One for the books

[ MAY 5, 2010 - OKLAHOMA CITY ] – History, it seems, has caught up with state Sen. Glenn Coffee.

Not in a bad sense, mind you, but it found him just the same.

Go back just a few years and Coffee’s title wasn’t Senate president pro tempore or even co-pro tempore. Go back a few years and Coffee was just a Republican state senator from Oklahoma City.

It wasn’t a role he relished.

But Coffee believed in hard work and he understood Oklahoma politics very well. So he did something no other Republican senator in Oklahoma had done before. He leveraged a great deal of hard work and some shrewd political skills, and began recruiting candidates, winning elections and slowly increasing the GOP’s numbers in the state Senate.

“I was fortunate to be here at a unique time in history,” Coffee said. “When the political winds were shifting, I, along with a lot of other people, worked hard to try and grow our ranks.”

His work paid off.

In just a short time, the Senate GOP went from minority status to forging a joint power agreement with the Democratic majority.

That agreement, he said, “was a unique experience.”

“I think being co-pro tempore and the tie, was something that will probably never happen again,” Coffee said.

Not long after that, Coffee became Oklahoma’s first Republican president pro tempore.

And while he downplays the historical significance of the fact, he smiles as he talks about the strategy and the hard work involved in getting there.

“I was fortunate enough to get to serve as pro tempore,” he said. “But this is one of those jobs that, until you sit in the chair by yourself and have to make those decisions, you can’t fully appreciate it. This job has its own unique set of challenges. It’s different.”

The rubber and the road

Getting elected is one thing; governing, Coffee says, is something else. And while Coffee and his fellow Republicans have a clear majority in the Senate, that majority isn’t very big – think two seats. It’s a fact that’s not lost on the Republican leader.

“We only have a majority by two votes,” he said. “You can’t govern completely by being stubborn and always getting your way, it doesn’t work.”

Instead, Coffee says he’s sought common ground – when he could – to reach a compromise.

“I don’t think you can work to get a majority after starting out as only 15 and not learn to stick to your guns,” he said. “At the same time, I have found ways to create compromise and get the job done.”

It was a lesson he learned during that joint-power thing.

“Had Senator (Mike) Morgan and I not found a way to work we couldn’t have gotten anything done,” Coffee said. “If you look at what’s gone on in New York over the past several years, that’s an example of how not to do it.”

Coffee’s opponents will tell you the Republican leader is a genuinely nice guy who will let you know upfront when you should plan on a fight.

“Glenn’s very straightforward,” says the Senate’s incoming minority leader, Andrew Rice, Oklahoma City. “He’ll look you in the eye and tell you he’s going to fight you on the issue. There’s no end-around stuff. He’s very direct.”

Coffee doesn’t argue the point but, he says, he is willing to work with all sides.

“I’m a conservative,” he said. “I have definite conservative, partisan views. But I’m an Oklahoman and you have to find ways to get things done.

Trailblazing

Most politicians will avoid being too far out in front; there is safety, many pundits will tell you, in the herd mentality.

As co-pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, Coffee lived on the limb. The trick, he said, was developing a way to do it before you got out there.

“There were a lot of ideas about what a tie would mean when it occurred,” he said. “We formed a committee, sat down in a room and came up with a solution. There were an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.”

The result was a unique joint operating agreement.

“It has symmetry and as much equality as you could accomplish,” Coffee said.

And the agreement took the “co-whatever” title to a new level. During that time, the Senate had co-committee chairmen, co-vice chairmen and a co-pro tempore.

The system didn’t try to avoid partisanship; in fact it embraced it.

“We created a system where they could fight fair,” Coffee said. “It provided a framework where you could have a fair fight without destroying the deliberative body.”

And more often than not it worked.

“What we found was that if there wasn’t an agreement it killed a lot of ideas,” he said.

But even with that success of a joint agreement, Coffee still wasn’t satisfied; he wanted a GOP majority in the Senate.

After a while, he got there.

Republican versus Democrat

Being a skilled politician, making the right choices and helping elect a Republican majority are all great accomplishments, but the fame is short-lived.

It wasn’t long after Coffee became the Senate’s first Republican leader that the attacks started. A series of stories about state lawmakers who hadn’t paid their taxes caused the destruction of House Speaker Lance Cargill, a Republican from Harrah, and sent other lawmakers running for their checkbooks.

Coffee was one of them.

He had unpaid taxes and the story came out.

“Clearly I made a mistake,” he said. “I hadn’t paid my taxes on time; I went to the bank, borrowed the money and took care of it.”

But because of the atmosphere at the time, Coffee said, the implication was something else.

“Because I was the first pro tempore, because we were in a heated debate on tort reform, I think it created a structure that I hadn’t seen in politics; in effect, a political campaign with buying TV ads and trying to escalate it into something more than it was.”

The intensity and the length of the issue, he said, caught him by surprise.

“The intensity did surprise me, but I learned through the process and I grew through the process,” he said. “The point is I stuck to the truth. I told the truth over and over again. I finally got my banker involved to validate my story and everyone moved on.”

On other occasions, the fight wasn’t with those of the opposite party but among the Republicans themselves.

This year, during a recent debate over funding for senior nutrition sites, the argument had grown to a rancorous level. Democratic state Sen. Kenneth Corn, Poteau, had continued to put public pressure on the Senate’s leadership to fund the programs.

Members of the House and Senate responded by unleashing state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, and state Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Oklahoma City. Both men announced plans for a harsh Capitol press conference that same day.

Their plans didn’t work out.

Their faces tense, Sykes and Terrill entered the Senate chamber late one afternoon, only to be stopped by Coffee, who stood by his desk with both hands held up like a traffic cop telling a motorist to stop.

The pair quickly slowed and spoke to the Senate leader. A few seconds later, Sykes and Terrill left. Coffee smiled and, not long after that, a deal was completed.

“There was a lot of conversation that day,” Coffee said. “You have two individuals who are very passionate about their jobs. And that day they were passionate about their troopers.”

But the situation, he said, “had the potential of blowing up into a combative environment.”

And the hands-up, slow-down gesture from the Senate leader was a simple message: “I was saying let’s not do the press conference just yet, I think we’re close to getting something done,” he said.

The end is near

After 12 years in the Senate, the last four in a very visible leadership role, Coffee will soon have the title of “former senator,” having been forced out by term limits.

And while he’s hesitant to talk about what his future plans are, he will tell you he doesn’t plan to return to the Capitol as a lobbyist.

“I’m evaluating several options,” he said.

One of those is a return to his old law firm, Phillips Murrah.

“Phillips Murrah is a remarkable firm,” Coffee said. “And I would be honored to go back there, jump in and practice law. It’s one of the options I’m considering.”

A return to politics is also an option.

“Running for office is all about timing and opportunity,” he said. “I think you just have to look for the opportunity and see if it’s a good fit. I’m not ruling a new race out, but right now I don’t have a plan.”

Instead, the state’s first Republican pro tempore is looking for something that will allow him to build opportunities in his home state – or a way to spend more time with his family.

“I have two boys that are going to be in high school,” he said. “I’d like to be able to spend some more time with them.”

And as for the Senate, itself? Coffee said he will leave office with few regrets.

“I think we did the best job we could with the opportunities that were presented. I would like to have revamped the tax code and I hope it happens in the future. But I don’t have any regrets.”

Instead, Coffee said he will leave the future issues to the Senate’s future pro tempore.

“I’m proud of what our caucus accomplished,” he said. “We came together and worked to develop what we believe were the right solutions.”

A lesson that even history can’t teach.