By Francesca Garbrah
When Representative Caleb Cashdollar steps into that chamber room there’s no stopping him. Caleb Cashdollar, is a one star delegate from Oral Roberts University who has a lot to say, about session. We gathered in the interview room, a cream colored, perfectly tempered room, leather seats with a red wood table and an expression that shows nothing but excitement. In the interview with Representative Cashdollar, he shared with me why he wanted to be a part of the Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature (O.I.L) in the first place. He states in a nonchalant manner,
“I’ve always been very people minded. I believe as a Christian it’s my job to help people and looking at things, I realized that I could help more people with one good piece of legislation than I could any other way. For that reason I joined O.I.L.”
“I’m here because I want to help as many people as possible,” says Representative Cashdollar. I then proceeded to ask him what type of bill he intends to introduce?
“I actually have an entire platform I intend to run on someday. The bill that I’m presenting sometime this week is about tax reform, similar to what I want to do at the federal level but specific to the state of Oklahoma. I also have an education reform bill which can be implemented on the state level.” I later asked Representative Cashdollar how specifically he wanted that to impact the people.
“I believe that we need to provide the community the most opportunity to help themselves, that’s not necessarily saying that any we don’t provide any services or safety net but the best way we can help the people is by providing them with the most opportunities,” says Cashdollar.
I asked Representative Cashdollar what he thought about the other delegations this year and if he considered them competitive. He then responded with,
“What I will say is that OSU has the majority in the house, they’re very organized and they out way everyone else, they can essentially vote themselves as best delegation and they deserve it too because they’ve recruited so well and they present so many great legislation. I think my delegation does just as well essentially but were just so much smaller which makes it harder to stick out. I like NSU, my caucus is with some people from NSU. I think they’re very smart. After ORU and NSU there’s a bit of a drop in participation.”
As a glare from Cashdollars badge caught my eye, I noticed that he only had one star, signifying he has only been to session once before. I asked Representative Cashdollar how he could have only one star with his knowledge on session?
“Yeah I’ve only been to one almost two sessions”said Cashdollar. “Last session I was an hour away to a second star when a car accident kept me from coming. The joke was that they were going to draw a half star on my badge to signify that I almost made it.” Will you tell us about the session you have attended?
“The last session that I’ve been to was actually a lot of fun it was definitely the most fun that I’ve had in college thus far which kind conformed to me that after years of being interested in similar things that this is what I was made for, like I said before it was the most fun I’ve had in college and I hope that this week tops it. “What kind of advice would you give to someone such as myself who is interested in being in your position sometime in the future?”
“Everything about session is what you make it you get in whatever you put in and the only reason I have as much fun as I do is because I’m constantly caucusing, getting up and talking to people, picking their minds, I care, I’m interested. You have people that site in the back half that are not really interested and I guarantee their not having as much fun as I do.”
I then asked what him what he would recommend to those who sit in the back?
“Get up and talk to people, pick people’s mind a lot of we think we have our solutions so we come to session closed minded but one of the things about O.I.L is that you’re around a bunch of brilliant politically minded people that will question your position and make you think about things you haven’t really thought about before and you really grow as a person because of it.”
Representative Cashdollar what has been your favorite part about session thus far?
“My favorite part about session, well hopefully it will be my bill I’ve been looking forward for about three sessions now to have the chance to get up there and present a really good bill. I’ve worked really hard on it so my favorite part will be presenting my bill even if it fails it’s a great learning experience and I would have enjoyed putting everything into it.”
As you can clearly see the esteemed Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature is something that is greatly treasured by Representative Cashdollar and is highly recommended for anyone who has the slightest bit of interest in the Congress.