OKPOLICY.ORG
The first Senate chairmanship change for the upcoming legislative session occurred last week when Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, named Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee. Sen. Spencer Kern, R-Duncan, was named the new vice chair.
But the change in chairmanship did not occur directly as the result of this year’s elections. Hamilton replaces former Sen. Darrell Weaver, R-Moore, who resigned from the Senate upon his appointment as Sheriff of Cleveland County. Former Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason resigned after pleading no contest to one count of embezzlement and receiving a five-year deferred sentence.
Weaver, who served 28 years with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control — the last nine years as director — had hoped to leave the Senate in January after being elected Lt. Governor. However, he came in second in the Republican primary in a field of six candidates and did not receive enough votes to advance to a runoff against the Trump-endorsed T.W. Shannon, who won the primary. After being a supporter of public safety in the Senate, Weaver seems to be returning to his natural environment in law enforcement.
Kern, first elected in 2024, is serving his first term in the Senate and was a member of the Public Safety Committee. Kern does not have a background in law enforcement, but his leadership in the agriculture and small-business communities, as well as his performance in the Senate, led Paxton to believe he was the right person to move up to the vice chairmanship.
Sen. Hamilton holds some of the more conservative views in the Senate. Key themes of his campaigns have included abolishing abortion without exceptions, protecting Second Amendment rights, opposing vaccine mandates and “corporate welfare,” and fighting what he calls government overreach — meaning actions that take away citizens’ rights. Despite these strongly held positions, he has navigated Senate factions while maintaining his independence.
Given his background as a West Point graduate, military officer, and reserve deputy sheriff in Haskell County, Hamilton appears a natural choice to chair the Public Safety Committee, which handles many law enforcement, corrections, and public safety bills. He holds firm views but also seems to respect others’ right to hold different perspectives, an approach that has served him well so far. And it should serve him well in this new chairmanship.
