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Tom Coburn

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Tom Coburn
Junior Senator, Oklahoma
In office
January 2005–Present
Preceded byDon Nickles
Succeeded byIncumbent (2011)
Personal details
Nationalityamerican
Political partyRepublican
SpouseCarolyn Coburn

Thomas Allen Coburn, M.D. (born March 14, 1948) is a medical doctor and a Republican U.S. Senator from Oklahoma.

Early life and career

Coburn was born in Casper, Wyoming to German-American parents, O. W. and Joy Coburn, and graduated with a B.S. in accounting from Oklahoma State University. In 1968, he married Carolyn Denton; their three daughters are Callie, Katie, and Sarah. Coburn graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in 1983. He then opened a medical practice in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and served as a deacon in the Southern Baptist Church.

In 1994 he ran for the House of Representatives in Oklahoma's heavily Democratic 2nd Congressional District, which was based in Muskogee and included 22 counties in northeastern Oklahoma. Coburn initially expected to face eight-term incumbent Mike Synar. However, Synar was defeated in a runoff for the Democratic nomination by 71-year-old retired principal, Virgil Cooper. Coburn won by a 52%–48% margin, becoming the first Republican to represent the district since 1921.

Political career

House career

In the House, Coburn's record was generally conservative. For instance, he supported reducing the size of the federal budget, and opposed abortion and the proposed V-chip legislation. He was reelected in 1996 and in 1998.

While he served in the House, he earned a reputation as a maverick due to his frequent battles with House Speaker Newt Gingrich. This was the case with most of the "true believers" in the 1995 House Republican freshman class. Most of these stand-offs stemmed from his belief that the Republican caucus was moving toward the political left and away from the more conservative "Contract With America" policy proposals that had placed the Republicans into power in Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. Specifically, Coburn was concerned that the Contract's term limits had not been implemented, and that the Republicans were continuing the excessive federal spending (also called pork barrel spending) that they had so vigorously opposed when the Democrats were in the majority.[citation needed]

In 1997, Coburn introduced a bill called the HIV Prevention Act of 1997, which would have amended the Social Security Act. The bill would have mandated HIV testing in some situations, would have allowed physicians to demand an HIV test before providing medical care, and would have allowed insurance companies to demand an HIV test as a condition of issuing health insurance.[1]

Coburn promised to serve only three terms during his first campaign. He kept this pledge, and left the House in January 2001. In keeping with his reputation as a political "lone wolf," Coburn endorsed conservative activist and former diplomat Alan Keyes in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, although he enthusiastically supported President Bush after the nomination was sewn up. Coburn's congressional district returned to the Democratic fold, as attorney Brad Carson easily defeated a Republican endorsed by Coburn. After leaving the House and returning to private medical practice, Coburn wrote a book in 2003 about his experiences in Congress called Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders. The book detailed his perspective on the internal Republican Party debates over the "Contract With America" and displayed his disdain for career politicians. Some of the figures he criticized (such as Gingrich) were already out of office at the time of publishing, but others (such as current House Speaker Dennis Hastert) remained very influential in Congress, which resulted in speculation that some congressional Republicans wanted no part of Coburn's return to politics.

Senate career

Nonetheless, in 2004, Coburn was drafted to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Don Nickles. He faced a bitter primary fight with former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys (the favorite of the state and national Republican establishment) and Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony. However, contrary to expectations, he easily won the primary. In the general election, he faced Carson, who was giving up his seat after only two terms to run for the Senate. During the Senate campaign, he said that he favored the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions [1] and said that homosexuality is the biggest threat to America.

The election was one of the most closely-watched of the 2004 cycle. Coburn won by an unexpectedly large margin for an open seat, 53 percent to Carson's 42 percent. While Carson trounced Coburn in the 2nd District, Coburn swamped Carson in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and the closer-in Tulsa suburbs. Coburn won the state's two largest counties, Tulsa and Oklahoma, by a combined 86,000 votes — more than half of his overall margin of 166,000 votes.

In the Senate, Coburn's record is very conservative, recieving a 100 ACU rating for the year 2005.

After taking office in January 2005, Coburn was selected to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, unusual for a first-term senator and a non-attorney.

In October 2005, Coburn, a staunch fiscal conservative, made several attempts to combat pork barrel spending in the federal budget. The best-known of these was an amendment to the fiscal 2006 appropriations bill that funds transportation projects [2]. Coburn's amendment would have transferred funding from the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska to rebuild Louisiana's "Twin Spans" bridge, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The amendment was defeated in the Senate, 82-15, after Ted Stevens, the senior senator from Alaska, threatened to resign his office if the amendment was passed. Coburn's actions did result in getting the funds made into a "block grant" to the State of Alaska, which can use the funds for the bridge or other possibly more necessary projects.

Coburn is also a member of the Fiscal Watch Team, a group of seven senators led by John McCain, to combat wasteful government spending.[2]

Committee Membership

Senator Coburn is a member of following committees:

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

Coburn and Senator Barack Obama on April 6, 2006 introduced the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The bill would require the full disclosure of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2007 on a website maintained by the Office of Management and Budget. The bill was signed into law on September 26, 2006.

Controversies

Abortion

In 2000, Coburn sponsored a bill to prevent the FDA from developing, testing or approving RU-486. On July 13, the bill failed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 182 to 187.[3] Coburn, an obstetrician-gynecologist, has admitted to performing two abortions on women with heart disease. On the issue, Coburn sparked controversy with his remark "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life." [3]. Coburn also objects to legal abortion in cases of rape, and he has justified his position by noting that his great-grandmother was raped by a sheriff.[4] In the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings concerning Samuel Alito, Coburn mentioned that his grandmother was a product of that rape.

Breast implants

In January 2005, during a Senate Judiciary Committee discussion about class-action lawsuits and silicone breast implants, The Washington Post quoted Coburn as stating:

You know, I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that. And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows...In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier.[5]

Coburn may have been referring to the conclusions of a December 2004 study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research.[6] The study showed that the sample group had a slightly lower than expected incidence of breast cancer over the period of the study in women who have had a mastectomy following early-stage breast cancer.


Homosexuality

According to The American Prospect, during Coburn's 2004 senatorial campaign, he quoted a local resident that in the town of Coalgate, Oklahoma, lesbianism was "so rampant in some of the schools...that they'll let only one girl go to the bathroom."[7] School officials have denied his statement. [4] Coburn has also been quoted as saying:

"The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power... That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda."[8]

Roberts confirmation hearings

File:Crosswordcoburn.jpg
Tom Coburn (left) with crossword puzzle

On September 14, 2005, during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, Coburn began his opening statement with a critique of Beltway partisan politics while, according to news reports, "choking back a sob".[9] Coburn had earlier been completing a crossword puzzle during the hearings[9], and this fact was used by The Daily Show to ridicule Coburn's pathos.[10] Coburn then began his questioning by revealing his confusion regarding the various legal terms bandied about during the previous day's hearings. Proceeding to questions regarding both abortion and end-of-life issues, Coburn, who noted that during his tenure as an obstetrician he had delivered some 4,000 babies, asked Roberts whether the judge agreed with the proposition that "the opposite of being dead is being alive."

You know I'm going somewhere. One of the problems I have is coming up with just the common sense and logic that if brain wave and heartbeat signifies life, the absence of them signifies death, then the presence of them certainly signifies life. And to say it otherwise, logically is schizophrenic. And that's how I view a lot of the decisions that have come from the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion.[11]

Schindler's List television broadcast

As a congressman in 1997, Coburn protested NBC's plan to air the R-rated Academy Award-winning Holocaust drama Schindler's List during prime time. Coburn stated that, in airing the movie without editing it for television, T.V. had been taken "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity." He also said the TV broadcast should outrage parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere. Coburn described the airing of Schindler's List on television as "...irresponsible sexual behavior...I cringe when I realize that there were children all across this nation watching this program."

Many people disagreed with this statement, including a number of fellow Republican Congressmen who criticized Coburn in their speeches. Coburn later apologized "to all those I have offended" and clarified that he agreed with the movie being aired on television, but insisted it should have been on later in the evening. In apologizing, Coburn said that at that time of the evening there are still large numbers of children watching without parental supervision, and stated that he stood by his message of protecting children from violence, but had expressed it poorly. He also said, "my intentions were good, but I've obviously made an error in judgment in how I've gone about saying what I wanted to say."

He later wrote in his book Breach of Trust that he considered this one of the biggest mistakes in his life and that, while he still feels the material was unsuitable for a television broadcast, he handled the situation poorly.

Sterilization controversy

A woman alleged that Coburn sterilized her without her consent during an emergency surgery to treat a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in 1990. Coburn contends that he had her verbal consent, but he did not obtain written consent. A resulting civil malpractice suit was filed, but ultimately dismissed with no finding of liability on Coburn's part. [12]

Federal Budget Restraint and Earmarks

Recently, Coburn, along with Arizona Senator John McCain, has introduced legislation to attempt to reduce overall federal government spending by requiring U.S. Senators to vote, individually, on federal budget earmarks. Coburn and McCain recently noted that the practice of members of Congress adding earmarks (and thus, increasing government spending) has risen dramatically over the years, from 121 "earmarks" in 1987 to 15,268 earmarks in 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. Senate has yet to take action on the legislation.

References

  1. ^ Text of HIV Prevention Act, accessed 14 Sept 2006.
  2. ^ "McCain calls for spending offsets to ensure fiscal responsibility". 2005-10-25. Retrieved 2006-07-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "RU-486 Abortion Pill: Developments during 1999 & 2000". Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  4. ^ Quindlen, Anna. "Life Begins at Conversation". Newsweek. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  5. ^ Kamen, Al (2005-02-07). "Rx for Doctors: A Dose of Humanity". The Washington Post. p. A19. Retrieved 2006-07-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Gem M Le, Cynthia D O'Malley, Sally L Glaser, Charles F Lynch, Janet L Stanford, Theresa HM Keegan, and Dee W West (2004-12-23). "Breast implants following mastectomy in women with early-stage breast cancer: prevalence and impact on survival". Breast Cancer Research. 7(2): R184–R193. doi:10.1186/bcr974. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  7. ^ Pierce, Charles P. (2005-02-23). "In Praise of Oklahoma". The American Prospect. Retrieved 2006-07-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Schlesinger, Robert (2004-09-13). "Medicine man". Salon.com. Retrieved 2005-07-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b Milbank, Dana (2005-09-13). "A Day of Firsts, Overshadowed". The Washington Post. p. A07. Retrieved 2006-07-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "TDS on the Roberts Hearing". Crooks and Liars. 2005-09-14. Retrieved 2006-07-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "Transcript: Day Three of the Roberts Confirmation Hearings". The Washington Post. 2005-09-14. Retrieved 2006-07-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Gizzi, John (2004-09-27). "Coburn Badgered With Dismissed Suit". Human Events. Retrieved 2006-07-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)


Preceded by U.S. Representative for Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional District
1995-2001
Succeeded by
Preceded by U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Oklahoma
2005-
Succeeded by
Incumbent

Template:OKSenators

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