The Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women.

Sen. Mary Easley

Senator Mary Easley is married to Truman Easley and they have three children and seven grandchildren. The Easley’s have been members of the Southern Baptist faith for more than 30 years, where Truman has served as a deacon. Currently they are members of the First Baptist Church in Tulsa.

The Senator graduated with a B.A. in Language Arts and Business from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas and with a M.A. from Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah. She is a retired public school teacher and was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1996 and served as Chairman of the Banking and Finance Committee. After eight years serving as State Representative she was elected to the State Senate in April 2004 where she serves as Chairman of the Sunset Review Committee and Vice Chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee. Easley is also a member of the powerful Appropriations Subcommittee for Education as well as a member of the full Appropriations Committee which is responsible for writing the bills that fund each state agency.

During Senator Easley’s time in the Senate, she has been a powerful voice for teachers, rural fire fighters, senior citizens, farmers and ranchers, veterans, small business and middle class and working families. She was honored by the Oklahoma Aging Partnership and AARP Oklahoma for supporting legislation important to Oklahoma’s greatest generation, including the Oklahoma Identity Theft Act which allows senior citizens and victims of identity theft to freeze their credit free of charge. She has received accolades from Oklahomans for Life for co-authoring the most significant pro-life legislation in the history of the state. Easley also won the approval of the Oklahoma and National Rifle Association receiving an A rating for her support of Second Amendment rights.

Easley supported the $3000 pay increase for every Oklahoma teacher, making certain that our classrooms will continue to be guided by the brightest teachers in the nation. She supported the legislation that made certain that middle class and working families weren’t left out of the historic tax cut package that passed the legislature two years in a row. Recently out-of-state-extremist groups have used funerals of fallen soldiers as a platform for hate speech and intolerance. Senator Easley’s faith in God and moral values told her this extremist group’s right to protest should never be more important than a family’s right to mourn the loss of their child in peace. She refused to sit idly by while our brave soldiers and their families were used to further the agenda of such hateful groups and her legislation known simply as the Funeral Picketing Protection Act, was the first piece of legislation passed and signed into law by Governor Brad Henry this past legislative session. She voted in favor of a measure that allows more small business owners the opportunity to offer health insurance coverage to their employees—helping make health insurance more affordable for those who might otherwise go without. Easley supported a state budget that made record investments in our roads and bridges and public safety initiatives, including hiring additional workers to investigate cases of child abuse and record funding for rural fire departments to help keep our communities, churches and businesses and homes safe from wildfires. She also supported important public safety legislation, such as Caitlin’s Law, that will help keep criminals behind bars and legislation that keeps child molesters away from our children permanently.