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When I took office as governor of Oklahoma in January of 1995, I was something new and a bit rare — a Republican chief executive who didn’t come out of the politics of the 1960s. Folks didn’t hunt us with their headlights on Saturday night, but that was the joke, and it wasn’t that far off.

My family was a mixed marriage. Dad was a Pennsylvania Republican. Mom was the daughter of a Democratic congressman from Illinois. I had been the only governor in state history to serve in both the state House and the Senate. It was lonely. Republicans were an isolated few. The Democrats ran the place.

One of my earliest gubernatorial acts was to propose that I meet with the president pro tem of the Senate and the speaker of the House for breakfast at least once a month during the legislative session.

When I suggested the meal meeting, the Legislature’s two capable Democrat leaders replied, “Certainly. Just the three of us?”

I responded, “No. We’ll include the Republican leaders from both the House and Senate.”

“Why would we do that? They don’t rate,” was the response.

I said, “You might learn something from another point of view.”