Tom Coburn, a Republican who previously served in the House, was elected to the Senate in 2004 and re-elected in 2010. Coburn grew up in Muskogee, where his father started Coburn Optical Services, which became the town’s biggest employer. Coburn graduated from Oklahoma State University and, while there, married his childhood sweetheart, who was Miss Oklahoma 1967. His father moved his company to Virginia, and Coburn followed to join the business. These were years of campus and youth rebellions, but not for Coburn. “I was focused on business, kind of driven. I was sort of aloof to the counterculture. I never even heard of marijuana,” he says. Coburn took over the lens division of the company and increased sales from $100,000 to $40 million. In 1975, the company was sold to Revlon. After being stricken with melanoma, Coburn decided to go to the University of Oklahoma Medical School. He graduated at age 35, moved back to Muskogee and opened Maternal and Family Practice Associates. In addition to running his practice, he went on medical missions around the world. In 1994, Coburn read in his local newspaper that the area’s congressman, Mike Synar, was calling for a greater role for the government in running the health care system, and decided to run against him. Synar’s 2nd District, covering northeast Oklahoma outside Tulsa, was traditionally Democratic but increasingly conservative. As it turned out, Synar was beaten in the 1994 Democratic primary by a 71-year-old retired middle school teacher. That left an easier path for Coburn to prevail in the general election, which he did, 52%-48%. Read More

Tom Coburn, a Republican who previously served in the House, was elected to the Senate in 2004 and re-elected in 2010. Coburn grew up in Muskogee, where his father started Coburn Optical Services, which became the town’s biggest employer. Coburn graduated from Oklahoma State University and, while there, married his childhood sweetheart, who was Miss Oklahoma 1967. His father moved his company to Virginia, and Coburn followed to join the business. These were years of campus and youth rebellions, but not for Coburn. “I was focused on business, kind of driven. I was sort of aloof to the counterculture. I never even heard of marijuana,” he says. Coburn took over the lens division of the company and increased sales from $100,000 to $40 million. In 1975, the company was sold to Revlon. After being stricken with melanoma, Coburn decided to go to the University of Oklahoma Medical School. He graduated at age 35, moved back to Muskogee and opened Maternal and Family Practice Associates. In addition to running his practice, he went on medical missions around the world. In 1994, Coburn read in his local newspaper that the area’s congressman, Mike Synar, was calling for a greater role for the government in running the health care system, and decided to run against him. Synar’s 2nd District, covering northeast Oklahoma outside Tulsa, was traditionally Democratic but increasingly conservative. As it turned out, Synar was beaten in the 1994 Democratic primary by a 71-year-old retired middle school teacher. That left an easier path for Coburn to prevail in the general election, which he did, 52%-48%.

Coburn belonged to the group of conservative agitators who came to power with Republican leader Newt Gingrich and were determined to make big changes. He regularly angered appropriators by opposing their bills and offering multiple amendments. A strong opponent of abortion rights, Coburn sponsored bills requiring AIDS counseling for pregnant women and labels on condoms disclosing that they don’t prevent infections that lead to cervical cancer. He became known around the Capitol for conducting graphic slide shows for lawmakers and staff about the effects of sexually transmitted diseases. In time, Coburn and other firebrands in the Class of ’94 became disenchanted with Gingrich and attempted to oust him as House speaker in July 1997. The attempt failed, but it marked the beginning of the end of Gingrich’s reign, and he resigned from Congress in early 1999. In 2000, Coburn kept his campaign promise to serve only three terms in the House and did not run for re-election. He went home to his medical practice in Muskogee and wrote Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders, in which he called members of Congress “Pharisees” and attacked Republican leaders by name.

In 2003, when Republican Don Nickles announced he would retire after four terms in the Senate, several well-known politicians lined up to run. In the GOP primary were Kirk Humphreys, Oklahoma City mayor, and Bob Anthony, an Oklahoma energy commissioner. Coburn at first stayed out of the contest because he had been recently treated for colon cancer. But after several weeks, he changed his mind, saying he had “an impression in my spiritual life that I was supposed to do this.” Humphreys criticized Coburn for attending a Las Vegas fundraiser, prompting Coburn to return contributions from gambling figures, and Humphreys also ran an ad attacking him for voting against intelligence and airport spending bills. Coburn’s cultural and fiscal conservatism, his opposition to Washington insiders and his adherence to his House term-limit pledge had earned him fans across the state, and though early polls showed a close race, he won 61% of the vote to 25% for Humphreys and 12% for Anthony.

The Democratic nominee was Brad Carson, who had been elected in the 2nd District to succeed Coburn in 2000. He was part Cherokee and a Southern Baptist, an honors graduate from Baylor and a Rhodes Scholar. He had one of the most moderate voting records of any House Democrat and had supported gun rights, the death penalty and the Iraq war. Carson described himself as a practical-minded lawmaker, and said Coburn was an extremist whose sometimes impolitic public remarks “already made us a laughingstock all across not only the country but the whole globe.” With support from national Democrats, he raised more money than Coburn. Coburn presented himself as a part-time lawmaker, determined to uphold principle and willing to take on his own party’s leadership, while portraying Carson as an extreme liberal who would be “a vote for Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton to run the Senate.”

The race was close going into September, when the most incendiary issue was raised. News broke of a lawsuit, long since settled, by a woman who claimed Coburn in 1990 sterilized her without consent when operating on her ectopic pregnancy and then filed a false Medicaid claim. Coburn said the woman gave oral consent and that he’d never sought reimbursement for the sterilization. A Carson ad said Coburn “sterilized an underage girl without her consent,” then committed Medicaid fraud “to get paid for the illegal procedure.” Coburn charged that Democrats had connived with reporters to raise the issue. Coburn won by a solid 53%-41%. Carson carried all but two of the counties in the 2nd Congressional District and won in some other historically Democratic rural counties. But Coburn won in the major cities, 56%-37% in metro Oklahoma City and 55%-41% in metro Tulsa.

In his first term, Coburn wanted to continue practicing medicine while serving in the Senate, but the Rules Committee found the arrangement to be a conflict of interest. Coburn objected and said it would “make me a better senator” and asked to be allowed to practice, charging just enough to pay malpractice insurance premiums. Coburn got 51 votes from fellow senators, not the required 60 for approval, but he called it “a moral victory.”

Early in his Senate career he vowed not to seek earmarks and was quick to criticize those who did. When he tried to delete $453 million for two bridges in Alaska, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens exploded. “If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state ... I will resign from this body,” he fumed. Coburn lost on a 82-15 vote, but he continued to challenge other senators’ earmarks, making him a less than popular colleague. He also challenged the Bush administration’s financing of the Iraq war through supplemental appropriations. And he teamed up with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in 2006 to win enactment of a central database for federal grants and contracts, which Coburn called “a small but significant step toward changing the culture in Washington.”

Coburn’s constant challenges of Senate operations infuriated Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. He proposed multiple amendments to the Democrats’ omninus appropriations bill in March 2009 and tried to remove $5.5 billion in what he deemed wasteful projects in the 2009 economic stimulus legislation. With the Senate’s other physician, Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming, he opposed the Democrats’ health care overhaul bill in 2009. He also attracted considerable attention with an amendment barring federal payments for erectile dysfunction pills to convicted sex offenders.

Coburn insisted that Democratic measures be paid for, and he blocked any he thought were not offset with spending cuts, including a major food safety bill, National Science Foundation grants in political science, home health care for veterans, aid to victims of strife in Uganda, and money for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “If we don’t start paying for things, we’ll face a disaster worse than Greece,” he told National Journal. In February 2010, he objected to an extension of unemployment insurance that was not paid for and in May 2010, he placed holds on eight nominees to the Broadcasting Board of Governors out of concern about waste in the Voice of America. The same year, he revealed what he called $120 billion in spending on 640 duplicative programs and also charged that the federal government had sent out $1 billion in payments to dead people. Not all of these moves were successful, although eventually, many Republicans embraced a crackdown on earmarks. Coburn did more than anyone else to prevent Senate Democrats from passing a $1.1 trillion omnibus appropriation in the December 2010 lame duck session, a failure which left Democrats having to agree on significant budget cuts in early 2011.

In December 2011, Coburn released another report of 100 government projects that he considered wasteful. This included a Treasury inspector general’s finding that the Internal Revenue Service spent $862,000 to store equipment and unused furniture; an additional $120 million to deceased federal government employees; tax credits for home improvements for people who did not own a house; and almost $150,000 going to the American Museum of Magic in Michigan.

In March 2010, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell named Coburn as one of three Senate Republicans to President Obama’s commission on the federal debt, co-chaired by former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. The panel’s recommendations included tax increases, continuation of the 2010 health care legislation and substantial changes in entitlement programs. But they did not get the supermajority Obama required to trigger his support for enacting the recommendations. Coburn joined Senate Republican colleagues Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Mike Crapo of Idaho in voting for the recommendations, as did Senate Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Coburn recognized that most Republicans opposed any tax increase but argued it was a good starting place for discussions between the two parties. “The only thing worse than being for it is being against it,” he told Politico. In early 2011, Coburn was part of a group of six senators who agreed to continue meeting in an effort to find bipartisan agreement on fiscal policy. Republican Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska told National Journal that Coburn is one of the senators he most admires: “He really doesn’t shoot from the hip. He always does his homework.”

Coburn's efforts to trim spending have occasionally looked quixotic. In July 2011, he offered an amendment that would require veterans to show more convincing evidence of Agent Orange exposure before receiving disability payments. The bill actually did receive the support of Vietnam War hero John McCain, R-Ariz., but it went down to defeat, 30-69. In the same month, Coburn released a 10-year plan to save $9 trillion. This included sweeping changes to Medicare and Medicaid, capping home mortgage tax deductions, and cutting $1 trillion in Pentagon spending. He also proposed ending tax breaks and benefits for people with incomes greater than $1 million. The plan failed to get traction.

Coburn continued to make noise as one of the few Republicans willing to consider tax increases to balance the budget. The Oklahoman pointed out that Coburn wants to first stop subsidizing the wealthy directly before agreeing to raise their taxes. Coburn complained about farmers who make more than $1 million receiving subsidies from the Department of Agriculture. His amendment banning these payments passed the Senate, 84-15, in October 2011. “It is the height of hypocrisy for politicians to complain about tax rates for millionaires while ignoring spending programs for millionaires,” Coburn told The Oklahoman.

During the 112th Congress, Coburn had some success with one of his crusades: phasing out ethanol subsidies. Being from a large oil-producing state, Coburn viewed oil and gas subsidies as “tax breaks” and not subsidies. “There’s no subsidies in oil and gas. You need to go look your facts up. They’re legitimate business expenses,” Coburn told National Journal Daily in May 2011. But he’s viewed ethanol credits as a costly subsidy. He co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. to repeal $5.4 billion in ethanol subsidies. The bill came to floor in June 2011 and was defeated, 40-59. The Democratic leadership complained about Coburn’s procedural methods to force the vote and even Feinstein opposed it. But when the bill came up again two days later, it passed easily, 73-27. Since revenue-producing bills need to begin in the House, the vote was largely symbolic. But Coburn’s bill helped generate momentum for his cause. Congress let the ethanol subsidies expire at the end of 2011, and the farm lobby mostly stayed on the sidelines and accepted the results.

Going into the 2010 election, some Democratic strategists thought Coburn might be vulnerable because he admitted counseling his Washington, D.C., housemate and Nevada GOP Sen. John Ensign about an affair Ensign had had with the wife of his chief aide and his efforts to negotiate a financial settlement with the aide. But that apparently had no negative impact in Oklahoma, where he was re-elected in 2010 with ease, 71%-26%. In May 2012, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Coburn for “improper conduct” in the matter. The committee stated that Coburn should not have met with Ensign’s former aide, Doug Hampton, because a lobbying ban prohibits contact with former Senate staffers within a year of their departure.

In October 2011, Coburn had surgery for his prostate cancer and returned to the Senate a week later. One of Coburn’s daughters, Sarah Coburn, is an accomplished opera singer and was named artist of the year at the Washington National Opera in 2009.