Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, will be the next Speaker of Oklahoma’s House of Representatives. Current House Speaker Charles McCall announced Hilbert as his successor in a news conference Monday.
“I'm very confident that Kyle Hilbert will continue to lead the House of Representatives to better and greater things than I have been able to experience myself on my journey the last 12 years,” McCall said. “The House of Representatives will be in very capable hands, very experienced hands.”
Elected internally by majority caucus members of the House, Hilbert will be the youngest in state history to serve as the Speaker of the House. He will replace McCall, R-Atoka, who is the longest-tenured Speaker, serving for eight of his 12 years in the Capitol.
Hilbert said during a press conference that his age is an advantage for him, as he considers how to help Oklahomans best. “I think my age is going to be talked about a lot, but I think it's something to lean into and not shy away from,” he said, explaining that he, like most Oklahomans, is under 40 and has a young family.
A primary function of the House Speaker is to assign proposed bills to committees for discussion and potential floor consideration. In that way, anyone voted in by their colleagues wields a lot of legislative power.
Hilbert, who will have the authority to completely set the House agenda for the 60th legislative session, said he won’t speak definitively on what his legislative priorities will be until after the election in November, when the new caucus of House members will convene.
McCall will continue in his role as speaker for the rest of the 2024 legislative session. Hilbert will officially take up the gavel in 2025, serving as speaker designee in the meantime.
He will be 30 when he takes the House Speaker role, making him not only the youngest speaker in Oklahoma’s history but only the second Republican speaker who is 30 or younger in any state since 1873.
Hilbert has been Speaker Pro Tempore of the House since 2022. He was previously Vice Chair of the Appropriations and Budget Committee. He was first elected to the legislature in 2016, when he was 22 years old.
A graduate of Oklahoma State University, Hilbert was the Student Government Association President when he was a student during the 2015-16 school year.
