Each week, LINK nky is publishing a profile of one of our local legislators so that Northern Kentuckians can get to know the people representing them at the state level.
Sen. Gex Williams’ professional background is in computer science and information technology. So it was no surprise when Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers appointed the senator from Verona to co-chair the newly created Investments in IT Improvement and Modernization Projects Oversight Board in June.
The board’s purpose is to look for ways to fund and deploy new state agency technology systems across Kentucky. And Williams was eager to get started.
He said in a press statement post-appointment that his goal as co-chair “is not just to make technology work better for state government, but to make government work better for people throughout our commonwealth.”
The way to do that, Williams said, is to give people the tools they need to innovate. Innovation leads to change. And change is something that Williams seems to like.
In a Ballotpedia candidate survey prior to his election to the Senate in 2022, Williams described himself as an “experienced change-maker” who learned how to shake up the status quo in Frankfort during two earlier terms in office in the 1990s. He served one term in the Kentucky House in the early 1990s before running to fill the unexpired term of late Sen. Dick Roeding in 1993.
Williams won that election, then was reelected to a full term in the 24th Senate District in 1994.
“I disrupted the way things had always been done, and exposed politicians who said one thing and did another,” Williams said in his survey response.
Leading the tech modernization effort in the Senate gives Williams a say in how Kentucky state government IT will change over the next quarter century. But the Northern Kentucky lawmaker doesn’t plan to stop there.
Williams told Ballotpedia that he has three other legislative goals to conquer before his current term ends in Jan. 2027: creating “good-paying jobs,” eliminating the state income tax while lowering inflation, and defending both the 2nd Amendment and the unborn.
“Kentucky’s at a key time in our development and it’s time to get things done. We have so many great opportunities and we need leaders in Frankfort making wise decisions that provide more opportunities for Kentuckians, more jobs with better pay and better benefits, with low taxes and great education and job training so our kids can succeed,” Williams said. “I strongly support parental rights and the ability of all families to choose the type of education that is best for their kids.”
Sen. Gex Williams (R-Verona) represents the 20th Senate District which includes parts of Boone and Kenton counties and all of Carroll, Franklin, Gallatin, and Owen counties. Williams is Vice Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Chair of the Senate Budget Review Subcommittee on Justice and Judiciary, and a member of the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee, Senate Transportation Committee, Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, and Senate State and Local Government Committee as well as Senate co-chair of the Investments in IT Improvement and Modernization Projects Oversight Board. Additionally, Williams is a member of the Interim Joint Committees on Education, Natural Resources and Energy, Transportation, Local Government, State Government, and Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection. He also served as a member of the 2023 Senate Committee on Impeachment and is a member of several legislative caucuses.