text: import pandas as pd
  
  # filenames
  file_names = [
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 1:30:2018 1:1:2017 - 12:31:2017.xls", 
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 4:26:2018 1:1:2018 - 4:21:2018.xls", 
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 5:24:2018 4:22:2018 - 5:19:2018.xls", 
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 6:4:2018 5:20:2018 - 6:3:2018.xls", 
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 7:31:2018 6:4:2018 - 6:30:2018.xls", 
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/ME_460 Recipient Committee Campaign Statement 9:27:2018 7:1:2018 - 9:22:2018.xls",
    "../11:6:2018-General-Election-SJC-candidate-campaign-data/SJC_D7_MayaEsparza/MayaEsparza-460RecipientCommitteeCampaignStatement-FilingDate-10:25:2018-FilingPeriod-9:23:2018-10:20:2018.xls",
  ]
  
  # read the files
  files = [pd.ExcelFile(name) for name in file_names]
  
  # turn the files into dataframes
  frames = [x.parse(x.sheet_names[0], header=None,index_col=None) for x in files]
  
  # delete the first row for all frames except the first
  frames[1:] = [df[1:] for df in frames[1:]]
  
  # concatenate the files
  combined = pd.concat(frames)
  
  # write it out
  combined.to_excel("../combined-data-11-6-2018-General-Election-SJC-candidates/combined-ME-460.xls", header=False, index=False)
  