Maria Mercedes Seidler

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Maria Mercedes Seidler

Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

April 2, 2024

Education

Bachelor's

Missouri Southern State University

Graduate

Yale University

Law

University of Tulsa

Personal

Birthplace

Pittsburg, Kan.

Religion

United Methodist

Profession

Attorney

Contact

Personal LinkedIn

Maria Mercedes Seidler ran for election to the Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education to represent District 6 in Oklahoma. She lost in the general election on April 2, 2024.

Biography

Maria Seidler was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. She received a bachelor's degree from Missouri Southern State University, an M.A. from Pittsburg State University, a J.D. from the University of Tulsa, and a master's degree from Yale University. Seidler completed course work toward a Ph.D. at the University of Tulsa. Her professional experience includes working as an energy attorney and policy analyst.

Elections

2024

See also: Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma, elections (2024)

General election

General election for Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education District 6

Sarah Smith defeated Maria Mercedes Seidler in the general election for Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education District 6 on April 2, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Sarah Smith (Nonpartisan)	72.6	1,375
		Maria Mercedes Seidler (Nonpartisan)	27.4	519

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,894
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Nonpartisan primary election

The primary election was canceled. Maria Mercedes Seidler and Sarah Smith advanced from the primary for Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education District 6.

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Seidler in this election.

2020

See also: Oklahoma House of Representatives elections, 2020

General election

General election for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79

Incumbent Melissa Provenzano defeated Margie Alfonso in the general election for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Melissa Provenzano (D)	51.8	8,301
		Margie Alfonso (R)	48.2	7,721

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 16,022
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Republican primary runoff election

Republican primary runoff for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79

Margie Alfonso defeated Clay Iiams in the Republican primary runoff for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79 on August 25, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Margie Alfonso	59.4	2,267
	Submit photo	Clay Iiams	40.6	1,549

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 3,816
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Melissa Provenzano advanced from the Democratic primary for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79

Clay Iiams and Margie Alfonso advanced to a runoff. They defeated Maria Mercedes Seidler in the Republican primary for Oklahoma House of Representatives District 79 on June 30, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Submit photo	Clay Iiams	46.5	1,493
✔		Margie Alfonso	28.8	924
		Maria Mercedes Seidler	24.8	795

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 3,212
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Maria Mercedes Seidler did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

2020

Maria Mercedes Seidler completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Seidler's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am Maria Mercedes Seidler, a mother, grandmother, wife, and retired - and a daughter of an immigrant whose parents fled Nicaragua after confiscation of their business. He later came to America and succeeded as a small-town architect designing schools and churches. He lived Midwestern values of hard work, family, faith, and love of America. These values are Oklahoma's strengths. So, why is Oklahoma ranking poorly on education, the economy, drug use and prison incarceration? That is why I am running for Oklahoma State House of Representatives. My law career was in trying to make sense of pronouncements out of D.C. and state capitols. I have helped small businesses thread the needle of mindless government regulations. Mid-career, I went to Yale for a Masters in Environmental Management to better cut through the misleading dialogue on climate change from BOTH sides. I started my law career at T.U., but the last half has been spent East. So I saw progressive politics up close. After retirement, I returned home to Oklahoma, only to find the same battle here. My husband says that its time for Oklahomans to have their own Mercedes who will fight for America and for Oklahoma as our legacy to future generations.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Teachers deserve better pay but fixing the education system will require more than simply better paid teachers. Oklahoma public education is not failing students; government is failing public education. Curriculum and standards are set by legislators and elected officials; by politicians and union lobbyists. Learning is so individual to each student that the reach of centralized planning into the one-size fit all classroom by both federal and state must necessarily leave many students behind and their potential unrealized.
• In the movie Dave, Murray sums up government perfectly: "But you gotta start making some choices. . . You know -- priorities. Remember when you couldn't get your car fixed `cause you wanted to get that piano? DAVE(hopefully): You could buy it on payments. MURRAY (thumping the federal budget): Yeah. That's how you end up with a 400 billion dollar deficit."
• Oklahoma economic strengths are its energy and entreprenurialism. If we can add education, then its win will be a trifecta.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

My three grandchildren are THE motivation behind my decision to run for the Oklahoma House. As their parents ran into administrative reluctance to respond to their learning concerns, I dug in researching federal and state law, applying my policy background, to try and find answers to push back on administrative foot-dragging. I became angry over how hard it was to overcome administrators and teachers' biased defense of their stagnated, one-size-fit-all classroom model that was leaving my grandchildren behind. The educational system is so overloaded by politicians and union leaders using it to correct social injustices that their outdated classroom cannot meet the educational needs of individual students.

Classroom curriculum is based on a common denominator of learning. Students who don't fit the student stereotype, like my ADHD granddaughter or a dyslextic classmate, fall outside training for the conventional classroom. Conservative-favored voucher systems cannot fix broken public classrooms. At best, vouchers offer choice to parents who feel public education is on the wrong side of a cultural war. Unions under liberal leadership must stop making schools the vehicle for social change and return to learning priorities. Start with linking higher teacher salaries to accountability. In turn, government must prioritize budget for restructuring and retooling of the classroom, enabling teachers to refocus on maximizing learning opportunity for each individual students.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

I have tried to model my life after my father for his integrity and values. He was a man of his word. He sacrificed for his family and all his hard work was for our benefit and advancement. He earned his architectual license through a long apprenticeship when he could not longer afford an education. He started his own small architectural firm where his employees were always paid before he paid himself. He was truly a self-made man. He was also self-educated and spent late evenings talking with us about all nature of topics, including God, in whom he had a deep faith, and America, its history, its struggles and its virtues. He passed on his patriotism to me. When he was naturalized, he was given a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence that I have hung in every office that I have occupied during my career.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

The Constitution of the United States

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Constitutionalist
Self-reliance of state; not reliant on federal government dollars with its conditions attached that can take away state determinism

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

Conservative principles that guides policy analyses of the details in legislation.
Negotiation skills to find win/win solutions

What legacy would you like to leave?

Politically: Effective Education Reforms

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

"Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." My father, an immigrant whose family fled the dictatorship of Nicaragua, deeply believed in the vision laid out by JFK in his inaugural speech in 1961. My parents had a picture of JFK on one side of our entry door and Pope John on the other side. The first political event that imprinted my memory was the assassination of JFK because of my parents' emotional reaction. I was too young to fully internalize the significance of the event and how it would change American politics, but I knew it was monumental moment given their reaction. Consequently, I grew up as a JFK Democrat who believed in the greatness of America in its finding and in its future potential represented by landing on the moon. However, my current politics is guided by my own experience in law and policy as to principles that proved time and time again they work. At the same time, it seems this generation of Democrats demanding government to do more for them for free. My father died in 1985, but my mother who lived to 84 saw the abandonment of JFK values by the Democratic party and, in the last few months of her life, celebrated the candidacy of Trump who she felt embodied her own deep patriotism and love of country.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My early career path was college teaching. I taught college composition classes as a teaching assistant during graduate school and as adjunct instructors and ESL writing classes. I earned my secondary teaching certificate to teach high school English. I saw upfront and close the bitter truth of high school graduates unable to write coherent sentences, let alone well-structured essays. That was 40 years ago and it seems that subsequent government fixes have not address the educational dysfunction.

Realizing that teaching would not meet my family's financial needs, I pursued law. My first legal job was during law school as a contract coordinator for Williams Natural Gas here in Tulsa. It started my career as an energy attorney at a time when natural gas pipelines were going through a massive regulatory restructuring to competitive markets under federal regulations. As a result of my experience in energy regulation, I developed an understanding of fundamental free market economics that include identification of market failures, like environmental externalities, which could justify government intervention in markets via rational regulations.

What is your favorite book? Why?

So many to chose from . . . Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrug" (besides the obvious choice of the Bible).

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Railroad executive Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrug.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

God Bless the U.S.A. after watching a Trump Rally

What do you perceive to be your state’s greatest challenges over the next decade?

Budget

If you are not a current legislator, are there certain committees that you would want to be a part of?

Education

Are you interested in running for a different political office (for example, the U.S. Congress or governor) in the future?

Possibly Oklahoma Senate

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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