Shannon Makes Washington Post ‘Rising Star’ List
By Sean Sullivan and Aaron Blake
Oklahoma state House Speaker T.W. Shannon: The 35-year old is not only Oklahoma’s first African American speaker of the House, he’s also the country’s first black Republican state House speaker since Reconstruction. He also happens to be an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation. Oklahoma is a conservative state that will offer plenty of opportunities for upwardly mobile Republicans, and given that Shannon is term-limited in 2018, he’ll be looking for that next move pretty soon.