A freshman Oklahoma lawmaker who upset a powerful House Republican incumbent last year is trying to turn grassroots energy into a broader policy movement, rolling out a seven-point conservative agenda that has already drawn support from several statewide candidates ahead of the 2026 elections.
Rep. Jim Shaw, R-Chandler, said the Save Oklahoma Plan grew out of frustrations he encountered both as a candidate and during his first session at the Capitol, where he said some popular conservative priorities are routinely blocked by lobbyists and legislative leadership.
“I got into politics because of issues directly impacting my family, my home, my property and my community,” Shaw said in a recent interview. “And on those issues, we were losing every single time at the Capitol. The mainstream lobby and special interests are openly fighting every single one of those items.”
The seven-point plan, which Shaw released in the summer, focuses on eliminating taxpayer-funded lobbying, anti-renewable energy policies, investigating turnpikes and opposing vaccine mandates. Shaw said he tested the ideas through a statewide poll of Republican primary voters, finding all seven items “overwhelmingly favorable” with the base.
Shaw said he stayed away from typical Republican policy fare like tax cuts in the Save Oklahoma Plan because they don’t tell GOP primary voters much about how a candidate will govern.
“Regardless of where a legislator stands on the conservative spectrum, you can’t really be a Republican and say, ‘I want more taxes,’” Shaw said. “These are not all-encompassing of every issue we’ve got in Oklahoma. We’ve got issues with DHS and property taxes and what have you, but these are seven items that are really being fought by the lobbyists.”
A political newcomer, Shaw ran against Rep. Kevin Wallace in the Republican primary in 2024. He beat Wallace, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee at the time, in a primary runoff. The election was the most expensive state House race to date, with candidate and independent expenditure spending surpassing $1.4 million.
Shaw started his oil and gas career at Chesapeake Energy Corp. and later joined a former boss at an energy consulting company. He became president, chief operating officer and eventually co-owner of Land Information Services LLC before selling the software company in 2022.
Shaw said his first year in office revealed how House rules and leadership control which bills advance, sometimes unevenly. Motions to waive the rules are a frequent complaint of those in the minority party, and sometimes even among factions of the governing party.
“Rules are waived sometimes for some people, but they’re in place and very rigid for other people,” Shaw said. “There is this discriminatory practice or preferential treatment for certain folks that was frustrating to really realize and witness in person.”
Instead of pitching the Save Oklahoma Plan directly to GOP candidates, Shaw said he took a bottom-up approach, sharing it first with more than a dozen conservative grassroots organizations across the state. In some cases, members of those groups asked candidates directly at town hall meetings and other political gatherings if they’d sign on to the plan.
Several of the grassroots groups pledged to back only candidates who signed on to all seven items, creating what Shaw described as a new accountability mechanism for Republican primary voters. Former House Speaker Charles McCall and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei, both of whom are running for governor, and Jeff Starling, who is running for attorney general, are among the Republican statewide candidates endorsing the plan.
“For too long, we’ve had people campaign one way and legislate another,” Shaw said. “I think this brings some much-needed accountability to the equation.”
Shaw committed up to $100,000 to help grassroots groups promote the Save Oklahoma Plan. The money is to boost message advocacy, not to support or oppose any particular candidate.
“My commitment to them was, ‘Hey, if you’re willing to sign on to the plan and support it and want to take the extra step, I’m happy to provide a donation to your group specifically for that messaging,’” Shaw said. “It wasn’t a requirement; it was just there if they wanted it.”
Mazzei said many of the ideas in the Save Oklahoma Plan were issues he pursued while he was a state senator. Mazzei, a financial advisor, served in the Legislature for 12 years until reaching term limits in 2016.
“As I got to know Rep. Shaw a little bit after he got into the Legislature and he was focusing on many of these items which became the Save Oklahoma Plan, it reminded me of many of the policies and ideas I had been fighting for when I was in the senate, and a significant level of priorities that I wanted to focus on as a candidate for governor,” Mazzei said.
Mazzei said he hears funding and eminent domain concerns about the state turnpike system at campaign events across Oklahoma. He said he’s long harbored doubts about renewable energy. As a senator a decade ago, Mazzei wrote the bill ending the state’s transferable tax credits for wind.
“I love the emphasis on fighting the green energy agenda because I’ve never understood why we would subsidize with taxpayer dollars massive wind and solar projects that compete directly against Oklahoma energy, particularly Oklahoma natural gas,” Mazzei said.
Mazzei has made eliminating property taxes on seniors and veterans a central part of his gubernatorial campaign. Lawmakers this year cut income taxes by a quarter percentage point and set a mechanism to take the income tax to zero if benchmarks are met in future years.
“With my background in money and finance, both of those goals are very doable, and we can still handle core services for education, law enforcement and health care,” Mazzei said.
Campaign representatives for McCall and Starling did not return requests for comment on their endorsements of the Save Oklahoma Plan. They have mentioned their support in social media posts and in campaign emails and press releases.
Speculation about a run for higher office swirled around Shaw in late spring and early summer. He said some supporters circulated a petition asking him to run for governor. But he decided against it after much reflection.
“It was something I didn’t immediately dismiss,” Shaw said. “I prayed about it a lot. I thought about it a lot, and ultimately didn’t see this being the right time or having the right path to do that. Ultimately, it was which path is going to give us victory on the issues.”
In the meantime, Shaw is focused on his reelection campaign and the next session. Shaw said the 2026 session will include renewed efforts to pass legislation aligned with his seven-point plan. Some of his bills carried over from last year are still pending in committee. Shaw said he will continue working with colleagues, including some in the like-minded Freedom Caucus, who want to carry portions of the agenda themselves.
Shaw said one of the most challenging items is ending taxpayer-funded lobbying, an issue that has stalled in past years. Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is term-limited, called for an end to taxpayer-funded lobbying when he took office in 2019. Shaw said closing loopholes that allow agencies, schools and municipal groups to employ lobbyists will require statutory changes, not just executive orders.
Despite the obstacles, Shaw said the early response to the Save Oklahoma Plan shows the power of grassroots organizing, especially in Republican primaries.
“If we win on just one of these issues, I believe we will have shifted the Legislature to becoming more afraid of the grassroots and the people than they are of special interests,” he said, “If we do that, we will fundamentally change politics across the state.”
