GUEST
Odis "Tyrone" Thompson, Assemblyman District 17
BY MARIE ANDRUSEWICZ -- It was a 40-day whirlwind experience of the contentious Nevada Legislature and Tyrone Thompson, who replaced ailing Assemblyman Steven Brooks, had to prepare quickly.
“It’s always been in my career path that I wanted to become an elected official,” says Thompson. He wasn’t expecting it this soon, he says, but the opportunity came up so “I went for it.” He had 24 hours to put an interim plan in place for his job as coordinator of homeless services for the Nevada Regional Planning Coalition.
He liked working in the legislature so much that he plans to run for a full term, even though some on the committee who selected him as Brooks’ replacement were concerned about picking a candidate who would run again, since that would give the replacement the incumbent’s advantage.
At the time, Thompson wasn’t sure he would run again. But now that he's had a taste of lawmaking, he hopes to continue.
“I enjoyed the experience. It was everything and some that I thought it would be,” says Thompson. “I had to weigh a lot of things so to say right off the bat that I would run, I don’t think that would be fair to the community.”
During his brief tenure, Thompson had the opportunity to serve on four committees, including judiciary, legislative operations and elections, health and human services and mining.
“I had quite a variety of topics I was working with,” says Thompson. “So I had to make sure that I was astute as possible and did my research.”
In his bid for reelection, Thompson says he will “walk the entire district” looking for input from constituents as to what he should focus on in his next term, if he wins it.