it fair to say, then, that at least initially here for you in the first couple of years, The focus is going to be more inward than outward in terms of rebuilding the strength and the focus of the union members that there are here in Oklahoma.

Yeah, Isabella's got a sign on her wall that says issues first, candidates second.

And we firmly believe in that.

We believe that we have supported candidates.

One thing that I did that pissed off some of my membership this year was adhere to the rules that we set up for ourselves.

Old strategy, but basically, if you're a candidate for office and you don't fill out our survey, our little questionnaire, it doesn't ask you to commit to anything.

It just asks you how you feel about stuff, because we want to know where people are so we can get them educated where we want them to be.

But do you have some marching orders for this engaged group that probably is, I think it's pretty easy to say, would be 100% in solidarity with what you're doing and what organized labor means to the future of Oklahoma?

Forrest, what do you think of this announcement?

It's awful, and I think it's going to have a really bad effect on the rank and file of our state workers.

You know, I represent the State Workers Union, and they've been pushing for a pay raise across the board.

Teachers got a small pay raise last year, and it's going to get, or this last legislative session, which is going to get entirely eaten up by these premium increases.

There has to be a bigger, grander solution than what, with all due respect, A.G. Drummond said, which was his criticism was that the state administration had kept those premiums artificially low by not increasing them incrementally over the last few years.

And so now this huge hike, this 18% or whatever hike, is a sticker shock thing for folks.

But the bigger problem is that these premiums are increasing at the rate that they are annually anyway.

Forrest, yeah.