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Scott Pruitt
Scott Pruitt was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 1998 after a competitive, grassroots campaign. His victory over a 16-year incumbent was no surprise to people who knew Pruitt well. He had already earned a reputation for being a hardworking, serious competitor.
As a kid in Kentucky, Pruitt could most often be found on a baseball field. And in college, he played 2nd base for the Kentucky Wildcats whose winning record brought them to within one game of the College World Series. After graduation, he hung up his cleats and moved to the great state of Oklahoma where he attended law school at the University of Tulsa.
The tenacity, passion and capacity for leadership developed on the baseball diamond served him well in elected office as well as business. During his tenure in the Senate, Pruitt became one of the most respected and influential voices in the Senate on crucial economic and social policies. He was elected by his caucus to serve as Minority Whip in 2000 and as Assistant Minority Floor Leader in 2002. The Research Institute for Economic Development routinely named him among the top pro-business Senators. In 2002, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national bipartisan association of state legislators, chose him to serve as Chairman of their Civil Justice Task Force, a position which allowed him to develop model tort legislation with the best minds in the country on civil justice issues like lawsuit reform.
Respected by colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Pruitt became the leading spokesman for workers compensation reform. As a freshman senator, Pruitt envisioned a streamlined system that would provide greater benefits for injured workers at less cost to employers. His ideas propelled workers compensation to the top of the legislative agenda and radically altered the debate at the Capitol.
Senator Pruitt has championed lawsuit reform, a common sense tax system, and greater accountability for government spending. He played a key roll in the successful effort to fund education first and worked to provide greater flexibility to local school districts to allocate state funds to the areas they need most.
In 2004, Senator Pruitt returned to his baseball roots by becoming the General Managing Partner of the Oklahoma RedHawks, Oklahoma City’s lone Triple-A baseball club. Under his leadership, the RedHawks have seen a 42% increase in attendance and experienced in 2006 experienced the highest attendance in Oklahoma’s minor league baseball history. In the same time, season ticket sales soared 65%.
In baseball, business, and at the legislature, Pruitt has achieved much in his young life, but he is most grateful for his wife Marlyn, and their two children, McKenna and Caden. He is devoted to his family and to his deep faith in God. The Pruitt’s are members of First Baptist, Broken Arrow, where Scott serves as a Deacon.
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