At War with Corruption: A Biography of Bill Price, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma by Michael J. Hightower

Abstract

Reviewed by: At War with Corruption: A Biography of Bill Price, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma by Michael J. Hightower Aaron Bachhofer At War with Corruption: A Biography of Bill Price, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. By Michael J. Hightower. Foreword by Frank Keating. (Norman, Okla.: 2 Cities Press, 2021. Pp. xx, 466. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-9847056-3-4.) The idea that corruption and chicanery were both frequent and familiar to Oklahomans remains a widely accepted perception of the state’s political history. Proponents posit that residents tolerated this “Soonerism” out of a misplaced sense of prairie populism, general apathy, or genuine ignorance of modern protocol (p. xiii). In At War with Corruption: A Biography of Bill Price, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, independent historian Michael J. Hightower challenges that perception, arguing that Oklahomans were not tolerant of corruption. Rather, he asserts, the structure of state and local governments made corruption much too easy to institute and terribly difficult to eliminate. To support this notion, Hightower introduces readers to the political life of his friend William S. “Bill” Price, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1989 and who spent the vast majority of his public and private life seeking to end political malfeasance in Oklahoma. A native Oklahoman who saw corruption as a threat to the legitimacy of state and national institutions, Bill Price forged ahead in political circles with an enviable fortitude and a sense of fairness that governed his entire public career. Educated at Georgetown University and the University of Oklahoma, Price was a devout Catholic convert and a proud family man. After his tenure as a U.S. Attorney, he mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the governorship and a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, built a successful law practice, and advocated for criminal justice reform in Oklahoma. His reputation for honesty, hard work, and sharp intellect led his campaign manager and fellow political animal, Tom Cole, to remark that Price was “the best governor Oklahoma never had” (p. x). Aside from Price’s formative years, Hightower details, in abbreviated strokes, the painful series of political cancers that have plagued the Sooner State since its birth: the dispossession and murder of Indigenous Americans; the 1923 impeachment of the anti-Klan governor Jack Walton; the Oklahoma Supreme Court payola scandal of 1964; State Treasurer Leo Winters’s financial issues; and Governor David Hall’s extortion conviction, events that made national news regularly throughout the twentieth century. A significant part of the narrative’s second half focuses on Price’s prosecution of the Oklahoma county commissioner scandal—often called “Okscam” in state and federal circles. Hightower relates that the pervasiveness and normalization of county corruption stunned Price. Powerful county commissioners took bribes—often in exchange for awarding contracts—and the costs of their corruption were passed on to taxpayers. The fact that Price became the lead prosecutor ferreting out these crimes from his federal post illustrated a central weakness in Oklahoma law—the lack of multicounty grand jury systems that gave state prosecutors more discretion in their pursuit of justice. The scandal made Oklahoma a national political joke, but it encouraged officials to pursue much needed reforms in government purchasing and accountability. Price spent the rest of his tenure as U.S. Attorney investigating [End Page 396] drug cartels, bank fraud, corruption at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and other odious situations. Readers will find firsthand information included in these pages from Oklahoma political legends like G. T. Blankenship, Henry Bellmon, Frank Keating, Gene Stipe, and Tom Cole—men who helped shape politics in the state for upwards of seventy-five years. Most of the key “good guys” are included here—those who helped Price pursue wrongdoing or provided him with invaluable guidance during his political career. But Hightower’s narrative is missing a wider engagement with sources who might have been critical of Price, or at least those who challenged his commitment to law and order, which would have offered more balance. Hightower should be commended for offering readers a powerful, raw look at politics...