Tulsa World: Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon making name for himself
Tulsa World - Wayne Greene
T.W. Shannon, speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and a fast-rising star in national conservative politics, has a special name for the off-white couch in his state Capitol office.
“The Truth Sofa.”
House members come into his office, sit on The Truth Sofa and tell him ... the truth: Why they can’t vote for leadership bills, why they have to vote for non-leadership bills, why certain proposals are essential to their districts, or their constituencies, or their friends.
Many times, Shannon says, he spends the better part of his day sitting across from The Truth Sofa, listening.
“I learn more about the world, their districts, their families, and what’s really happening with the member right there,” Shannon said.
As the Legislature moves toward the climax of its annual session, competition for time on The Truth Sofa is rising. Lots of people want a few minutes alone with Shannon, arguably the most powerful man inside the state Capitol.
Just above The Truth Sofa, there’s a mirror.
The young Oklahoma legislative leader has a magic political combination of minority heritage, conservative ideas and a silky smooth presence. Seasoned experts say his political potential is virtually unlimited on the state or national stage.
But Shannon insists that when he looks into that mirror he doesn’t see a future congressman, a would-be governor, or maybe something even better looking back across The Truth Sofa, unless...
Tahrohon, get to class
Doris McNair remembers the image of Tahrohon Shannon walking down the hall at Lawton High School, towering over his classmates in stature and in other ways.
“Of course, he was the tallest one,” the now-retired guidance counselor said. “He was just talking and talking, and I would tell him, ‘OK, Tahrohon, get to class.’ and he’d say, ‘I’m going Ms. McNair. I’m going,’ but, of course, he would just skirt in, because he was so busy, always talking.”
And always smiling. Tahrohon Shannon — he wouldn’t shift away from his tribal name until he got to college — was a “good kid” and always popular, McNair said.
“The girls loved him,” she said with a laugh. “He was just a fun person to be around. He was happy all the time and had a big smile on his face.”
Beyond his young charisma, McNair said, it was clear Shannon had the mental sharpness to be a leader.
“He always had something in his mind that was going on,” she said. “While everyone else was going on about crazy stuff, he was figuring out how he could get this done or get that done.”
A game of 72
Of the 101 members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, 72 are Republicans.
That’s politically comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.
Sometimes it’s harder to lead a majority of 72 than it would be a caucus with 20 fewer members.
“It’s a big caucus and because it’s a big caucus, there’s a lot of diversity in the people in it,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Cole. “So being able to be united, being able to work well with your counterparts ... those kinds of things are extremely important.”
The Republican caucus ranges from the chamber of commerce types who rail against big government (but have nothing against an occasional big-dollar bond issue) to the Agenda 21 crowd with their echoes of the John Birch Society.
Already conservative, the Oklahoma House took a sharp right turn under Shannon’s leadership.
A Shannon innovation — the States Rights Committee — was the vehicle for a variety of ideas that were quietly put to bed by Shannon’s predecessor as speaker, Republican Kris Steele.
House Democratic Leader Scott Inman, D-Del City, said past speakers have left out the extremes of the party and built a voting majority out of the center, which made for a more unified platform, but a more divided chamber.
“(Shannon’s) leadership style seems to be one of inclusion, especially in his own caucus,” Inman said.
During Steele’s speakership, discontented tea party Republicans occasionally joined with Democrats to thwart, or at least slow, Steele’s program.
Shannon has reached out to all elements of the Republican Party — which makes a smoother flowing chamber, but also has meant the House has passed some previously stifled “bad ideas,” such as a proposal to take on the United Nations over its Agenda 21 and its supposed one-world government threat, Inman said.
Shannon said he takes pride in the fact that all factions are represented on his leadership team.
“Obviously you can’t get all 72 around a table, but when you look around that table, I can see every single person in our caucus represented,” he said.
Thunderstruck
T.W. Shannon was a senior at Cameron University in 2000, when he saw a beautiful woman walking across campus.
It was Devon Murray, a freshman.
He was thunderstruck.
“I saw her and went and introduced myself, and then went home and told my parents and my coworkers, ‘I’ve met the woman I’m going to marry.’?”
He was right.
The two married in 2001. They have two children and work together in a public relations and human relations consulting firm, Shannon Strategies Inc.
Cole says if you want to understand Shannon, you need to appreciate the role of Devon.
“He’s extremely well grounded in his personal life. Devon really is the love of his life,” said Cole. “You couldn’t have a more supportive spouse or extended family. ... It’s just a wonderful, wonderful personal foundation on which to move.”
Republican diversity
“The hardest part of being Speaker of the House is consensus building,” Shannon said.
“I’m good at relationships. It comes easy for me (but) ... the issues are so diverse and none of them are black and white. Usually, it’s the lesser of two evils,” he said.
A successful speaker listens a lot, speaks less and looks for uniting ideas, Shannon said.
“I don’t have a lot of ego in it,” Shannon said. “It wasn’t some thing I set out to do. It wasn’t something I planned to do. ... So I think I can approach it from an objective position.”
“The way I approach people, even those that I disagree with, is that I value their opinions, and I want them as contributing members,” Shannon said. “I think that’s been part of our success. When you’re not intimidated by these people who disagree with you, and you allow them to be free, open and honest about what’s important to them, I think it works. It has to be managed, that’s the challenge.”
House leadership meetings are often heated, Shannon conceded.
“They’re lively. Sometimes they’re long — longer than I would like. But in the end you get a better product,” he said. “Diversity produces a better product.”
The fiery furnace
A handsome young black man from Lawton was applying for an entry-level staff job. He had a good resume, good recommendations and a black face.
Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts — the first black Republican U.S. Representative from south of the Mason-Dixon Line since Reconstruction — said he knew what he needed to do.
He grilled the young man pointedly about his beliefs, his family, his politics and his ability to withstand the taunts of those who would say he was a traitor to his people.
“I definitely put him through the nth degree,” Watts said of that first meeting with T.W. Shannon. “It was Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace.”
From his own life, Watts knew that the novelty of a young, black conservative creates its own spotlight, which could be a good thing for a rising young politician and an uncomfortable one.
A big part of the difference was being prepared for it: Knowing how to respond to jeers with smiles and sticking to principles without getting angry.
The first day on Watts’ staff, Shannon went to a high-class fundraiser for then-U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
The next day, he was back in Oklahoma, digging a post hole for a Watts sign in the 105-degree heat of Jackson County.
“It was kind of the glamor and the pain of politics all in one,” Shannon said.
Seat at the table: No matter how many people are in the room, there are really only three seats at the table when it comes time to negotiate the state budget — the governor, the president pro tem of the Senate and the speaker.
Gov. Mary Fallin and President Pro Tem Brian Bingman have been there the past two years. Shannon is the new kid on the block.
He wants to be a conservative voice in that process, an advocate of limited government and personal responsibility.
He also wants to be a generational voice, an advocate of restrained state debt because he knows who will end up paying off that borrowing.
And he wants to be an optimistic voice, an advocate of forgetting the breakdowns of the past — particularly last year’s final-days breakdown on a state personal income tax cut.
“I don’t bring any baggage with me and that helps,” Shannon said. “I bring a little more objectivity. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. I didn’t have the front row seat on what happened last year. I think that probably helps.”
‘Indomitable spirit’
If you say that T.W. Shannon is a black man, you’re only half right.
Shannon clearly honors his Chickasaw heritage equally with his black heritage.
His Chickasaw ancestors came to Oklahoma six generations ago, part of the Indian removal policy of Andrew Jackson.
The family still holds allotment land just north of Ardmore.
“We are very proud of T.W. Shannon, for his accomplishments and for who he is as a person,” said Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby. “T.W. exhibits the best qualities of what it means to be Chickasaw. He has the indomitable spirit, courage, humility and compassion needed to be a true servant leader.”
“T.W. is a man who loves his family and loves this state. He has the rare ability to put the needs of his community and his family above his own desires. We can be confident he will do what he believes is right for Oklahoma, because he knows his decisions will affect his own family.”
Tahrohon is a family name with American Indian roots, although Shannon thinks it isn’t Chickasaw. It may come from the Iowa tribe, he said.
When he got to college, he shifted to T.W. in an effort to sound more sophisticated, but people who knew him as a child still call him by that odd and difficult-to-pronounce moniker.
“I’ve never met another one,” he said. “I told my wife when our son was born, I had to suffer with it, so does he.”
Conservative Pragmatism
If you were going to put a name to T.W. Shannon’s political philosophy, it might be Conservative Pragmatism.
He can talk about lofty ideas as well as anyone else, but he insists on always focusing those concepts in the here and now, the reality that proves concepts — and motivates voters.
“I think you can be pragmatic and be principled too,” Shannon said. “I have some conservative principles that I try to adhere to, but at the end of the day, the people deserve a government that works. I don’t think that there’s a dichotomy there. I think you can be principled and pragmatic. I don’t think they’re incongruent at all.”
He says that for an Oklahoma audience, and recently a national one. In March, Shannon was invited to speak to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The annual conference in Washington is a testing ground for Republicans on the rise.
“We Republicans have gotten our clocks cleaned nationally because that hasn’t been our message,” he said. “I think our message has been, ‘Believe what we believe because we’re right.’
“Well, OK, I’m glad you think you’re right, but I think the people want to see solutions,” he said. “I think there’s a good record that conservative principles lead to prosperity, which I think is really the motivating factor in most people’s lives.”
Freshman follies: Every first-year legislator makes mistakes.
Park in the speaker’s parking place.
Try to come in a Capitol door that’s been locked for years.
Mistake a lobbyist for the Appropriations and Budget chairman.
Shannon’s biggest rookie mistake? He got angry.
He had a bill that was competing for air with a similar bill offered by a Democrat. He had a promise from the leadership that his bill would get heard first, but then, in the way things sometimes work at the Capitol, the Democrat’s bill won the race.
The House leadership needed the Democrat’s cooperation to ensure the smooth flow of legislation at a critical juncture.
Shannon was hacked off and he was looking for a way to get even. So, he voted against a leadership bill, not because it was a bad idea but to make a point.
“I got mad, and I thought I had been disrespected, and it was just an immature action,” Shannon said.
Legislative etiquette is important, and promises should be kept, but you don’t retaliate with votes, Shannon said.
“I let my emotions get the best of me that night,” he said. “That didn’t serve my district well. It didn’t serve me well and it didn’t serve leadership well. I got caught up in the moment and ego got the best of me.”
Some advice
Shannon calls J.C. Watts his political mentor.
They speak on the telephone a couple of times a month, Watts said.
Shannon also worked for U.S. Rep. Cole, widely seen as the best connected of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation.
“His (political) potential is unlimited,” Cole said. “I think for most people being speaker of the House is the culmination of their political career. For him, I think it’s going to be more like a launching pad.”
But Shannon says that when he needs political advice he doesn’t turn to a congressman. He goes home to talk to his father, Wayne. The retired public school teacher speaks slowly and keeps concepts simple, Shannon said.
“That’s real clarifying for me sometimes. Sometimes I go to him with things that seem really complex and he says, ‘When in doubt do what’s right.’?”
Unless...
Ten years from now, will T.W. Shannon still be in politics?
“No,” he says flatly.
He enjoys public service, but he has never planned to make a career of it.
Before he ran for speaker he was planning to leave the Legislature when his 2010 term ran out. He was ready to try to do something in the corporate world.
Some other legislators came to him and suggested he would be a good Speaker — an idea he had literally laughed at before.
“I remember sitting in the back of the conference room and saying, ‘I will never want to be Speaker. Why would anyone want to be Speaker? It’s the hardest job in politics. Why would anybody want to do that?’?”
He told the people pushing him into leadership that they were crazy — at first.
“I decided to think about it, and started talking to members, and it kind of fell into place after that,” he said.
“In being Speaker, any desire I had about fulfillment as a public servant, I had it,” he said.
Unless...
T.W. Shannon is a man who believes in divine guidance.
An unseen hand guides human fate. Mortal struggle with that hand’s might is folly.
When he looks over The Truth Sofa into the mirror, T.W. Shannon does not see a budding political star looking back.
But a few years ago, he didn’t see a Speaker of the House in his own image either.
“I approach things by faith, and certainly if that’s what the plan is for me to do, I’ll be open to it,” Shannon said. “It’s not something I’m seeking out at all, just like this wasn’t something I was seeking.”
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