Let's Find Common Ground - The Big Challenge of Common Ground Politics: Tulsa, Oklahoma Mayor G.T. Bynum

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Working across party divides is the best way to bring people together and make progress, says our guest, Tulsa Mayor, G.T. Bynum. But he also points out that common ground is “the least valued political real estate in America today”. Overwhelmingly reelected to office as a nonpartisan in a deep-red state, Mayor Bynum calls himself a moderate and tells us that his administration is a test case for “the belief that people of diverse beliefs can still work together to solve great challenges.” Two years ago, Mayor Bynum issued a statement apologizing on behalf of the city for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, exactly 100 years after the racist attack. We discuss his support for long-delayed excavations of victims, and Tulsa's need for diversity, and how new immigrants add to prosperity and community building.   Mayor Bynum acknowledges that in our divided times “the easy sugar high for candidates and elected officials is to hate ‘them’ and get one of the extremes on your side.” Our discussion looks at the need for common ground politics and respect for different communities.

Oklahoma is a deep red state with twice as many registered Republican voters compared with Democrats, nearly all of its leading officials are from the GOP and that includes the mayor of Tulsa, GT-Binam. But Mayor Bynam calls himself a common grounder. He was elected to office with support from Republicans and Democrats. He ran a non-partisan campaign and says he governs that way. and Democrats. He ran a non-partisan campaign and says he governs that way. Our purpose in this is to show people that you can still work with people of different political views and fine-com and ground and address the great challenges that are facing your city and move it forward together. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Miltite.

And I'm Richard Davies. Tulsa is one of the 50 largest cities in the United States and it's growing fast. Many of its newest residents are immigrants, some are refugees. The mayor says they're welcome in his city. And as we'll hear, GTBinam is also working with communities of color and Tulsa, as well as more conservative photos. We learn how he's pushing back against extremes. He says local communities are where common ground can be found. But Tulsa's mayor also says it isn't easy.

And he knows he's going up against the deep partisan divides of American politics. DT Bynam, thanks so much for joining us on Let's Find Common Ground. Wonderful to be with you. Thank you for having me on. Now you've said that common ground is the least valued real estate in American politics today and it's time for a change, which definitely attracted our attention as host of this show. Make your case. First, I'll say that is mutual.

I've tried to use the time that I've been in this job as kind of a working test case as to whether or not you can still use a public office in a nonpartisan way to find common ground and develop consensus. And when I found out about your podcast, it was like, wow, there, there are still people out there that think like this, and value this approach. And so when I had the opportunity to lead in this job as the mayor of one of the 50 largest cities in the United States, so that our purpose in this is to show people that you can still work with people of different political views and fine-com and ground and address the great challenges that are facing

your city and move it forward together. Six and a half years into that experiment. And on the one hand, we found that you can achieve pretty remarkable things when you take that approach. The flip side of it is there is no angry extreme there to have your back when you're in the middle. You basically become the focal point of both extremes and their iron that you won't take their side.

I've run into that quite a bit and that's when I say it's the pride the most dangerous ground and politics. It's the middle ground. Mayor, a binaum for people who don't know who you are. I mean, how did you get elected mayor of Tulsa? What was notable about the lead up to the election? Well, I had served on the Tulsa City Council for eight years and there were really two factors that drove me to run. First, I felt like we were just underachieving as a city and that I didn't want to spin my wheels in the mud on the City Council trying to drag along a city that didn't believe in itself, but I thought if we challenged ourselves to aim higher and to shoot for big goals that we could achieve potentially great things, if people were willing to buy into that, that the other really defining moment for me was reading about

the life expectancy disparity between the predominantly African-American part of Tulsa and the rest of the city was 11 years. And that resonated with me as a parent. So the average life expectancy of black residents of Tulsa is 11 years less than whites or people who live in other parts of the city? In the predominantly African American part of Tulsa, that is correct.

I mean, we had always known that there were disparities in Tulsa between what's called known as North Tulsa and the rest of the city, but to have that number put on it to know that kids that are growing up in that part of the city are being robbed of more than a decade of their life. I thought if we're the kind of city that we want to believe we are, we ought to be rowing to do everything we can as a community to address that.

Okay, so you and your team and your wife, I think, you discussed what a campaign for men might look like, right? What did you come up with? We're going to run, but we're going to run a 100% positive campaign. We'll never run a single negative ad. We're not going to have this be a contest of tearing down my predecessor, but rather, we're just going to have this be a contest of tearing down my predecessor. But rather, we're just going to challenge the city to aim higher. We're going to say what we would do if we got elected. And if people want that, then it's an alternative they can select. And we ended up winning by a landslide by over 16 points.

The key thing in that victory was that Iran is a true nonpartisan. I'm a registered Republican. I've worked for Republican elected officials, but I had prominent Republicans, prominent Democrats, both working and independence all working on my campaign. I will always remember the night before the election that all these young, very engaged people who we went out, you know, put up signs in right-of-way and illegal places like you do the night before election. And then we're all hanging out afterwards. And they were talking about how sad they were that this is the only

time that had an opportunity to work together on a campaign that usually they were competing against one another in partisan races. but we had developed this consensus approach of aiming high, bringing people together and trying to use data to solve great challenges, and it helped us win the election, and I've tried to govern in that spirit in the time that I've been there. Do you think that's applicable elsewhere? Well, I really believe the great hope for America when it comes to this type of approach of moving beyond partisanship and finding common ground, it's in local community service. I don't think my experience is all that unique for other mayors around the country. I just came back from the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of mayors.

And when you get together with mayors and you're talking about your cities, partisanship almost never comes up. Everyone wants to know what you're doing to address crime. What are other cities doing to address housing shortages and homelessness? What are you doing around economic development? Partisanship never comes into it.

Whereas at the federal level, the system is designed around partisanship. Former House Speaker of Republican Newt Gingrich recently wrote that going forward, the choice in next year's election may be between reasonable and crazy. That's a very far cry from the positive politics that you've just been talking about. Do you agree with Gingrich on what he's saying? Oh, I absolutely agree with him. And it's fascinating to me. I remember when I was in high school in college

and the big issue in politics, national politics, was kind of this battle between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich for the policy agenda for the country. And yet, if you look back, what was Bill Clinton doing as president, he was famous prime mostly for triangulation, for identifying the common ground between two warring sides and then triangulating out and taking that position

and advancing the ball in that regard and taking that approach, he kept us out of war, he balanced the budget for the first time in 50 years and oversaw massive economic expansion. And he did that working with a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate, where they are fighting over policy and not personal destruction, and that you had a president working with the Congress

to find common ground and move things forward. And the battles were over how much of that common ground, one side or the other going to get. And it feels like we have moved so far from that. I mean, that seems like ancient history today. So I think Speaker Gingrich is absolutely right. And yet you yourself have said being reasonable sucks. Why? I'll give you a great example. I mean, and this is, you know, kind of the height of the, probably the most challenging time that I've had to work as mayor would be the summer of 2020 when you had a COVID pandemic, a civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd.

And there was a single day where my family had, there's no mayor's mansion in Tulsa. We just lived in our single family ranch house. And one day my wife and kids and I had to be evacuated from our house by police because there was a Black Lives Matter protest that wanted me to settle a lawsuit that was coming to our house and they were accompanied by counter protestors who were second amendment activists who wanted to stand on the curb at my house just feet for my kids basketball goal with their AR-15 assault rifles to prove that they could be out in public with these firearms.

In both groups, I think were mad at me because I wasn't jumping out to embrace their extreme on one side or the other. Face that throughout the pandemic, there were people who were mad that we wouldn't take, you know, move as fast as possible on COVID mitigation practices, but then there are other people who are mad that we adopted them. My, the challenge, I think, for those of us who seek the middle ground is that there are not angry common grounders out there. And I remember thinking in that summer like, okay, I get it.

I, I see why there is comfort to be had in being in one of these extremes, because even if people don't agree with you on everything, if you're going to agree with them on the thing they're really mad about at the time, they'll have your back. And when you're in the middle and trying to find the quieter most of the time, common ground between those angry vocal extremes, it's often very lonely. Just for people who haven't been, which may be quite a few of our listeners, can you just give a little bit of a sketch of Tulsa? I mean, you've mentioned that there's this great inequality, as there is in so many cities in this country, but what's Tulsa like? What's it famous for? Remind us.

Oh, sure. So Tulsa, it's the second largest city in Oklahoma. It was settled by Miscoki Creek Indians at the end of the trail of tears in the 1830s, driven out of their homeland. They brought the ashes from their campfire and their last campfire in Georgia and planted it at the base of a tree near the Arkansas River that is still standing, the council oak tree and founded our city then. Tulsa had up until about 1910s. My great-great-grandfather was the mayor of Tulsa in 1899 when we had about a thousand people, but then oil was discovered in eastern Oklahoma in the 1920s and you had a boom here. It also became known as the oil

capital of the world in the 20th century and then really became a hub of the aviation industry. It was the busiest airport in the United States into the 1940s and is home today to the largest commercial aviation maintenance facility in the world that American Airlines has here. It also is a major hub for the arts, and I would say the thing that defines the community and that I think probably plays a lot into why the approach that I've had from a governance standpoint has been successful is that we're in tornado alley. We're next to a river that used to flood a lot we've been historically rely on a boom and bust energy industry

and so it is baked into the dna of the community that you help one another out in hard times mario made a pretty good case there i mean i had no plans whatsoever to go to tell so you just just put put it put it up on my list. We also just opened the Bob Dylan archive is housed in Tulsa right next The Woody got three center two of our key pieces of culture that we have here. I can keep going on the Tulsa pitch if you want I think you can Why are you a Republican tell us about you what influenced you?

Tell us about you. What influenced you? Oh, sure. My hero of my whole life has been my grandfather, who was the mayor of Tulsa when I was born, just so we're keeping track. I'm the fourth member of my family to serve as mayor of the city. And my grandfather was the mayor when I was born. He retired when I was six months old, but I was very close with he and my grandmother growing up. And he was a Republican, but very much I would say of the Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, style, both of whom he was close with. I grew up around this notion that Republicans were very much about limited government, balance budgets, strong national defense. I grew up in that kind of Ronald Reagan era where there was a sunny optimism about the

future of the country, but you had to run it the right way. There was this sense that the value of the individual is paramount and that you can achieve high ideals in their defense, but that's really what it's about. It's not a cult of personality, it's about what you can do to protect the individual and their rights. In American politics, on the national level, has become increasingly intense, even furious, right now, many on the right are in a state of uproar over the federal government's indictment of Donald Trump. What's your take?

I'm a big believer in allowing the rule of law to follow its way through. We're going on now almost 250 years of a system of government that's based on the rule of law that has checks and balances built within that system of the rule of law, and people need to allow that process to take its course. And I think a lot of the time there's a desire to politicize that, or to jump out ahead and make predictions about how a particular case is going to pan out. In my experience, the best thing that we can do is allow the legal process to take its course and see what happens there.

How worried are you about this moment in American politics where there's so much fury? You know, it's a time when both sides of the political debate call each other evil. So it's a great worry for me. It's a worry as a parent of a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old, and I think about the country that they're going to grow up in. It's a worry for me as a former foreign relations policy advisor who sees other countries around the world, both exploiting our divisions, and advancing steadily

while we spend a lot of time fighting with each other instead of being focused where we should be, I'm being united and competing with other countries around the world. Our guest is the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, GT Bynum. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. I'm Richard. During the first part of our interview with Mayor Bynum, we heard about his view of the criminal indictments against Donald Trump. He said, we're a nation of laws, and that both sides of the political aisle should calm

down and let the legal process play out. Read what common ground's co-founders Bruce Bond and Eric Olson have to say about the indictment in their new blog. You can find it on our website at commongroundcommittie.org. Eric and Bruce say that Americans should not get drawn in to the partisan debate by the conflict entrepreneurs

on social media and cable TV. They write, quote, we hope citizens will resist the emotionally satisfying urge to join in the food fight. Read more about what they have to say and check out our Common Ground Committee videos and learn all about our school card of elected officials at commongroundcommitty.org. Now more of our interview with the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, GT Binam. Back to your city and the divisions within it, the anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921

was just recently. And it was a bitter reminder of race divisions in the city, but also a chance to heal. How have you attempted to put some sell on that wound? That has been one of the great challenges, at least in the time that I've served in this job, because to understand that the impact of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre on our city, you have to appreciate the fact that it was not talked about openly for about three quarters of a century after it happened.

There was an immediate acknowledgement of what a disgrace it was just in the immediate days right after it happened. I mean, there's documentary evidence of city leaders at the time saying we're not going to talk about this anymore. And the reality is it wasn't taught in schools. I took the state mandated Oklahoma history course and never heard about it until I was in my early 20s. My parents didn't hear about it until they were in their 40s. Wasn't talked about in schools, wasn't reported in the news.

There were hardly any books written about it. You see this in like movies or read about it in history and like authoritarian regimes. You don't think that can happen in your hometown. And yet it really almost did here, the erasure of history. Until thankfully you had some courageous historians and community leaders who began reporting that history in the 1990s. There's a handful of things that felt were very important for us to do, probably the thing that we're most physically engaged on would be reversing decades of economic under investment into North Tulsa.

When I talked earlier about that life expectancy disparity. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that's a public health issue. And it is, but our life expectancy is impacted by what's called the social determinants of health. And a big impact in social determinants of health would be wealth and economic opportunity. And so we've focused heavily on bringing economic opportunity into that part of our city. We're also initiated, I initiated 95 years after the event more than that, 98 years after the event, the search for the graves of the victims. We know of at least 18 documented victims of the

race massacre who were buried in a cemetery in unmarked graves and never identified. And so their family members have no idea what happened to them. Don't know where their remains are. And the city didn't look for them for 98 years. And we're going through right now the search for those graves using national experts. And we've just had a major breakthrough from a DNA standpoint in tracking down the identity of remains that we've found and trying to connect those with descendants. You know, we can't go back in time, but we can do what's in our power right now to do

right by our neighbors. And you see that occurring at a greater level right now, whether it's from an educational standpoint, from a community relations standpoint, from an educational standpoint, from a community relations standpoint, from an investment standpoint, than at any time in my lifetime. Not quite everybody, because I know at one point, and this is going back at least a couple of years, but you were sort of approached in a diner. I think you were having breakfast with your family, and somebody was very angry about this attempt to, you know, bring some justice.

I think a lot of people did not search for the graves of the victims because they thought there would be this giant backlash against whoever the mayor was that launched it. To me, it was more, again, so much of what I do comes back to what kind of city do I want my children growing up in and I don't want my kids growing up in a city where there could be a mass grave of murder victims that we didn't try to fight. And when you said the search would go ahead, what was the public response? So when we announced it, you know, I was all braced for this giant backlash of anger in response to the search and instead what I found was most people,

and white Tulsons, black Tulsons, Democrats, and Republicans, and Independents, all reached out and told me, thank you, this is the right thing to do. And largely, at the same thing, I don't want to live in a city that might have a mass grave in it that we didn't try to find and connect the victims with their families.

But that doesn't mean everybody was happy. And the incident you described, that is, it's one of the trade-offs of local community services. I was out at breakfast with my wife and kids at a diner we love going to, and a lady came up to me and just tore into me, telling me that, you know, I was trying to make all white people who lived in Tulsa in 1921 look like murderers. And I was like, well, my family were white Tulsa and Tulsa

in 1921. I'm not trying to make them look like murderers. But if your grandmother was killed then and you didn't know where she was, wouldn't you want to know what happened to her and find her? You know, on the one hand, it was a challenging moment because I hate my children being exposed to the anger that's directed at me that I choose to take on as an elected official, but it was also very valuable for them because we got in the car and it. And I just told them like, doing the right thing is not always popular, but it's still the right thing. And they're very proud of the work that we're doing on this. Speaking of calling to terms with the past, you mentioned that the Muscogee Indians were there, Intel's a right at the start of the settlement of your city. That's right.

What do we need to do with regard to Native Americans, Indian tribes, and there are many in your state in Oklahoma to try and heal some of the terrible wounds of the past. Tulsa is very unique in that we are literally where I am right here talking to you. I'm at the intersection of three different tribal nations. So the Muscogee Nation, the Cherokee Nation, and the Hose Age Nation all intersect in Tulsa. I think the greatest thing that we can do is to do a better job of respecting them as sovereign nations,

which I think a lot of people don't appreciate. And that's something that has been a challenge for us. We had a Supreme Court ruling a few years ago in 2020 that informed us, contrary to what we have been thinking for over 100 years, that Tulsa actually exists in a reservation. We thought it had been abolished when the state was created in 1907, but the Supreme Court ruled that actually

that Cherokee and Muscogee Creek Nation reservation still exists, and it makes Tulsa the largest city in America in a Native American reservation. But respecting their sovereignty, their leadership, and their cultures is so important. And we've established Native American Day in Tulsa as a way to highlight the unique culture in each of our tribes

that we have here in our city and the contributions that they have made to the community, whether it's with Native Americans or with our racial history in the United States, I think it all comes down to education. And the more that we can learn and understand what our fellow Americans have been through historically, it's going to help us do a better job of being a better country moving forward. What about your state Oklahoma? It's one of the very reddest of red states in America. Is it deeply conservative or is there clearly room for moderates and common grounders like yourself? No

Democrat is carried a county in Oklahoma since Al Gore in 2000. So it is arguably the most Republican state in the nation. And yet, I don't find it to be mindless, knee jerk conservatism or Republican devotion. And again, I've found it time and again to be the case that when you get down at that community level, people relate to one another more as neighbors than as partisans. I'll give you a great example. We in Tulsa, and I believe it's just the case for the state of Oklahoma as well,

but I know in Tulsa, we received the largest number of Afghan refugees of any city in America, period, not per capita, just at all. Now, a lot of people were surprised that a state as red and conservative as Oklahoma would be welcoming Afghan refugees at such a large number. But the reality is that Oklahomaans have that great compassion for refugees, a long history in Tulsa of supporting refugees. And in the case of Tulsa, I mean, you could even say, we were founded by people who were driven out

of their home line in the case of the Muscogee Creek Indians. So I think whether it's in Tulsa or in Oklahoma overall, people, when you get out of the realm of philosophical debates and you're dealing with the human being, more often than not, they're going to relate to them as the person, rather than this dehumanization that I think occurs when you get into debating things at a national level.

That's why I'm such a strong believer that the local level, somewhat at the state, but I even really take it down to the community level. That's the hope for moving past this extreme division that you see in our country. Beyond being nice, being empathetic, make the case for why it can be really helpful to the community and even to business welcoming refugees. Well, I mean, in Tulsa, and not just with refugees, but immigrants overall, this is another one where people were surprised that we did this.

I created the New Tulsa Initiative when I became mayor because I wanted us to be the most welcoming city in America for immigrants. And we started it off with an economic analysis to show the economic impact that immigrants have in our community, the outsized level of entrepreneurship that happens in the immigrant community versus non-immigrants. We started hosting citizenship ceremonies every month at City Hall. And for about the first two years that we did that, the single most popular posts that I would put on social media were pictures with these new United States citizens that had

just gone through the process. And it was all across the political spectrum. You had very liberal Democrats who were excited about it, yet very conservative Republicans who were excited for them. And for different reasons, but we had found this common ground where there was an embracing and support for new immigrants who had come to the United States. When it comes to refugees in particular in Tulsa, I think it's very heavily driven by the faith community in our city.

Tulsa has benefited greatly with the home of Oral Roberts University, which has brought a substantial number of refugees from Asian countries into our community over the last 30, 40 years. Tulsa benefits greatly from having been a place around World War II that was a safe haven for Jews, believing Europe and coming to the United States, building businesses here.

And so I think we have a history, we have a demonstrated history of the positive impact both for refugees and immigrants overall. When people see that, it's a reminder of the value of it. Beyond just as you say, being nice, there's an overall community benefit to it. You've talked about the importance of getting people together in one place to boost our sense of community and also find common ground. So I think we have to find ways to replicate and find new ways of building community. We can't just say well the ways communities existed in the past

are on the way. So, oh, well, my kids are just going to grow up in this horrible environment where everyone is suspicious of one another and calls each other evil and doesn't learn from one another. I think we have to find new ways of building community. The other thing, and the reason I'm so thankful for your show is that in my ways, building community. The other thing, and the reason I'm so thankful for your show, is that in my experience,

you make better decisions when you have a greater diversity of viewpoints around the table. I mean, that's the reason I set up my administration the way I did when I ran. It wasn't because, well, these are the people who helped me get elected, and so I owe them a political debt. It was, I'm a true believer that the best decisions are made

with the diversity of life experiences and viewpoints, so that you don't have any blind spots when you're analyzing an issue. And it doesn't mean that everybody is always going to agree, but you can have that respectful discourse. And more often than not, in in my experience find some common ground that you can move forward on together. Mayor Bynum.

Thanks for being on Let's Find Common Ground. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. GT Bynum, who says he's pushing back against the extremes in politics and what he calls the easy sugar high of hating the other side. That's our latest podcast. Tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes of Let's Find Common Ground. Take our brief survey.

Find it at commongroundcommity.org slash podcast. We'd really like to hear from you. I mean, what are you not hearing that you want us to talk about? Fill out the survey. I'm Richard. I'm Ashley. Thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. Chrissy Group.