Let’s Fix This, the non-profit advocacy group founded by Andy Moore, emerged from the state budget crisis of 2016. Oklahoma had experienced two revenue failures, across-the-board cuts in spending on services and furloughed state employees, including Department of Health employees who approved pharmaceutical allocations for patients.
Moore, a licensed counselor with degrees in theology and counseling, had seen up close the effects of what he calls “poor policy decisions” while working for OU Health Sciences Center at the Infectious Diseases Institute, the state’s largest HIV treatment program. His twin degrees were the result of his desire to make material differences for vulnerable communities, but as he describes it, many of the people he saw had problems that weren’t just mental health issues or disease.
“They were also facing systemic problems, restrictive cultural norms and identity assumptions, along with, in many cases, severe and chronic mental health issues,” Moore said. “Their ability to live well had been impaired by bad policy decisions.”
With that as his professional and personal backdrop, he was unsurprised with the policy crises of 2016, but he decided to try again to make a difference, this time at the legislative level. Rather than run for office and become part of the larger machine, he decided to invite people to come to the Capitol and talk to legislators.
This article is sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation
“I didn’t know politics, but I understood relationships, so I called Stephanie Bice and Jason Dunnington, both legislators at the time, and they said legislators would definitely be open to talking to constituents. Especially since we were trying to promote civic engagement and full voter participation in Oklahoma, not rally around a specific piece of legislation or issue.”
The result of his brief Facebook event, which he cheekily named “Let’s Fix This: A Day at the Capitol for Folks Who Care” has been well documented in the Oklahoma Gazette and other publications; people showed up. They met with Bice, Dunnington and Cyndi Munson, and they told the attendees how best to interact with legislators.
“I remember Senator Ervin Yen stopping to ask if we were all here about the same thing,” Moore said, “and he was genuinely surprised that the answer was no. It was a rare thing then to have these kinds of conversations that weren’t advocating a specific cause.”
Since then, Moore has gone through a divorce, worked at being a single dad, obtained his MBA and overseen the growth of what is clearly a strong, grassroots movement that gained additional momentum with the teacher walkout in 2018. It’s impossible to miss the timing of the organization’s founding; we were walking into Donald Trump’s first term, and now we are well into his second, with all that has entailed vis-a-vis tariffs; ICE; the war in Iran; escalating prices in every sector; and noticeably less disposable income for the middle class and the poor.
Rather than look to some kind of messianic intervention a la President Trump’s first term mantra “I alone can fix this,” Moore opts for a more hopeful analogy with a referent now lost to most people under 60 or who aren’t policy nerds.
“I think of the line in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” he said. “‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’”
Most of us are caught somewhere between the poles of Left and Right, and because we need good policy to help make our lives better, Moore thinks it’s important to ask what seems—after he said it—an obvious question.
“If policy is the outcome, what is the input?” He asked. “Politicians make decisions to get votes, and they are elected in closed primaries in gerrymandered districts. We all know this isn’t good for representative democracy. The incentives for politicians to maintain power are misaligned with what is good for the rest of us. We care about representation; they care about power.”
The primary system started in 1968, and Moore believes it’s time to tweak the system: “We have always tweaked the system, and voters have to be the ones who tweak it.”
Moore thinks that people need to reframe political discourse away from unhelpful binaries like right and left, and focus instead of “in power” versus “not in power.” The idea crystalized after he left OU in 2019 to run People Not Politicians. “Politicians in states where Republicans were in power called it a ‘liberal coup,’ Moore said. “Democratic politicians in Illinois called it a ‘conservative coup.’”
It’s a clear example of ideologically loaded words being used to divide and then pit voters against each other. The only solution for Moore is get the electorate engaged and informed. The organization’s policy guide is nonpartisan, and designed to educate not proselytize.
“Ultimately, we want all eligible voters to vote, and we want the system to be responsive to voters,” Moore said.
For more information, go to letsfixthis.org.
This article appears in deadCENTER Film Festival returns.