Osborn makes a lot of sense

For those of you who missed Rotary last Wednesday, you missed one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard.

Bar none.

The speaker, who was procured by new Rotarian Nicolle  Carr, was Oklahoma’s Commissioner of Labor Leslie Osborn.

Prior to being elected Labor Commissioner Osborn served 10 years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

In 2013 then speaker T.W. Shannon appointed her to chair the Judiciary committee.

She was the first female in state history to have that position.

Later in her House career Speaker Charles McCall appointed her as the first female in history to chair the House Appropriations and Budget Committee.

Oklahoma was going through an economic drought at the time.

“You don’t want to be chairman of appropriations when you don’t have any money,” she quipped.

Osborn said the current climate of Democrats hating Republicans and vice versa needs to stop.

“We don’t need hate,” she said. “And that is what you get when you watch the national evening news.”

She told Rotarians she quit watching the national evening news two years ago and is much better for it.

“I check my news app on my phone a couple of times a day to see if something big has occurred that I need to know about but that’s it,” she said.

She told a story about an “aunt” of hers that she used to talk to almost daily.

The aunt has become so callous from Facebook and watching Fox News that now the two of them haven’t talked in five months.

Another story she told is that Oklahoma doesn’t seem interested in investing in things like teacher pay and education, which is a dead end road.

When she was first in the Legislature, Oklahoma ranked 50th in the country in taxes collected.

“That’s last in case you’re wondering,” she told the group tongue firmly in her cheek.

“I’m a Republican but we need to raise taxes to pay for the government’s services,” she said.

“I was told I was the worst Republican ever,” she said at the time.

She said she wasn’t trying to be anything other than a good Oklahoman.

“I wanted to get Oklahoma up to at least 46th but we are now back to 50th with the current Legislature cutting taxes.

“We’re not only not a top 10 state, we are at the bottom,” she said.

What she is is a statesman and a darn good one.

I wish she was running the state or maybe even the nation.

Keep up the good work Leslie Osborn. We need more like you.