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Posted: May 27, 2026 10:05 AMUpdated: May 27, 2026 10:25 AM
Cuen Funderburke for District 10
Tom Davis
Dewey resident Cuen Funderburke is a Republican running to represent Oklahoma State District 10 in the June primary where he is challenging incumbent Judd Strom.
Funderburke is married with five kids. He is originally from Tallahassee, Florida. After moving around the region for work as a mechanic, Funderburke decided it was time to put down roots. Funderburke said, "We searched good and hard for a few years, figure out what would be a good fit for us. We homeschool. So that was probably foremost issue on our minds, what state's going to be amenable to that. And we settled on Oklahoma for a lot of reasons." Funderburke added,"My familiy is dispositionally conservative and Christian. Oklahoma has a strong Christian foundation as well. The stars kind of aligned that I could find good work here."
Funderburke is running on the platform of eliminating property taxes, state sovereignty and ending illegal immigration.
Funderburke said, "My main issue is property tax, even though compared to other states, we have it pretty good. But it's not necessarily the rate. It's the methodology of property tax. I just don't like the idea of renting your home from the government even after your home's bought and paid for." He added, "It happens all the time. You know, people on fixed incomes, their house appreciates in value. I mean, their tax burden goes up."
And meanwhile, it's a guaranteed increase that nobody voted for. And so nobody can be held accountable for. It's up to an assessor who's an unelected bureaucrat in many cases or somebody who's elected in this county.
Funderburke said state sovereignty might not sound important to some people, but he thinks it's significant because it has broader implications for all of Oklahoma governance. Funderburke said, "Federal government overreach can happen at any time. During the COVID period was certainly the starkest example of government overreach. I think people realized just how serious it can get if the government's motivated to misuse their power." He added, "And as we all see, it doesn't take a whole lot to motivate them to misuse it. The best thing we can do to prepare for that is to peel away at that power now by exercising our state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. If the federal government isn't specifically delegated a power, it doesn't have it."
It goes to the states and the people. And I think not to not to disparage any representatives that we've had in the past or currently, but we've been kind of derelict in our duty to exercise that power. Very good.
Funderburke said Illegal immigration as a national issue. He said, "We here in Oklahoma are just north of Texas where the problem is perhaps worse than anywhere else in the country, except maybe California. And the problem with that is people in Texas will go there and exist for a little while and realize it's pretty expensive down there now. And they'll look at Oklahoma and they'll start kind of salivating. You know, it looks pretty good up here. Part of that problem starts bleeding into our economy. And our Oklahomans have to compete with these people for jobs, for houses, resources, all of it."
Funderburke also talked about homelessness and the drug crisis. He said, "That's a hard one to address because part of it is that people have both compassion and safety concerns around this issue. People don't want to make it seem like we're trying to put anybody out in the cold in a worse situation than they're already in. We want to help."
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