoma. And this is sort of the first chink in the armor if you want to say of Prohibition in Oklahoma. But we would vote several more times up to 1959. 1959 was the sixth time that we voted as a state on the repeal of alcohol. And, all of those times leading up to 1959, there was a vote in 1940, there was a vote in 1949, in the 1950s, there was an attempt by the legislature to do the county option on 3.2 beer. And so, all of those attempts really failed. The drys really controled the state. But as you mentioned before, we start to get into more after World War II, more urbanization, more people are adjusting their attitudes on alcohol. And that sets the scene for 1959. And of course, it starts in 1958 with the election of Governor J. Howard Edmondson, and there was a state senator named George Miskovsky, who made alcohol one of his issues in running for governor in that 1958 race. And that really caused Edmondson to embrace this as an issue. And he promised within 90 days of being elected that he would send a referendum to the people.
Pearce: Yeah. And I think you’re starting to see, you know, with alcohol becoming a campaign issue at the governor’s level, and you’re starting to see this tension emerge between, you know, the traditional moralist take on Prohibition and, you know, alcohol, drunkenness as a, as a sin versus concerns or interest in economic development. I mean, one of the main reasons Prohibition is repealed at the national level in the 1930s is because there was that, you know, federal officials recognized that there could be some tax revenue with involved with that. And so you’re starting to see, even in Oklahoma, by the 1950s, you’re starting to see this tension between, you know, making Oklahoma more modern and its alcohol laws, because there’s recognition of a potential for revenue, but it’s still coming up against those traditional moralistic interests as well. So the 1959 debate really sees sees that in contrast.
Thompson: One of the things that Governor Edmonson was so frustrated about is you had a state that repeatedly went to the polls and voted dry, just like Will Rogers said. We’ll stagger to the polls and vote dry. But alcohol was everywhere in the state, and we had this Prohibition law on the books and it wasn’t being enforced. There were bootleggers everywhere. Bootleggers would hand out cards with their name. And so if you were in Oklahoma City and you were having a party at your house, you would just call your local bootlegger and you would have whatever delivered to your house— whiskey, rum, you know, strong beer, whatever you wanted. And they had it, and they had it in spades. And most of it was coming in from out of state. So we weren’t getting the economic benefits of manufacturing any of it here. We weren’t getting the tax revenue off of selling it here. And Edmondson finally said, you know what? Enough is enough. If we are going to have Prohibition, I am going to enforce Prohibition, and we are going to make it tough on people. And he did this as a way to sort of force the hand on having a vote on this once and for all. And so he hires, the Muskogee County attorney, Joe Cannon, as safety commissioner with instructions to dry up the state. And what happens, so this is 1959, what happens over the next few months leading up to the April 7 vote in 1959 is he goes on a rampage, and there are sheriffs that are complaining that he’s intruding on their jurisdictions, police officers complaining about this. But he says, I am charged with this. I am going to enforce state law, and so he starts really hitting. Hitting people where it hurt. In other words, he’s not just busting the poor people and the back alley clubs. He’s starting to bust where the rich people hang out and where the elites of society hang out. And he’s starting to impact their business. And one of the ways that he did that was by setting up roadblocks. On January 18, in a roadblock he set up to catch a bank robber, they confiscated 29 cases of whiskey, and they said, okay, this is a great way to catch alcohol coming into the state. So they essentially opened warfare on the importation of whiskey into Oklahoma. The next night, 50 officers blocked the entrances along the Missouri border and searched all of the cars entering the state. One night, 50 to 100 highway patrol officers set up roadblocks on every road entering Oklahoma on 50 miles of border, and they are confiscating thousands and thousands of gallons of whiskey and liquor in these raids.
Pearce: Yeah, making it a public issue. Bringing that into the public eye for everyone to see. Really, Is this what we want, if we’re going to enforce Prohibition, this is what it can potentially look like. Is this something that’s just clearly that’s something that’s not sustainable.
Thompson: Right.
Pearce: And so bringing that into the public eye I think was very important.
Thompson: And it also got rid of the illusion.
Pearce: Yeah.
Thompson: That this is a dry state. And it it made sort of maybe ma and pa who weren’t paying attention, it made them aware that we say we’re a dry state but we’re not a dry state. And really what happens is when he starts to raid those clubs and those restaurants where the elites hang out and he starts to affect the business of the hotels, the conventions, the parties, then that becomes that becomes that groundswell for maybe we ought to do something about this. There’s a Chronicles of Oklahoma article that was written, and this is one of the quotes from that article, and it says, “A yes vote by Oklahomans a year earlier would have meant making liquor more expensive and harder to get. Cannon managed to change that. In some Oklahoma towns the crackdowns actually drove bootleggers out of business. For the rest of the state, Cannon made business hard for bootleggers and drove up prices.” So there’s the other part of that is now your whiskey is costing more because it is harder to import in the state, and he’s actually confiscating so much of it, it’s starting to make a dent.
Pearce: Right.
Thompson: So we get into the repeal of the legislature and just as promised, Governor Edmondson put up, he he had suggestions about what they wanted to do, and they had a referendum bill and the that started out in the senate. And, he actually asked Lieutenant Governor George Nigh to preside over the senate because he wanted the senate pro tem to be debating on the floor. And, Governor Edmondson actually set up shop in offices that were right next to both the house and senate legislative chambers so he could be working the bill as it’s being brought up for questions and debate. And this was a great story that I found in my research here. But, State Senator Ray Fine, he was speaking before, a very impassioned speech and comparing alcohol to Satan and all of those things. In fact, there’s a quote here from his debate. He said, “There is no way to justify the evils that will be done to the youth of our nation. I won’t vote here today to make it easier for the boys and girls to buy liquor.” And, George Nigh recalls that he was presiding on the desk behind Senator Fine. And Senator Fine was up in front. And after he had finished his debate, Senator Fine turns around and mutters to himself, where only Nigh could here, and he said, “God, I need a drink.”
(laughter)
Pearce: Well, and that kind of speaks to the, the two sides or the like the the two faces that one could, that one could show in terms of, of, of Prohibition and because you mentioned that were, Oklahoma was always a wet state, even even if we were quote unquote “bone dry.”
Thompson: Right.
Pearce: And how, you know, you know, on the one hand, someone could publicly say, you know, that they are for Prohibition, for moralistic reasons or for what have you, but it’s very difficult to regulate one’s private choice or one’s, you know, what they choose to do with their private time. And so, and, you know, that’s a great, that’s a great story that kind of speaks to that, you know, someone who could publicly say they’re for Prohibition, but then privately, privately admitting, even if maybe they did not drink personally, but at least acknowledging that being in such as moment like that, how alcohol could help (laughter) after, how one might need something to to bring them down after that debate.
Thompson: Right. So the senate passes the measure 31 to 13. It goes over to the house. And, the house about a week later takes it up. It’s a tense 6.5 hour debate on the house floor, and it ends up passing. But there were 27 attempts to amend the bill, each one of them that was rejected by the members of the house and Representative William Gotcher said, “you can’t get something good out of whiskey. You can’t get something good out of something so morally bad.” And, but this ultimately became a question of, the legislators understood that they could either pass this referendum and send it to the people, or there would be intiative petition. And they understood if they did it, they had the ability to control it and to set up the parameters around it. But if other people, if it became as a result of an initiative petition, you never know what you’re going to get. And the Oklahoma Legislature found this out a few years ago with the marijuana laws that were passed. And it was something that, you know, they didn’t address when they had the opportunity to do it. And now we got very relaxed marijuana laws here in the state of Oklahoma because it came through an initiative petition. And so in the house, Prohibition passed 81 to 37, and the vote came on April 7, 1959. Oklahomans voted 396,000 to 314,000. So a fairly close vote to repeal Prohibition. We were the last state in the country in 1959 to repeal Prohibition. A Dallas bootlegger told the Tulsa World reporter, “Just like that, it happens just like that. After building my business for years, those damn Oklahomans go to the polls and vote to make me bankrupt. I tell you, it just ain’t right.”
Pearce: I think that speaks to, you know, again, we’ve we’ve talked about this a lot about the prevalence of, of alcohol in Oklahoma, despite Prohibition and the, the ways in which individuals and businesses made that situation work. And then how they could even profit from, from the status quo. And then when you change the status quo, then you have then people have to adapt.
Thompson: Right. Right. So I don't want to belabor this one too much because we’re getting toward the end of this segment here. But, by 1984, Oklahoma is the only state that doesn’t allow liquor by the drink. And so, once again, Governor George Nigh was involved with liquor by the drink. There was a group called Oklahomans for Responsible Liquor Control that submitted an initiative petition to allow liquor by the drink. And, the attempt had been made 1959, 1972, in 1976, and it failed all of those times. But on September 18, 1984, it passed 426,000 to 397,000 votes, which finally allows liquor by the drink, which had been called liquor by the wink. Because all of these so-called bottle clubs, you had to take your bottle there and you had to buy a membership, which was usually sold for 50 cents or a dollar to be able to drink. But once again, it was so prevalent, it was almost unenforced. And so this was an attempt to bring the law in compliance with what people were already doing.
Pearce: And you’re seeing, by the late 20th century, when about how our, how social mores and, and our even just the morality that was, the moral debate that was surrounding alcohol was changing. And so as a result, the laws needed to change as well. It just takes, it just took Oklahoma a bit longer than, than other states to do so.
Thompson: Well, we will take a short break. And after this, Congresswoman Stephanie Bice will tell us all about how she worked when she was in the state senate to modernize our alcohol laws once again.
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Thompson: Well, Matt, I’m really excited to welcome our guest into the podcast. Today we have Congresswoman Stephanie Bice with us. She is a fourth-generation Oklahoman, currently serving in the US House of Representatives for Oklahoma’s fifth congressional district. She was elected to Congress in 2020 and was chosen by her colleagues to serve as the 117th Republican freshman class president, the first female ever to be elected to that role, and prior to her congressional service, which is the part we’re going to be talking about today, she served in the Oklahoma state senate from 2014 to 2020. She earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Oklahoma State University. And before entering politics, she worked for almost 20 years in the private sector, gaining experience in business development, financial oversight, and sales. She currently serves on the Appropriations Committee, where she was named vice chair of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee. Additionally, she is the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Modernization and Innovation within the Committee on House Administration. And she was also named to a seat on the US Military Academy at the West Point Board of Visitors. Stephanie and her husband, Geoffrey, are the proud parents of two adult daughters, and I’m so glad to have you with us as our guest today, Congresswoman Bice.
Stephanie Bice: Well, thank you for having me. I have a little scratchy voice from allergies, but I’m thrilled to be with you all.
Thompson: Well, we are excited to have you as well. And I got to know you when you first came to the state senate because I was working in Pro Tem Brian Bingman’s office at the time. So we’ve known each other for a long time, and I’ve seen you rise up from freshman legislator in the state senate to now look at you in the fifth congressional district. So you, you have gone to bigger and better places.
Bice: Well, being in politics was really never part of my life plan. I kind of stumbled upon all of this, and it’s been a real blessing.
Thompson: Well, I wanted to start out by asking you about that. What got you interested in running for the state senate and getting into this world?
Bice: Well, I had always followed politics. I was one of those folks that would turn on the news in the morning and watch what was happening in the world and, you know, banter with my husband about the latest political happenings. And in 2014, I was approached by a gentleman that I had gotten to know who happened to be in the state senate at the time. He had recently married a dear friend of mine, and he knew that I liked politics. He had run a bill that had to do with craft beer, allowing for tastings of craft beer. And I’ll never forget, I texted him and I said, hey, I read about this, this new proposal that is being considered by the legislature. You should vote for it. And he responded and said, well, I wrote the bill. And I thought, okay, you know, I don’t know how this works at all. But he called me and said, I’m not going to run for reelection, and you should run for my state senate seat. And my first question was “why?” And he said, “because we need more women.” And what I didn’t know at the time was that, he shared with me that there were six women out of 48 in the state senate, 13 out of 101 in the state house. That made us 49th in the country for the number of female legislators. And me being the mother of, as you mentioned, two daughters. I thought, why not? Why not do something big and bold and outside of the box? So I did.
Thompson: And that’s great. And how did you get interested in, you know, I guess that caught your attention, that craft beer law. But how did you get interested in the issue of alcohol policy?
Bice: Well, it was sort of happenstance. Years before my husband started brewing, homebrewing beer, and I realized that I wasn’t necessarily a fan of sort of your traditional domestic beers that you would buy at the grocery store. But I did like craft beer. So I would start testing out craft beers when I would eat at restaurants, and then I would like it so much I’d want to go buy some. But it was always warm at the liquor store, and I thought that was an affront, frankly, that I couldn’t buy anything cold. So the original bill that I filed for alcohol, what became alcohol reform, was Senate Bill 384, and the entire bill was to refrigerate, allow for refrigeration of cold beer at liquor stores. And I remember it got a lot of attention, and people started emailing me saying, you know, you should do something bigger. You should really change our alcohol laws. And that was kind of the beginning. You know, this was really about cold beer and, to that end, when I started this journey, some of my colleagues in the state legislature decided to dub me, Madam Cold Beer because of it. That was the first bill was the cold beer bill, and they called me Madam Cold Beer.
Thompson: That’s fantastic. Did you have any idea what you were getting yourself into?
Bice: I did not. I actually said to people before, had I known now, you know, had I known then or what I know now, I probably would have not done it because I didn’t realize how much there was going to be in getting it done. So in some ways, it was a blessing that I didn’t know anything. I was going into this very blind. I didn’t know the players. I didn’t know the dynamics. I didn’t know what had been done before and what had failed or what hadn’t failed. So in a way, I think that naivete that I had really was beneficial, because I can go into it with, you know, a blank slate, eyes wide open, and try to figure out how do we navigate this really complicated topic and make it good for Oklahoma. I think the other thing that is important to mention is that for me, this was never about alcohol. It was really more about economic development. And the reason was, I mentioned my husband like craft beer. We would travel across the country. We went to Arizona one year and went to a brewery. And they were had, you know, big, huge kettles. They were brewing right on site, but it was also a restaurant, and you could purchase the beer and take it home. And they also had an advertisement for like a brewery tour in town. And I thought, we can’t do that. The way that our laws are structured, it’s impossible to do that. So this wasn’t really about alcohol at all. It was about economic development and agritourism, in some ways, when you’re talking about rural communities, think wineries, which used to be very prolific in the western part of Oklahoma before the Dust Bowl, there’s so many opportunities that Oklahoma was missing out on. For me, that was part of the calculus.
Thompson: And I think you've seen that bear out now, you know, this this will fast forward. You know, we’ll jump ahead to the spoiler alert that it ended up, you know, we ended up modernizing our alcohol laws. And we’ll get into the story here in just a second. But you can go into almost any mid-size town in Oklahoma. You can find a craft beer or a brewery place that serves food, and it’s, some of them are community hubs. They have, you know, board game nights and all of those kinds of things. But it has become a big part of the economic development of the state.
Bice: Yeah. I mean, when we started this journey in 2015, you had about fiveish microbreweries across the state. Think Krebs, you know, and others that were, you know, trying to navigate a complicated framework for alcohol in Oklahoma, Mustang being another here locally. Now, the last numbers I saw were over 70 breweries exist across the entire state of Oklahoma. That is jobs. That is tax revenue. That economic development for, you know, small communities that doesn’t include the wineries and distilleries, which didn’t exist almost at all before the law passed.
Pearce: How did you, or when you were starting to broach this issue, did you come across the, you know, the traditional like, economic development versus the the morality behind alcohol modernization? And how did you, when you came across your, whether it was in the legislature or out in the public, you know, coming across individuals who were opposed to this on moral grounds? How did you counter or how did you make that that argument for modernization?
Bice: Well, I think it was easy for me, interestingly enough, because I am Catholic, and the joke that I would tell people when we were talking about sort of the religious or evangelical spin on this was I’m Catholic, and I drink wine on Sunday, and I want everyone else to have the same opportunity, whether or not they’re Catholic, you know, but, you know, it wasn't as big of an issue for me in 2015 as it had been for, you know, prior attempts to try to change it. I think it took the nice Catholic mom, if you will, to sort of bring down the rhetoric to say, look, we’re not looking at putting hard liquor in stores necessarily. I was willing to put a cap on beer because there is a concern about young people getting access to high- alcohol volume beer. So there were some negotiations that happened. There were more, I think, concerns about the licensing side. How old do you have to be to serve? You know, how old do you have to be to go to the establishments? Those were the types of things that I think maybe played into it a little bit more than the evangelical side of things.
Thompson: My first year working in the state senate, the legislature had passed a task force, and it was a 21-member task force that was going to look at selling beer and wine in grocery stores. And I remember there were two meetings. I remember going to these meetings, and I had no idea how, how difficult this was going to be, how entrenched people were. And it goes to the complexity of Oklahoma's alcohol laws that people had carved out their own little fiefdoms and kingdoms in this area, and they did not want any changes to this. And I remember you had the convenience store owners, you had the package store owners, you had the wholesalers and the retailers and all of these different groups that were together in this room. It was a 21-member panel. And I just remember thinking, this is way more complicated than I ever thought it would be. You know, John Q. Consumer just wanted to be able to go into a grocery store and buy a bottle of wine and had no idea about all of the spiderweb of complexities that were this. And this is kind of a funny story, but, and I asked my wife's permission to tell this story, but she when my son was a toddler, she, no, was a baby. Like, she had him in the baby carrier, and she went into a liquor store. Just wanted to buy a bottle of wine. And the guy that was running the liquor store almost, like, sprinted to her and said, you can't bring him in here. You know, he's not 21. You've got to get out of here. And he's a baby. I mean, but that is how, that's how hardcore this stuff was. And that task force met twice and adjourned and the second meeting and went, we're going home and we don't want to talk about this anymore.
Bice: Well, a couple of stories on that front. So right after I filed the original cold beer bill, I started getting emails from moms who said, fine, put refrigeration in liquor stores. But for all of things good and holy, please let wine be sold in grocery stores because I want to go, to your point, buy a package of diapers and a package of goldfish crackers and a bottle of pinot grigio. And being a mom, I get it, you know? And so that was part of the, I think, calculus. When you talk about the meeting, I will never forget the meeting I had in February of 2015. I filed the bill, got a lot of attention. And my colleague, Clark Jolley, who is the appropriations chair at the time, had worked on this sort of legislation prior. He came to me and he said, would you like my help in putting together a meeting with all of the players? Well, again, my naivete, I was like, sure, let's do it. And I didn't know who that meant or what that look like. But I showed up on a Wednesday morning and walked into a room that was packed. People were overflowing out of his conference room. There must have been about 40 or 50 people packed into this small room.
Thompson: Wow.
Bice: And it was, as you mentioned, convenience stores, liquor retailers, distributors, wholesalers, you know, the Wine Institute, wine spirits wholesaler, I mean, everybody that you could think of packed in this room, grocers because they were a big part of this. And I remember, I walked in and kind of stood there and looked around and thought, oh, no. And Clark looked at me at the head of the table and he said, please come sit next to me. And that was the beginning, and it was very obvious that it was going to be a heavy lift. There were a lot of players that had, as you mentioned, very entrenched ideas of what it should or should not look like. And my favorite story is that a gentleman by the name of Brad Naifeh, who has since passed away and became a great friend, but Brad was at the meeting. He was probably the largest distributor, wholesaler, I’m sorry, in the Oklahoma City area. He got, he was the last person to speak at this meeting, and he got really fired up and said, “I don't know what I want.” So I was asking the question, “What do you want to see out of this? What changes would you like to see?” And he got real angry and he said, “I don't know what I want to see out of this. And I don't know why we're, you know, even talking about this.” And he kind of got a little angry. And then he said, “I bet you know, you I bet you don't have never been in a, a liquor warehouse before, and you have no idea what I do.” And I said, wait a minute, Mr. Naifeh. Actually, my father bought Tad Shadid’s warehouse several years before. Tad Shadid is another wholesaler in town that I had gotten to know actually pretty well. I said, so I have been in a liquor warehouse. I've seen it. And he kind of huffed a bit, and then he kept going. And then he said, you know, I've lived in this community for 60 years and been a supporter, and I bet you can't even spell my last name. And I said, excuse me, Mr. Shadid. I've also lived in this town my whole life, and I know exactly how to spell your last name. It was a bit of a contentious wrap up to the meeting. So the next morning his lobbyist comes to my office and she says, Ms. Brice, Mr. Naifeh wants to apologize and wants to see about a meeting. And I said, Mr. Naifeh can apologize directly to me. He doesn't need to do it through you, an intermediary, and I'm happy to have lunch with him or coffee. And actually, what's amazing is that he and I, just the two of us, went and had lunch one day and became the greatest of friends. We had a mutual respect. It was a Persian woman, me, and a Lebanese man, him. And we could be very fiery if we needed to be. But we also had a mutual respect. I knew that he had, you know, this has been a family passion and business for decades for him. But I think he also saw the writing on the wall that things had to change. So he decided to come to the table and as I said, became a really great friend. There were rocky roads, you know, as we traveled that year-and-a-half time frame. But, you know, it was it was great to develop that friendship with him.
Thompson: Talk about how did you navigate, you know, convenience stores, package stores, you know, the package store folks didn't really want. They had a good thing going.
Bice: Yeah.
Thompson: You had to go, if you want wine, you got to go to them. There's no place else to get it, you know? And listen, I'm not talking down on them because that's their business and that's the model that they established their business under. So can you talk about a few of the different players and different groups, and how did you get them to the table to start talking?
Bice: Well, I think the hardest, the hardest nut to crack was probably the retailers because as you said, they sort of had a monopoly, if you will, on the market. You could only buy beer over 3.2 in a liquor store, you could only buy wine and spirits in a liquor store. But what was interesting is that they couldn't sell anything else. Think about buying a mixer or party supplies. You know, anything that you would want to buy to go along with that. At the time, liquor stores were not allowed to sell any of that. So my offer to them was, what if I allowed you to sell other things? Can I give you the opportunity to make up some of the revenue that you think you may lose by allowing you to sell other products that are going to be, you know, needed for somebody maybe if they're hosting an event. They initially, wanted me to commoditize alcohol licenses. And what that means is that you would put a cap on the number of licenses that were issued on a certain date. So in Oklahoma, there was about 630 licenses that had been issued across the state for liquor stores. They wanted me to put a cap on that. And then if someone, wanted to buy a liquor license, they had to buy it from an existing business that was wanting to sell. The problem with that model, and New Mexico does it, is that when you commoditize licenses, they become wildly expensive. A $5,000 license just traditionally now becomes $1 million license because there are only so many issued.
Thompson: Restricting the supply.
Bice: That's right. And that means that really the only people that are going to be able to buy those are big, are big, grocery stores or grocery store chains, maybe convenience store chains that think they could make a lot of revenue out of it or a commercialized liquor store, like a Spec’s or a Total Wine. So I said, I'm not doing that. They also didn't want corporate licensing in Oklahoma because they didn't want Spec’s and Total Wine in Oklahoma. They didn't want us to sell spirits in store, so they were probably the toughest nut to crack, frankly. But over time, I kind of got them to a good place. But it was tough. I mean, they fought me at every turn. The other, I think, hard part was the distribution piece because every brand think, Modelo and and Tito's, for example, they sign a contract with a wholesaler to distribute their product. Well, if we change the laws, those contracts were sort of going to be null and void, and you have to renegotiate all of them. It's a long process. There's a lot of back and forth that would give the manufacturer of that product, the option to go to another distributor. So you had a lot of that piece that had to be worked through. Those are probably, and then, and then the last part would probably be the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at the time.
Thompson: I was going to ask about that.
Bice: Yeah. They were not in favor of anything. They wanted us to make everything pretty restrictive. Actually tried to kill the bill on a couple of different occasions because they were in opposition to it. So that made it a little bit of a challenge.
Thompson: How about working with your colleagues in the legislature? How was this received? Because you're getting pressure, of course, and you're trying to work on the bill, but they're hearing from all of these same people, and they're hearing from their constituents as well. So how did those conversations with your your colleagues go in caucus and that kind of thing?
Bice: You know, for the most part, they actually went really well. Some of my rural legislators were a bit cautious because they may not have had the type of support that many of us in the metropolitan or urban suburban areas had. So I had to find ways to make it more palatable for them. And a great example of that was Sunday sales. You know, in Oklahoma, prior to the law change, you couldn’t sell alcohol on Sunday. And so what I decided is that maybe we make that a county option that the counties could can look at that, those blue laws, because some counties didn't want to do it. Same thing for, you know, brunch sales, like there were things like that that I could give a little bit of local control, let them make those decisions themselves to bring them along in the process. And I was willing to do that. I recognize that Oklahoma City is very different from, let’s say McCurtain County, right down in the southeastern part of the state, and I think that helped, helped move the needle with some of those folks.
Thompson: Yeah. Was there any points of contention that you had to get over?
Bice: Oh, every day. (laughter) Depends on the day. I think it was, you know, here's another piece that hasn't been talked enough about, and that's the craft beer scene. You know, all of these homebrewers are really excited about the opportunity to start a local brewery. But there were a lot of conversations around, if you are a local brewer, would you be forced to use a distributor to distribute your beer? And, I fought hard for the craft brewers because I wanted them to be able to make as much profit as they possibly could as a small sort of mom and pop business before they had to really enter the corporate market, if you will. So there was a big fight around whether or not, if we would allow self-distribution from these craft beer retailers, but also once they hit a certain threshold, then they'd have to use a distributor. And if that if that was the case, what would that look like? That was a big fight. And then the other one that most people may not have known about, which was very, important, was years prior to looking at alcohol monetization. There was a family, the Cresap family, that had started a Anheuser-Busch distributorship here in Oklahoma. And because of the laws, they were only able to distribute the low 3.2 beer to the grocery stores and convenience stores. Well, they wanted to sell their distributorship, but nobody wanted to buy it because they didn't, they weren't sure there was going to be any value in it given that they could only distribute 3.2 at the time. So Anheuser-Busch actually came in and bought the distributorship. And it's unusual because most states have a prohibition on a manufacturer buying a distributorship or owning a retail store. It's called a violation of the three-tier system. You don't want a manufacturer owning all three tiers because then they have sort of a monopoly on the market. But in this case, there is sort of the argument that this distributorship didn't have any value because it could only sell a certain product. So Anheuser-Busch sold, or bought it from the Cresap family. And when we were moving through alcohol monetization, there was a push to make Anheuser-Busch divest of the distributorship. The problem was they only bought it five years prior, and they paid $150 million for it, and they were not going to get their money out of it if they sold it. And so we had to come to some sort of agreement to let them either keep it or not. I was on the side of letting them keep it, but not ever allowing them to acquire any more distributorships, or couldn't acquire any if they ever sold the ones they currently have. My colleague who worked on this with me, Clark Jolley, was actually of the opposite side of that. He wanted to force them to divest. And so it did become a little bit of a hot button topic.
Thompson: How is this issue in the house?
Bice: A little bit different Insurance commissioner, I think, former house member Glen Mulready was actually my house counterpart. I think he did a really, really great job of navigating this in the house. The contentious issues, in many cases, sort of got hammered out in the senate. So, and if there were contentious issues, the lobbyists or others would go to Glen and sort of try to get him on board, and he would push back and say, look, we're getting there. We'll get to work this out. But we had a great relationship. I mean, it really did work out well. And there wasn't a lot of, I think, conflict between house and senate, which is a little bit unusual.
Pearce: Was there any point where you worried that the whole thing would derail?
Bice: Yeah, I think there were a couple of points where I thought that was a possibility. One of them was that Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse folks didn't like some of the provisions in there, and they were really pushing for Jeff Hickman, who is the speaker of the house. At the time, they were asking for Speaker Hickman not to have the bill heard. And I think there was a point where I was a little concerned that that may actually happen, but I think that Speaker Hickman knew that the huge economic development potential, and this had a positive impact on the economy, and that I had been really thoughtful in how I had addressed certain aspects of this. Still had to be 18 to sell, even in a grocery store, which was a point of contention, 18 to serve it, even at a restaurant, 21 to actually make the drink, 18 to go serve it to the table. Still had social hosting laws on the table, you know, that were part of the conversation. So I tried to be sensitive to the fact. Look, you know, I know family members that have battled substance abuse, I get it. So I did, I think, put a lot of emphasis on making sure that we were being cautious about that. And then the other piece of this is, I think the the craft brewers and the large, large corporate breweries had some, some clashes with how come you're giving them a little bit of a benefit or they get an extra, you know, whatever, and I don’t. That sort of thing. That became a little bit challenging towards the end. But, fortunately we were able to work it all out.
Thompson: So we get it passed in the legislature, and then now it's a campaign. Yeah, it's a big battle because that's, the first half is just getting it through the legislature. Yeah.
Bice: And I think it's important to, to, for your listeners to, to know that when we're getting it through the legislature, that is just to put it on the ballot.
Thompson: Right.
Bice: Yeah. So now we get it on the ballot. It's going to be on the ballot in November of 2016 to pass. So this was May of 2016 when we were able to get it across the finish line. So we have a very a short six-month window to sort of advocate for its passage.
Thompson: And the reason this had to be on a ballot is because we were changing constitutional provisions.
Bice: Correct.
Thompson: A lot of our alcohol policies are ensconced in the constitution. So it isn't just a matter of the legislature passing a law. The people had to vote on this to change the constitution, which is, you know, kind of wild that all of this is in the constitution. But that's a podcast of a different day. Yes. And, so let's talk about the campaign and trying to win over the hearts and minds.
Bice: Yeah. I think my favorite story from the campaign is I was invited to come talk to the Municipal League, their summer meeting, the Oklahoma Municipal League. So this is city leadership, of all the cities around Oklahoma come and have a few day conference. And, so they allowed me to speak to a panel. Room was packed. Cities were interested in what this was going to do for them. There was tax revenue implications in a positive way for them. So I went and kind of laid out all of the provisions, and then I asked if there were any questions in the room. And this older gentleman in the back raised his hand and he said, Ms. Bice, my name is Martin Dyer. And I was, I was Representative Dyer of Carter County in 1959 when when we passed the repeal of Prohibition, and I was in the room when we were negotiating all of the constitutional provisions that you are about to change with this state question. And I want you to know it's about damn time. And it was really I mean, I my mouth flew open and I was like, Mr. Dyer, can we talk after this? It was amazing. He talked about how there was a speakeasy in the basement of the Skirvin Hotel that all of the judges and politicians would go to, to drink before 1959, because we were still Prohibition state. He had a wealth of knowledge. He talked about why 3.2 is sort of that threshold. So it was it was a really amazing moment for me.
Thompson: You also mentioned some of the, you know, some of the people that got, we were talking about this before, some of the people that bought advertising in this campaign. (laughter)
Bice: Yeah. Well, right before, we were able to pass it in the legislature, there was a this big contentious issue about Anheuser-Busch owning the distributorship, and they knew I had sort of gone to them quietly and said, look, I'm not in favor of forcing you to divest, but I know my colleague Clark Jolley, you know, wants to force this issue. I just I wanted them to know I wasn't in favor of that. So a couple days later, I come into the Capitol at 9:00 in the morning, and my assistant looks at me and she says, “Boss, have you seen the paper?” I said, “No. Why would I?” And she said, “You should see this.” It is a front page advertisement in the paper and banner ads on every website, the locally owned news stations, saying, you know, don't stop alcohol modernization, #StopClark. And they had created an entire $250,000 campaign to push back on Clark Jolley for trying to force them to divest of the distributorships. It was I mean, my my office is getting phone calls, but Clark's poor assistant at the time, Gayla, was just getting bludgeoned. And I remember going over and apologizing to her for the chaos. It was wild. There were, not only was it banner ads on websites in the front page of the paper, there were billboards as you drove into the Capitol that had #StopClark.
Thompson: That's fantastic. And I should say, we're big fans of Clark Jolley.
Bice: We are big fans.
Thompson: I just I had lunch with him about a month ago and, and he was a great legislator, a great appropriations chairman.
Bice: And let me also say, Clark was integral and getting this done, too. I mean, he, there were two parts of this that we had to really figure out. One was the constitutional piece. And for those lawyers that may be listening, you know how important it is to get “a” or “the” correct. I mean, you have, to it's that nuanced and “a” or a “the” makes a big difference. So Clark was very important in making sure that constitutional question was written correctly. I also had to look at the statute and title 37, an entire rewrite of a title of law and so he was an important part of this process, given his legal background.
Thompson: Yeah. There was a companion bill, Senate Bill 383, that went into effect with the passage of the referendum allowing direct shipment of wine into Oklahoma, increasing the age of the clerk selling beer from 16 to 18. And, I pulled up the Tulsa World editorial. It said “some liquor store owners are concerned that the passage of State Question 792 will hurt their strong beer and wine sales. Well, it will hurt their monopoly of that market, but it ought not kill well-run, viable businesses. Oklahomans want cold, strong beer wine to be available at all levels of retail. That's what they ought to get. State Question 792 is a fair state question. It will be Oklahoma's first step towards sensible alcohol laws since liquor by the drink was approved in the 1980s. Let the free market decide where customers will shop. It’s time.”
Bice: Amen. Well, a couple things. You said Senate Bill 383. That's the right senate bill number. I couldn't remember the number when we were talking earlier. It was really incredible to me, the number of groups that came out to support the initiative. I vividly remember the Tulsa Young Republicans group. I'm sorry. That's not right. The, I vividly remember the Tulsa, the TYPROS, young professionals group who were connected to the Tulsa Chamber. They actually drove to Oklahoma City, set up a meeting with me and said, “What can we do to be helpful to you?” Which was shocking to me. They didn't know me, but they knew how important this was for quality of life, frankly, for young people. These are, you know, 20 and 30 something professionals that want to be able to go to a brewery and hang out. So you had, the TYPROS were very integral in it. You also had the craft brewers, they created a little craft brew coalition. They were advocating at every turn. They had a point person. Jeremy Hall was kind of the person that was in charge of a messaging for them. And, it was kind of cool. I did, I decided to do a debate with the president of the retail Package Stores, Liquor Store Association. And about, I don't even remember how many, a bunch of these craft brewers show up to support me. And they all had made shirts that said “The Bice is Right.” And that was the campaign that they were using to try to push passage of State Question 792 and Senate Bill 383 was “The Bice is Right.”
Thompson: Well, I see your assistant that you have with you is giving me the eye and saying, we have to wrap things up and get on to your next thing, but I want to, just, wrap up by saying the, November 8, 2016, it did pass 939,848 votes to 492,422 votes. So that's with 65% of the vote, which is overwhelming.
Bice: Yeah.
Thompson: At that time, allowed for grocery and convenience stores to sell wine and high point beer, allowed liquor stores to sell refrigerated beer and alcohol accessories, allowed multiple beer and wine stores to be owned by one corporation, and ownership was limited to two stores per person if spirits were sold, and it went into effect on October 1, 2018, and thanks to yours and many others who worked hard in the trenches here, we have modern alcohol laws in Oklahoma. And as we've talked about leading up to this interview in the podcast, Oklahoma's alcohol journey is weird and wild and crazy. And, you know, the fact that we're here now is a testament to your hard work and your ability to build coalition.
Bice: Well, I couldn't have done it without Clark and Glen Mulready’s help. It was a journey. A fun journey, actually. There's not a lot of opportunities where you get to see the fruits of your labor. You know, and for me, the day October 1, 2018, was a Monday. I got up really early. I went to the Capitol. Anheuser-Busch brought the Clydesdales to the Capitol.
Thompson: Oh, I remember that.
Bice: To celebrate, they gave me a award. It's actually a Clydesdale horseshoe that I still have in my office. They, then after that, I thought, what am I going to do? It's like Christmas for me. This was like the, you know, pinnacle of all of this work. So, I went to Trader Joe's because, think about it. You couldn't buy Two Buck Chuck at the time at Trader Joe's. And so I remember vividly it was 11:30-ish on that Monday morning. And the Trader Joe's was jam packed and five people deep. Every cart was full of wine. And I happened to see the mayor come in, and I said, now, he said, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “Admiring my handiwork.” And he laughed, and I said, “I'm sorry for the chaos.” And he said, “Ma'am, this is tax revenue. It's all good.” And so it was fun to be a part of. I couldn't have done it without a lot of support from a lot of folks out there, and I'm thrilled that we were able to get it done.
Thompson: Well, thank you so much for making time with us today, and this is great. I really enjoyed hearing the behind the scenes of how this came to be.
Bice: Thanks for having me.
Thompson: Well, Matt, that was a great conversation with Congresswoman Bice. I loved hearing the behind the scenes of how she and her colleagues worked to get those State Question 792 passed.
Pearce: I think I was really struck by her emphasis on the economic development angle, and that was something that always struck me because I grew up in Colorado and came came to Oklahoma from Colorado. And so I had seen that economic development through, like the craft beer scene firsthand, where you would go to the old mining towns. And that was one of the first things that could, that would come up in some of those old buildings and was the, you know, someone who put up a brewery or distillery as a way to generate some economic revenue for the town, and was quite, usually quite lucrative in doing so. And, and so hearing her talk, talking about that angle of it and how, you know, you know, earlier in our conversation, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the debate over the morality of alcohol use. And, and that was something that you see change by the, by the 2018 state question and that the, I think that element was still there a little bit of course, you know, but you see the economic development angle of it, whether it's through agritourism or through craft beer, you know, beer trails or, or anything like that, or, you know, tax revenue for, for local cities and counties like, you see, that become more prevalent. And it's a way that this is not just a way to it's not just modernizing our our alcohol laws, but it's also improving the state's economy. And that that was something I thought was really striking.
Thompson: Well, I appreciate you for pitching in this week and coming in for Dr. Blackburn, during a very difficult time for him. And, you did great, as always. And thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
Pearce: My pleasure. Any time.
Thompson: Okay, folks, we will see you next month. Thanks for listening. You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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