Press "Enter" to skip to content

Five Questions with… Rep. Crystal Quade

With the legislative session taking a week-long hiatus for spring break, we sat down with five of the new freshmen legislators to discuss their perspectives after working in the Capitol for the first half of session.

The second piece in this Q&A series features five questions with Rep. Crystal Quade, D-Springfield.


The Missouri Times: You come from a solidly Democratic district in arguably the most conservative part of the state. What is that dynamic like in handling with the region as a whole with its conservatism as a liberal?

Rep. Crystal Quade: I like it in the regard that it is a solid Democratic seat, but the Democrats did lose it in 2010, so it hasn’t always been Democratic. I for one believe we need more balance in general. So, when it comes to policies that I’m voting on, I not only think about it from my perspective but really considering the other side and how my colleagues from Greene County are feeling about an issue or how they plan to vote, so I feel it makes me a better legislator.

TMT: It’s not necessarily rare for a freshman to be on the House Budget Committee, but what does it mean to serve on that committee so early on in your tenure of office.

Quade: Obviously, the budget is a very important place to be and I’m learning so much. I’m really honored leadership thought I would do well in that committee, and that it would be a good place to be. I asked to serve on the budget, and if you had asked me in the campaign what committee I wanted to serve on it would be budget, and then the appropriation I was assigned to. The things that I’m passionate about come from health care and poverty issues, and the budget is the number one priority for all of that and what goes on in that room.

I’m a nonprofit employee and social worker, so I see what a lot of these programs do for people and I see the implementation of the programs that we are debating on how much money to fund for them. It’s no secret in Missouri that health care is the biggest chunk of our budget, and I understand firsthand the clients that fall in that bracket and deserve to receive the services that we’re appropriating. I feel like it gives me an upper hand in some ways because I have an actual hands-on implication as to what we’re doing. When it comes the Department of Revenue and all of these other things, I may not. We all have our areas of expertise, but just dealing with low-income folks and seeing what their struggles are day-to-day really helps.

I feel very fortunate that, out of all of the members that want to be on budget, I was chosen.

TMT: Going off of that, why is passing cliff effect legislation so important, and what has it been like working with Rep. Dan Shaul on this bill?

Quade: It’s been great to work with Rep. Shaul. We come from very different backgrounds and obviously very different ideologies, but we have a mutual understanding that this is a problem and we want to help Missourians.

The bill we’re working on is just the tip of an iceberg of an overarching problem that we have with our service benefactors is that if you get a raise and you lose everything, you’re not going to be incentivized to take that raise because you can’t. You cannot do it if you’re going to lose more money than you bring in and you want to feed your family and be protected.

It’s super important to work through this legislation because oftentimes we will create programs and there will be unintended consequences. For instance, we created a transitional child care program a while back in the budget process, but it left out a whole lot of people. It’s important because this is a real life problem and when it comes to our economy and allowing folks to be self-sustaining and eventually get off of services, which is a big chunk of where our general revenue goes, we need to be empowering people, not punishing them for succeeding.

I think it’s great we’re getting bipartisan support. This is not one side or the other; we all see this as an issue and want to better the state of Missouri fiscally in the long term and get more people off of services and empower our citizens to be successful and productive members of society who then pay taxes and become more productive all around. I think it is great people are starting to see the bigger picture. The cliff is something social workers have talked about forever. We know it, we see it firsthand. But the awareness that’s going around I think is super important.

TMT: What is it that surprised you about being a legislator as opposed to being a constituent or a candidate or even a lay person?

Quade: My non-serious answer is you never find time for food and the restroom (laughs). It’s a huge struggle.

I would say the historical knowledge that the staff in this building have. Term limits is an effect of that as well because legislators don’t have the history behind things, but so much goes on behind the scenes that I think the general public would be really surprised. For instance, this cliff bill. When I started researching this bill, I’ve amended that bill and there’s going to be some more amendments afterward because the more we learn, the more we’re changing it to make it better, but the original health care program was not created via statute, it was created in the budget process. That’s something the general public would have no idea about. Some of the behind the scenes stuff that’s not general knowledge and that falls back on how the staff is so knowledgeable about the long-term history of what goes on here, I think that’s one of the most surprising things for me.

TMT: You’re part of a group of legislators known informally as the millennial caucus. What does it mean to you to be a relatively young person in the Legislature?

I think it’s hugely important, and I talk about this not just in age or profession or anything. I think a more diverse body is a better representation of Missouri. We’re a very diverse state, very rural, very urban, a lot of different backgrounds. Our generation is the largest voting bloc, and we should be represented in the body as well. And I’m really excited to see so many young people elected this time. I think we could keep working on that a little bit more, especially young women. But it’s hugely important and it’s good to see both sides of the aisle kind of realizing that.