Legislators in Oregon like to talk about how most of their work in the state Capitol is handled in a bipartisan way, and they have a point: The bitter battles over high-profile issues tend to grab the headlines, even as lawmakers reach across the aisle to tackle work that might not make the front page, but still is important to residents.

Sen. Bill Hansell, the Republican from Athena who represented Union, Umatilla, Morrow and Wallowa counties, among others, is a good example — maybe even the best recent example — of a lawmaker who built a career out of forging bipartisan partnerships.

Hansell is retiring this year. The short session that wrapped up earlier this month is his last after serving 12 years in the Senate — not to mention his three decades of service as a Umatilla County commissioner.

Of course, as Hansell himself said, some of that bipartisanship was born out of necessity. Hansell never served in a session where Republicans held a majority. That means if he wanted one of his bills to pass, he needed to woo some votes from Democrats.

And he did that. Again and again, he racked up some truly remarkable legislative victories.

But it was the way he did it — the way he served in the Legislature — that really stands out. For example, he told a Democratic freshman senator that “we may disagree on an issue, but you will never be my enemy.”

“That was a really a profound statement and it still is with me,” said the Democratic senator, Kayse Jama.

Hansell said he never voted “no” on a bill just to spite another legislator: “I don’t vote no, just to vote no,” he said. “Every bill has a constituency. Every bill has a champion. Every bill is important to somebody.”

Imagine if members of the U.S. Congress thought that way.

Or, imagine if voters started to assess candidates not just on their ability to raise temperatures with increasingly incendiary rhetoric but rather on their ability to forge alliances with people of every political stripe.

When someone like Hansell steps away from public service after nearly a half-century, you start to wonder why lawmakers in his mold, who emphasize cooperation, who don’t automatically reject compromise as a sign of “weakness,” are increasingly rare. What price do we pay when we continue to elect lawmakers who do not come, as another Democrat said of Hansell, “from a place of kindness”?

It must have delighted Hansell that this year’s short session, his last, managed to tackle some tough issues — and did it in a remarkably bipartisan fashion. It seems as if there might be a lesson there that other lawmakers could learn.

Or they could just set out to emulate Bill Hansell.