Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt did what Republicans do—he abused the powers of government to benefit big business over the rights of citizens. According to KFOR Oklahoma, Gov. Stitt signed the Senate Bill 1001, that bans municipalities in the state from creating bans on things like disposable plastic bags.
"I believe in city flexibility. We are all for that, but you have to have some kind of uniformity of how you do business from city to city and county to county throughout our state. If there is anything in the future that needs to change as far as a state law in Oklahoma, we can change it through the legislature," said Stitt.
This follows Tennessee’s recent push to do the exact same thing, using their Republican majority in the state legislature. The argument from conservative sides is that they are so deeply in the pocket of big business they need to be able to show big business interests that by gerrymandering the hell out of democracy in their state, they can overrule democracy even on the local level. We will continue to push big business to make the right decisions—like Trader Joe’s grocery stores—but we need to elect officials who aren’t beholden to the interests of money that cannot save us from our apocalyptic polluting of the planet.