Tom Coburn

Tom Coburn (2005)

Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn (* 14. March 1948 in Casper , Wyoming ; † 28. March 2020 in Tulsa , Oklahoma ) was an American politician of the Republican Party . Coburn represented the state of Oklahoma in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 and in the United States Senate from 2005 to 2015 . He was considered one of the most conservative MPs and attracted national attention with controversial statements and legal blockades. The fighter for budget discipline took no account of party membership, but tried to distance himself from the establishment.

Family, education and work

Coburn was born in Wyoming in 1948 to Anita Joy Allen and Orin Wesley Coburn. After leaving school, he studied at Oklahoma State University and achieved a bachelor's degree . He then moved to the University of Oklahoma Medical School , where he graduated with Honors in Medicine in 1983 . After completing his studies, Coburn opened a private medical practice in Muskogee .

In 1968 he married Carolyn Denton, who was elected Miss Oklahoma in 1967 . They had three daughters. Coburn was a member of the Southern Baptist Church . He died of prostate cancer in March 2020 at the age of 72 .

Political career

Coburn began his political career in the summer of 1994 when he won the Republican primary for the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma . In the November 1994 general election , he faced a Democratic candidate against a 71-year-old retired teacher who had beaten longtime mandate holder Mike Synar in the party primary and refused to speak on television cameras. Although the number of registered Democrats in this congressional electoral district tripled that of the Republicans, Coburn succeeded in defeating Cooper with 52 to 48 percent of the vote, what a Republican had last done before him in 1920 . Coburn was a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 1995 and was re-elected in 1996 and 1998 - despite the good national framework for the Democrats and their structural dominance in the constituency. He kept his election promise not to spend more than three terms in the House of Representatives, did not run in the 2000 election and resigned from Congress in January 2001, replaced by the Democrat Brad Carson . Coburn practiced as a doctor again and, with the help of a ghostwriter, wrote a book, Breach of Trust , in which he settled accounts with the political operations of the "Insider" in Washington.

After the former Republican US Senator Don Nickles had announced that he would not run again in the Senate election in November 2004 , Coburn declared his candidacy for this seat and stood against the Democrat Brad Carson, who had succeeded him in Congress. The election campaign between the two politicians, who each styled themselves as outsiders, was long considered completely open. Carson's attempts to convict Coburn of extreme views failed because he was not perceived as outside the mainstream in conservatively structured Oklahoma. Carson's attempts to mobilize certain minorities, such as the Native Americans of the state, whose representatives made an election recommendation (against Coburn) for the first time, were unsuccessful: Coburn won with 53 to 41 percent of the vote, relatively clearly; from January 2005 he was a member of the United States Senate. In 2010 he defended the seat against Jim Rogers , who received only 26% of the vote.

Coburn served on the committees on health , homeland security , justice , Indian affairs, and intelligence . He became known as "Dr. No ”because he blocked any legislative proposal that he did not consider to be adequately funded. To this end, he repeatedly used the right of “secret hold”, which prevents laws from being voted on in the Senate, including the Veterans' Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act in November 2009 . He also stopped a widely supported bill by his fellow Republican Senator from Oklahoma Jim Inhofe against the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, which was charged with several serious crimes. In May 2007, Coburn threatened to block two bills marking the 100th birthday of the zoologist and ancestor of the American environmental movement Rachel Carson , whose main work " Silent Spring " is often referred to as one of the most influential books of the 20th century. Coburn called Carson's work " Junk Science " and stated that her book "was the catalyst for the deadly worldwide stigma against insecticides , especially DDT ". As a reaction to Coburn's blockades, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate Harry Reid brought several bills previously blocked by Coburn in July 2008 as the Advancing America's Priorities Act , which, however, was not passed.

In January 2014, he announced his resignation at the end of the 113th Congress . The first candidate for his successor was Congressman James Lankford , who won the Senate election in November 2014 and succeeded him on January 3, 2015. Coburn withdrew from politics with cancer and in retrospect criticized the political class as a whole.

Political positions

Coburn was considered one of the most conservative politicians in Congress, who repeatedly called for an orientation towards traditional moral concepts. He spoke out against same-sex marriage , in favor of the right to own weapons and in favor of the death penalty . Frank Rich described Coburn's views in the New York Times as "antediluvian" and at the same time as typical of the " Gingrich Revolution", the 1994 congressional election won by the first after 40 years of democratic dominance made a whole generation of Republican politicians elected and at the same time ideological had coined. At the same time, Coburn was seen as an outsider in politics ("maverick"), who repeatedly fought public battles with the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich , who was rejected as too willing to compromise , as one of the few Republican MPs who voted against the Iraq war and had a good relationship with President Obama used.

He was certified populist rhetoric, but also a relatively moderate voting behavior. As early as the House of Representatives, Coburn introduced far-reaching legislative projects for health policy, including to ensure medical care for the elderly and in rural areas and to curb HIV infections in children. His unsuccessful 1997 initiative to establish a non-public national AIDS registry was widely rejected as stigmatizing and breaching the confidentiality of sensitive data. In 2003, George W. Bush named Coburn co-chair of the panel that was supposed to advise the president on AIDS policy issues. Coburn became known for his annual “waste book” in which he denounced - often curious - government spending and advocated fiscal transparency. He was considered a rigorous guardian of state finances and uncompromisingly fought against the taking on of debts and subsidies for local projects, even against his own party friends, but was prepared to work with political opponents elsewhere, for which he earned respect and approval across party lines.

His numerous controversial statements, which observers have referred to as “political theater”, repeatedly caused a stir. In 2004 he claimed that an alleged gay agenda , which was responsible for the increasing acceptance of abortions and changing sexual partners, had "infiltrated" all the power centers in the country and was the greatest threat to the country's freedom. Among other things, he called for the death penalty for abortion doctors, declared breast implants made of silicone to be beneficial for health and claimed that Barack Obama wanted to create addictions among African Americans with his support for affirmative action, which can be explained biographically . Especially older people in the right-wing party base celebrated Coburn like a “rock star” because he expressed their feeling of distrust of the federal government and the general direction of the country.

In retrospect, Coburn described his statement from 1997 about the television broadcast of the Oscar- winning Holocaust feature film Schindler's List in prime time as one of the biggest mistakes of his life . That is television at the lowest level "with nude scenes, violence and swearing". After severe criticism, Coburn withdrew his statement and cited the protection of minors as the motive for his initial request.

Web links

• Tom Coburn in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Matthew Rex Cox: Coburn, Thomas Allen. In: The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture (English)
• Obituary on politico.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Colin Dwyer: Former Sen. Tom Coburn, Fiscal Hawk And 'Dr. No, 'Dies At 72. In: National Public Radio . March 28, 2020, accessed on March 29, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Biography. ( Memento from August 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Coburn.Senate.gov , (English).
3. ^ ^{A b c} Same Howe Verhovek: The 1994 Campaign: Oklahoma; Ultimate Outsider Seeking a Seat. In: The New York Times , November 3, 1994.
4. ^ The 1994 Elections: Who Won Where: Results In the 435 Races for the House. In: The New York Times , November 10, 1994.
5. ^ ^{A b} Oklahoma Senate 2004. Republican Tom Coburn faces Democrat Brad Carson. In: Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, October 22, 2004.
6. ^ ^{A b c} Robert Schlesinger: Medicine Man. In: Salon.com , September 13, 2004 (English).
7. ↑ Jeff Corntassel, Richard C. Witmer: Forced Federalism. Contemporary Challenges to Indigenous Nationhood (= American Indian Law and Policy Series. Vol. 3). University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2008, pp. 73-76 .
8. ↑ General Election. November 2, 2004. In: Oklahoma State Election Board , accessed November 5, 2015.
9. ↑ ^{a b c d} Liz Halloran: Tom Coburn, GOP Budget Hawk And Obama Friend, To Leave Senate. In: NPR.org , January 17, 2014 (English).
10. ↑ Ryan Grim: The Bucks Stop Here. In: Politico , March 30, 2010 (English).
11. ↑ Jim Myers: Coburn Still Blocking Bill. The Oklahoma Senator Says the Cost of the Veterans' Bill Should Be Offset by Cuts Elsewhere. ( Memento of October 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tulsa World , November 10, 2009 (English).
12. ↑ Chris Casteel: Sen. Tom Coburn Blocks Bill Backed by Inhofe. In: NewsOK.com , January 30, 2010 (English).
13. ↑ David A. Fahrentold: Bill to Honor Rachel Carson on hold. In: The Washington Post , May 23, 2007.
14. ↑ Kathleen Hunter: Democrats Unable to Thwart Coburn as Senate 'Tomnibus' Fails Critical Vote. ( Memento of November 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: Congressional Quarterly , July 28, 2008 (English).
15. ↑ Chris Casteel: Sen. Tom Coburn to resign at the end of current Congress. In: NewsOK.com , January 16, 2014 (English).
16. ↑ Paige Winfield Cunningham: Former Sen. Coburn on what's 'disgusting' about Washington. In: The Washington Examiner , April 20, 2015.
17. ↑ Frank Rich: They Got Some 'Splainin' to Do. In: The New York Times , July 18, 2009 (English).
18. ↑ Vote on the Iraq War at Senate.gov , accessed on November 5, 2015.
19. ↑ Chandler Burr: The AIDS Exception: Privacy vs. Public health. In: The Atlantic , June 1997 (English).
20. ↑ ^{a b} Ben Felder: Coburn's Rock Star Status on Display at Town Hall. In: Oklahoma Gazette , August 5, 2014.
21. ↑ Suzy Khimm: Tom Coburn Wants a gay GOP Alliance. Seriously? In: The New Republic , October 20, 2009.
22. ↑ An overview from Adam Weinstein: The Top 11 Most Godawful Things Retiring Senator Tom Coburn Ever Said. In: Gawker , January 17, 2014 (English).
23. ↑ Bill Carter, TV Notes. In: The New York Times , February 27, 1997 (English).
24. ↑ John E. Yang: Rep. Coburn Apologizes; Speech Complained of Movie's Sex, Violence. ( Memento of November 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Washington Post , February 27, 1997 (English).