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Jennifer Coburn Biography & Facts

Thomas Allen Coburn (March 14, 1948 – March 28, 2020) was an American politician and physician who served as a United States senator from Oklahoma from 2005 to 2015. A Republican, Coburn previously served as a United States representative from 1995 to 2001. Coburn was an obstetrician who operated a private medical practice in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the Republican Revolution. After being re-elected twice, Coburn upheld his campaign pledge to serve no more than three consecutive terms and did not seek re-election in 2000. In 2004, he returned to political life with a successful run for the United States Senate. Coburn was re-elected to a second Senate term in 2010 and kept his pledge not to seek a third term in 2016. In January 2014, Coburn announced that he would resign before the expiration of his final term due to a recurrence of prostate cancer. He submitted a letter of resignation to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, effective at the end of the 113th Congress. Coburn was a fiscal and social conservative known for his opposition to deficit spending, pork barrel projects, and abortion. Described as "the godfather of the modern conservative austerity movement", he supported term limits, gun rights and the death penalty, and opposed same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research. Many Democrats referred to him as "Dr. No" due to his frequent use of technicalities to block federal spending bills. 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 served as a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance, where he was active in calling for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution. Early life, education, and medical career Coburn was born in Casper, Wyoming, the son of Anita Joy (née Allen) and Orin Wesley Coburn. Coburn's father was an optician and founder of Coburn Optical Industries, and a named donor to O. W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University. Coburn graduated with a B.S. in accounting from Oklahoma State University, where he was also a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. In 1968, he married Carolyn Denton, the 1967 Miss Oklahoma; their three daughters are Callie, Katie and Sarah, a leading operatic soprano. One of the top ten seniors in the School of Business, Coburn served as president of the College of Business Student Council. From 1970 to 1978, Coburn served as a manufacturing manager at the Ophthalmic Division of Coburn Optical Industries in Colonial Heights, Virginia. While Coburn was manager, the Virginia division of Coburn Optical grew from 13 employees to over 350 and captured 35 percent of the U.S. market. After recovering from an occurrence of malignant melanoma, Coburn pursued a medical degree and graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School with honors in 1983. He then opened 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 subject to one malpractice lawsuit, which was dismissed without finding Coburn at fault. Together Coburn and his wife were members of First Baptist Church of Muskogee. Sterilization controversy A sterilization Coburn performed on a 20-year-old woman, Angela Plummer, in 1990, became what was called "the most incendiary issue" of his Senate campaign. Coburn performed the sterilization on the woman during an emergency surgery to treat a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, removing her healthy intact fallopian tube as well as the one damaged by the surgery. The woman sued Coburn, alleging that he did not have consent to sterilize her, while Coburn claimed he had her oral consent. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed with no finding of liability on Coburn's part. The state attorney general claimed that Coburn committed Medicaid fraud by not reporting the sterilization when he filed a claim for the emergency surgery. Medicaid did not reimburse doctors for sterilization procedures for patients under 21 and according to the attorney general, Coburn would not have been reimbursed at all had he disclosed this information. Coburn says since he did not file a claim for the sterilization, no fraud was committed. No charges were filed against Coburn for this claim. Political career House career In 1994, 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. Coburn initially expected to face eight-term incumbent Mike Synar. However, Synar was defeated in a runoff for the Democratic nomination by a 71-year-old retired principal, Virgil Cooper. According to Coburn's 2003 book, Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders, Coburn and Cooper got along well, since both were opposed to the more liberal Synar. The general election was cordial since both men knew that Synar would not return to Washington regardless of the outcome. Coburn won by a 52%–48% margin, becoming the first Republican to represent the district since 1921. Coburn was one of the most conservative members of the House. He supported "reducing the size of the federal budget," wanted to make abortion illegal and supported the proposed television V-chip legislation. Despite representing a heavily Democratic district and President Bill Clinton's electoral dominance therein, Coburn was reelected in 1996 and 1998. In the House, Coburn earned a reputation as a political maverick due to his frequent battles with House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Most of these stand-offs stemmed from his belief that the Republican caucus was moving toward the political center and away from the more conservative Contract With America policy proposals that had brought the Republicans into power in Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. Coburn endorsed conservative activist and former diplomat Alan Keyes in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries. Coburn retired from Congress in 2001, fulfilling his pledge to serve no more than three terms in the House. His congressional district returned to the Democratic fold, as attorney Brad Carson defeated Andy Ewing, a Republican endorsed by Coburn. After leaving the House and returning to private medical practice, Coburn wrote Breach of Trust, with ghostwriter John Hart, about his experiences in Congress. The book detailed Coburn's 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 the book's publishing, but others (such as former House Speaker Dennis Hastert) remained influential in Congress, which resulted in specu.... Discover the Jennifer Coburn popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jennifer Coburn books.