AUGUSTA (AP) — Maine’s Legislature includes more women than ever before and there’s another first — a father and daughter serving side-by-side in the same chamber.

Republican Reps. Amy Arata and Richard Bradstreet have both begun new two-year terms in the Maine House. Arata, a geneticist-turned-public servant, says she learned about perseverance and hard work from Bradstreet, a businessman who grew up on a potato farm.

Available state records compiled by Maine’s legislative library suggest they’re the first father and daughter to serve as legislators together in Maine history.

But they’re not the first pair nationwide.

The National Conference of State Legislatures in 2016 found at least a half dozen fathers and daughters serving in state legislatures together.

Of those, just one father and daughter were serving in the same chamber.

In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019 photo, Republican state Reps. Amy Arata and her father Richard Bradstreet discuss legislation in the House Chamber at the State House in Augusta, Maine. State records compiled by Maine’s legislative library suggest they’re the first father and daughter to serve as legislators together in Maine history. But they’re not the first pair nationwide. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

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