Local state legislators meet with constituents

DUNCAN - Four state legislators representing portions of Stephens County came together to talk with community members about the first few weeks of the first session of the 60th Legislature last Friday at Cameron University - Duncan.

State senators Spencer Kern (District 31) and Kendal Sacchieri (District 43) and representatives Stacy Jo Adams (District 50) and Brad Boles (District 51) were in attendance to update constituents. Kern is the senator and Adams is the representative for the Comanche area.

“This whole thing has been like a hurricane,” Kern said. “We’ve seen it coming for a while, you prepare for it, you know it’s going to be there…then when it hits you (only) thought you were prepared.”

Still, Kern said it has been an exciting time.

“Every single day when I drive into the parking lot, I am very humbled that I get to work here,” Kern said. “It is really neat.”

Of those currently serving Stephens County, only Boles is an experienced legislator. The rest are first-term.

“I didn’t realize how many people come through your door in one day,” Kern said. “I really don’t know what my expectations were, but it is pretty neat.”

Adams has had a similar experience.

“These first three weeks have been really eye-opening,” Adams said. “When you run for office, you have one or two things that you’re passionate about or something in your background or something that’s happened to you. When you start knocking on doors, you find out there’s a lot more going on. But when you get to the Capitol, you get to the House side and there’s 101 different personalities up there. You get to learn everybody’s got their thing, their niche, and what they’re strong at. You build those relationships.”

Adams said as an insurance agent she has people come and ask her questions about insurance.

“When I have oil and gas questions, I talk to Brad,” Adams said. “I’ll text Brad throughout the day and say this bill is coming down. What does this do? And how are we looking at this? So, it’s all about building relationships, learning who is an expert in the areas that you’re not in and bouncing things off of each other.”

It has been a learning experience for Sacchieri as well.

“Anytime I try something new, I try to keep my mind open,” Sacchieri said. “I try to think independently. You hear a lot of stuff, but I knew the Senate was going to be a brand new Senate, so I didn’t know really what to expect. We have 15 new Senators (out of 47) so we all kind of came in not knowing where we were headed, what agendas were going to be the focus and we’re still kind of finding our feet as a body. It’s been kind of fun and I feel lucky to be in that position. It’s kind of like the sky is the limit right now. It’s where do we want to direct ourselves? I’m learning right now that less is more. You are told to run a lot of bills with great ideas and they may be really great ideas, but if you can’t dedicate time to work them, you’re not going to get very far.”

Boles, entering his eighth session, said the atmosphere is a little different this time around.

“One thing I want to mention to remember is this time of year, about the number of bills,” Boles said. “I think we’ve had 1,900 bills filed in the House. Monday is our deadline and what you learn about the Capitol is it’s all about deadlines. What that means is if a bill doesn’t make it to the first committee, it’s dead.

Boles went on to say there are always bills that people are concerned about that will never see the light of day.

“Just because someone filed a bill doesn’t mean I supported it,” Boles said. “Anyone can file a bill, but getting it through the system is a whole different story.

The legislators also talked about some legislation that is coming through and they also took questions from the audience.