Tom Coburn

At 72 years old, Tom Coburn physical status not available right now. We will update Tom Coburn's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Thomas Allen Coburn (born March 14, 1948) is an American politician and physician.

A member of the Republican Party, he was a United States Representative and later a United States Senator from Oklahoma. Coburn was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the Republican Revolution.

He upheld his campaign pledge to serve no more than three consecutive terms and did not run for re-election in 2000.

In 2004, he returned to political life with a successful run for the U.S. Senate.

Coburn was re-elected to a second term in 2010 and pledged not to seek a third term in 2016.

In January 2014, Coburn announced he would retire before the expiration of his final term.

He submitted a letter of resignation to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, effective at the end of the 113th Congress.Coburn is a fiscal and social conservative, known for his self-proclaimed global warming denial, opposition to deficit spending and pork barrel projects, and for his opposition to abortion.

Described as "the godfather of the modern conservative, austerity movement", he supports term limits, gun rights and the death penalty and opposes same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research.

Democrats have referred to him as "Dr.

No."After leaving Congress, Coburn worked with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research on its efforts to reform the Food and Drug Administration, becoming a senior fellow of the institute in December 2016.

Coburn also serves as a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance, where he has been active in calling for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution.

Personal life

Despite their stark ideological differences, Coburn was a close friend of President Barack Obama. Their friendship began in 2005 when they both arrived in the Senate at the same time. They worked together on political ethics reform legislation, to set up an online federal spending database and to crack down on no-bid contracting at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In April 2011, Coburn spoke to Bloomberg TV about Obama, saying, "I love the man. I think he's a neat man. I don't want him to be president, but I still love him. He is our President. He's my President. And I disagree with him adamantly on 95% of the issues, but that doesn't mean I can't have a great relationship. And that's a model people ought to follow."

Before the 2009 BCS game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators, Coburn made a bet over the outcome of the game with Florida Senator Bill Nelson—the loser had to serenade the winner with a song. The Gators defeated the Sooners and Coburn sang Elton John's "Rocket Man" to Nelson, who had once flown into space.

In November 2013, Coburn made public that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. In 2011, he had prostate cancer surgery while also surviving colon cancer and melanoma. The results caused Coburn to resign from the senate in 2014.

Coburn died at his home in Tulsa on March 28, 2020, exactly two weeks after his 72nd birthday. A memorial service to honor his life was held a year later on May 1, 2021, at South Tulsa Baptist Church.

Source

Early life, education, and medical careers are all important.

Coburn was born in Casper, Wyoming, and the son of Anita Joy (née Allen) and Orin Wesley Coburn. Coburn's father, an optician and manufacturer of Coburn Optical Industries, was a named contributor to Oral Roberts University's O. W. Coburn School of Law.

Coburn earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts. He obtained his accounting degree from Oklahoma State University, where he was also a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He married Carolyn Denton, the 1967 Miss Oklahoma; their three children, Callie, Katie and Sarah, are the leading operatic soprano. Coburn, one of the top ten seniors in the School of Business, served as president of the College of Business Student Council.

Coburn spent time as a manufacturing manager with Coburn Optical Industries in Colonial Heights, Virginia, from 1970 to 1978. Although Coburn was the boss, Coburn Optical's Virginia division grew from 13 employees to over 350 employees and captured 35 percent of the US market.

Coburn, who recovered from a bout of malignant melanoma, earned a medical degree and graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School with distinction in 1983. He then founded Maternal & Family Practice in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and served as a deacon in a Southern Baptist Church. During his career in Obstetrics, he treated over 15,000 patients, delivered 4,000 babies, and was the subject of one malpractice lawsuit, which was dismissed without finding Coburn to blame. Coburn and his wife were co-members of First Baptist Church of Muskogee, Muskogee, England.

Coburn's sterilization of Angela Plummer, a 20-year-old woman, in 1990, became what was described as "the most incendiary issue" of his Senate campaign. During an emergency surgery to repair a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, Coburn sterilized the woman, removing her healthy fallopian tube as well as the one that was destroyed by the surgery. The woman sued Coburn, claiming he did not have consent to sterilize her, while Coburn maintained she had her oral consent. The case was ultimately dismissed with no finding of blame on Coburn's part.

Coburn committed Medicaid scam by not revealing the sterilization when he first filed a lawsuit for the emergency surgery. According to the attorney general, Medicaid did not reimburse doctors for sterilization procedures for patients under the age of 21, and Coburn may not have been compensated at all if he disclosed this information. No fraud was committed, according to Coburn, who did not file a claim for the sterilization. For this allegation, there were no charges against Coburn.

Political career

Coburn ran for the House of Representatives in Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district, which was based in Muskogee and included 22 counties in northeastern Oklahoma in 1994. Mike Synar, a former governor of the United States, was supposed to face Coburn for the eighth time. However, Synar was defeated in a Democratic nomination runoff by a 71-year-old former principal, Virgil Cooper. Coburn and Cooper got along well because both were opposed to the more radical Synar's 2003 book, Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders. Both men knew that Synar would not return to Washington irrespective of the outcome. By a 52%-48 percent margin, Coburn became the first Republican to represent the district since 1921.

Coburn was one of the House's most conservative members. He favors "reducing the size of the federal budget," wanted to make abortion illegal and approved the proposed television-chip laws.

Despite being re-elected in 1996 and 1998 in a heavily Democratic district and President Bill Clinton's electoral dominance therein.

Due to his regular contests with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Coburn earned a reputation as a political maverick in the House. The majority of these stand-offs stemmed from his belief that the Republican caucus was headed toward the political center and away from the more conservative Constitution With America policy goals that had brought the Republicans to office in 1994 for the first time in 40 years.

In the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, Coburn endorsed conservative activist and former diplomat Alan Keyes. Coburn resigned from congress in 2001, fulfilling his pledge not to serve no more than three terms in the House. Attorney Brad Carson defeated Andy Ewing, a Republican who was not endorsed by Coburn, and his congressional district returned to the Democratic fold. Coburn, who left the House and returned to private medical practice, wrote Breach of Trust, co-authored with ghostwriter John Hart about his time in Congress. Coburn's book gave his take on the internal Republican Party debates over the Contract With America, as well as his disdain for career politicians. Some of the figures he criticised (such as Gingrich) were already out of office at the time of the book's publication, but others (such as former House Speaker Dennis Hastert) remained influential in Congress, leading to rumors that some congressional Republicans opposed Coburn's return to politics.

Coburn wrote and passed far-reaching pieces of legislation during his time in the House. These include legislation to expand seniors' health care, to ensure access to home health care in rural areas, and encourage Americans to buy cheaper medications from Canada and other nations. In addition, Coburn wrote a bill that was designed to discourage the transmission of AIDS among infants. "This is actually the first law in this country to pass, with ten long years of AIDS politics and funding," the Wall Street Journal said of the bill. He also wrote a bill to revive and reform federal AIDS services. President George W. Bush nominated Coburn to serve as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in 2002 (PACHA).

Coburn also played a key role in the creation of health and other federal entitlement services during his three terms in office.

Coburn, a congressman in 1997, protested NBC's decision to air the R-rated Academy Award-winning Holocaust drama Schindler's List at prime time. TV had been reduced to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence, and profanity," Coburn said in airing the film without retouching it for television. The television show should also inflame parents and decent-minded people around the world, according to He. On television, Coburn described Schindler's List as "irresponsible sexual conduct." When I learned that there were children all around the country watching this program, I crept.

This comment was met with skepticism, considering that the film is mainly concerned with the Holocaust. Following heavy criticism, Coburn apologised "to all those I have offended" and said he accepted the film's broadcasting, but said it should have been later in the evening. Coburn said in apologizing that there are already a large number of children under parental supervision at that time of evening and that he has stood by his message of shielding children from violence, but that he had misinterpreted it poorly. "My intentions were fine, but I've obviously made an error in decision in how I've gone about saying what I wanted to say," he continued.

He later wrote in Breach of Trust that he considered this one of his life's greatest mistakes, and that, although he did not believe the information was appropriate for a 7 p.m. television broadcast, he treated the situation incorrectly.

After three years out of politics, Coburn declared his candidacy for the Senate seat vacated by four-term incumbent Republican Don Nickles. Before Coburn, former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys (the state and national Republican establishment's favorite) and Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony joined the field. However, Coburn took the primary by an unexpectedly large margin, winning 61% of the vote to Humphreys' 25%. In the general election, he defeated Brad Carson, the Democrat who had succeeded him in the 2nd District and was resigning after only two terms.

Coburn won by a margin of 53% to Carson's 42% in the election. Carson defeated Coburn in the generally Democratic 2nd District, but Coburn drowned Carson in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and the closer-in Tulsa suburbs. By a combined 86,000 votes, Coburn secured the state's two largest counties, Tulsa and Oklahoma, surpassing the previous margin of 166,000 votes cast.

Coburn's Senate voting record was as conservative as his House record.

In 2010, Coburn was re-elected again. In the Republican primary and 70% in the general election, he received 90 percent of the vote. Although Coburn did not intend to seek a third term in the Senate due to his self-imposed two-term term limit, on January 16, 2014, he resigned his office before his term came to an end.

Coburn introduced the Insurance Capital Standards Clarification Act of 2014 (S. 2270; 113th Congress), which was approved in the Senate on June 3, 2014.

To discourage several bills from being submitted to the Senate floor, Coburn blocked the Senate hold privilege. Coburn is known for his use of this procedural device. In November 2009, Coburn first drew attention for placing a hold on the Veterans' Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act. The Lord's Resistance Army had also placed a hold on a bill that was supposed to help end hostilities in Uganda.

On May 23, 2007, Coburn cancelled two bills commemorating Rachel Carson's 100th birthday. Carson's scientific research, particularly DDT, was referred to as "the catalyst in the deadly worldwide stigmatization of insecticides, particularly DDT." Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland had intended to submit a resolution honoring Carson's "legacy of scientific rigor married with poetic sensibility," but Coburn stopped it, saying that "the junk science and stigma surrounding DDT—the world's most effective insecticide, as well as the cheapest and most effective insecticide, have now been jettisoned."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the Advancing America's Priorities Act in July 2008, in reaction to Coburn's depositions. Coburn had blocked Coburn from converting the "Tomnibus" bill into the "Tomnibus" bill, which Democrats called it. The bill included health care services, new sanctions for child pornography, and several natural resources bills. The bill was defeated in a cloture referendum.

Coburn opposed portions of the law establishing the Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Area, which would provide guarantees to wildlands in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Both March and November 2008, Coburn maintained a hold on the legislation, but later opposed the mandatory $10 million for surveying and mapping as unnecessary. Since 1984, the Mount Hood bill would have been the most significant parcel of federal property added to federal protection since 1984.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which passed the Senate 73–21 in March 2009, gave these wilderness areas a guarantee.

According to the Boston Globe, Coburn initially denied passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), accusing of provisions in the bill that allow discrimination based on genetic information obtained from embryos and fetus tissues. Coburn's suspension of the bill was lifted after the embryo loophole was closed.

Coburn first opposed the introduction of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Rehabilitation Act, which would help disarm the Lord's Resistance Army, a political group that is accused of human rights abuses. After arriving a compromise on the bill's funding, Coburn lifted his hold on the LRA bill, freeing it from the Senate floor, as well as an eleven-day demonstration outside of his office.

Coburn was a member of The Family, a faith group. With then-Senator John Ensign, another Family member and long-time resident of the C Street Center, who admitted to an extramarital affair with a worker in 2009, Coburn used to live in one of the Family's Washington, D.C. dormitories. The Ensign's infidelity revelation sparked public scrutiny of the Family and its connections to other high-ranking politicians, including Coburn.

Before the affair became public, Coburn, with senior members of the Family, attempted to bring Ensign's affair to a conclusion. Ensign was sent from the C Street Center to post the letter, but Ensign was told to inform his mistress not to worry about it immediately after.

Coburn refused to discuss his involvement in Ensign's affair or his knowledge of the affair well before it became public, citing legal privilege due to his separate statuses as a licensed physician in Oklahoma and a deacon.

In October 2009, Coburn did make a statement about Ensign's affair and cover-up: "John got trapped doing something really stupid and then made a slew of other mistakes afterward." Arrogance gets judgment, and here's what's going on here.

In their study on Senator John Ensign's ethical conduct in May 2011, the Senate Ethics Committee named Coburn. According to the article, Coburn knew of Ensign's extramarital affair and was involved in attempting to find a financial settlement to cover it up.

Coburn was instrumental in the Bush administration's fight with Congress over whistleblower rights. Under the First Amendment of the Constitution, the US Supreme Court found that government employees who testify against their employers did not receive retaliation by their employers. Whistleblowers have long been forbidden from retaliation by the First Amendment's free expression guarantees.

The House passed H.R. 108 in reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling. The Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007, which was 985, was repealed. Bush, citing national security issues, has promised to veto the bill if it were enacted into law by Congress. The Senate's version of the Whistleblower Protection Act (S. 274) was approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 13, 2007. However, that version of the Senate failed to pass a vote by the Senate; effectively ending the bill's passage, which had bipartisan support in the Senate.

Mathieu Credo Koumoin, a former UN development worker who has requested U.N. ethics chief Robert Benson for recognition under the United Nations' new whistleblower protection laws, is included on Coburn's website. The site also has a link to the "United Nations Watch" of the Republican Office of Government Affairs and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security, of which he was a top minority member. A tip line for potential whistleblowers on government wasting and fraud is also on Coburn's website.

In a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman (R-NC), Coburn, Margaret Myrick (R-AZ), John Shadegg (R-AZ), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-NC), and Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Coburn requested that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) be investigated for overboard lobbying and failure to register as a lobbying group. The request came in the aftermath of the release of a book, Muslim Mafia, the foreword of which had been written by Myrick, which depicted CAIR as a violent group allied with international terrorists.

On May 26, 2011, Coburn unveiled his 73-page paper, "National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope," which attracted immediate notice from such media outlets as The New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC.

Senator Coburn was one of three senators to vote against the Stop Trading on Congress Knowledge Act (STOCK Act). Coburn released the following statement relating to the Act on February 3, 2012:

Coburn served on the following commissions: — Coburn was a member of the following committees:

Post-Senate career

Following his resignation from the US Senate, Coburn joined Citizens for Self-Governance as a senior advisor to the group's Convention of States initiative, which seeks to convene a convention to propose revisions to the United States Constitution. In 2017, he wrote a book titled Smashing the DC Monopoly: Restoring Freedom and Stop the Runaway Government.

Coburn worked with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, assisting with the institution's Project FDA, which is an attempt to facilitate faster drug approval processes. He served on the board of the Benjamin Rush Institute, a liberal group of medical students from 20 medical schools. He became a Manhattan Institute senior fellow in 2016.

Source