Why set up static data in views vs. using tables in mysql? I get an LDAP feed nightly.  I get it as a text file and dump/create my LDAPALL table. There are roughly 75K employees times about 50 fields. 

I have the following too:

LDAPIMPORTANT - view that stores all 75K but only 15 fields

LDAPSHORT - view that stores all 75k but 5 fields

LDAPAB - view that only stores 9k employees based on two groups (field lookup)

Each of these are used a lot and for different apps and also there are a lot of views written against these views.  But there is no updates to them.  We do not update employee data. It is just LDAPALL update once a night. 

In this circumstance should I create tables from the LDAPALL table instead of views?  I could set up jobs to create these tables once a night.  What is best practice behind this?  Speak in layman's terms because I am a PHP developer made to do all DB admin stuff.
I would simply use the views if they perform.  No need to make copies of data unnecessarily, and many database platforms allow indexed or materialized views and filtered views etc.

HOWEVER, MySQL does not support indexed views.  So unless the underlying indexes on your table support the various ways you are accessing the data, it might be worthwhile materializing a version of the view yourself.