Gatesville couple helps advance senior policy resolutions in Austin

A Gatesville couple helped move 61 senior-policy resolutions through Austin, putting Coryell County interests into a process that can reach the Texas Legislature before lawmakers meet again in January 2027. Alan and Rosemary Mathis were sworn in as legislators in the 21st Texas Silver-Haired Legislature session, a model legislative session for older Texans that the state supports with the House chamber, Capitol facilities and staff.

The Mathises were among older Texans who debated 64 resolutions and saw 61 adopted. Those resolutions are compiled into a Legislative Report that goes to the governor and every member of the Texas House and Senate before the next regular session, giving senior advocates a formal path from the Capitol into state policymaking. Alan Mathis said the group was pleased with the outcome.

For Gatesville and Coryell County residents, the point is not symbolic. The Texas Silver-Haired Legislature works with Texas’ 28 Area Agencies on Aging, and the nearest one for Gatesville-area residents is the Area Agency on Aging of Central Texas at the Central Texas Council of Governments in Belton. That connection matters when state proposals touch transportation, health care access, accessibility and other services older adults use every day.

The Mathises joined the legislature in 2021, and the organization says more than 1,700 older Texans have served since its 1985 founding. By 2018, those legislators had identified more than 740 issues affecting older adults in Texas, a record that shows the group has become a recurring channel for senior concerns rather than a one-time civic gesture.

Its history reaches back to an advisory-council priority in 1983, a board resolution in 1984 and Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 37 in 1985. That long arc helps explain why the organization still draws older Texans who want a direct role in state policy, especially on issues that can alter household costs, access to care and representation.

The stakes are already visible in Texas political debate. Lawmakers have recently considered senior-focused property-tax relief, including a proposal to raise homestead exemptions for homeowners older than 65 and save eligible seniors and people with disabilities about $950 a year. The resolutions moving out of the Silver-Haired Legislature are aimed at the same kind of decisions that can hit Coryell County households in their tax bills, service access and daily lives.