Location: Rayburn House Office Building, Room B338
Description: Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Breakfast: 9:00 – 9:15 am
Briefing: 9:15 – 10:30 am
Rayburn House Office Building, Room B338
Please RSVP

As the U.S. tightens its belt, Congress has been focusing on how it can maximize health outcomes for the lowest cost. Vaccines against common killers like pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis and others are saving countless lives around the world and providing hope for millions of families, especially children.

Please join us for an important briefing on the cost-effectiveness of vaccines and how the public and private sectors are working together to catalyze innovative, simple solutions to save lives and improve the health of millions in the U.S. and the world.

Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2011-07-06
End Time: 10:30

Link out or RSVP here

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Member of the Week : Tom Coburn – Junior Senator from Oklahoma

Sometimes you have to stand up and applaud.  You have to applaud the complete lunacy that rears its ugly head on occasion within Congress.  Despite resigning from office on May 3, the ghost of John Ensign, and the ludicrous affair that has derailed his career/life, continues to engulf his closest friends and colleagues.  A report released on May 12 by the Senate Ethics Committee has shown that Senator Tom Coburn played a more active role than previously known in the negotiations between Ensign and his former aide – and the husband of the wife Ensign slept with – Doug Hampton.  An active figure in the Republican Party, Thomas Allen Coburn faces a frantic fight for survival and continued legitimacy within his own realm.

Coburn’s journey to the spotlight in which he finds himself started in Casper, Wyoming.  Born on March 14, 1948, Coburn grew up in a religious family and was known as a rambunctious kid; his penchant for trouble led his uncle to nickname him “Stinkweed.”  He attended Oklahoma State University, where during his senior year he served as President of the College of Business Student Council.  He graduated with a B.S. in accounting in 1970 and returned home with his wife Carolyn, 1967’s Miss Oklahoma, and went to work for his father’s company, Coburn Optical Services.

He quickly proved his keenness for management.  From 1970 to 1978, Coburn served as manufacturing manager at the Ophthalmic Division of Coburn Optical Industries.  Under his leadership, sales increased from $100,00 to $40 million, the Virginia division of Coburn Optical grew from 13 employees to more than 350, and the business captured %35 of the U.S. market.

In 1975, Coburn was diagnosed with malignant melanoma.  He eventually recovered but the ordeal lead him to pursue a medical degree from the University of Oklahoma’s medical school.  He graduated with honors in 1983 and immediately opened a medical practice in Muskogee, Oklahoma.  Over the course of his career in obstetrics, he treated over 15,000 patients and delivered 4,000 babies.  During this time, Coburn also served as a deacon in a Southern Baptist Church.  He is currently one of two licensed doctors currently serving in the Senate

Coburn entered Congress in 1994 as part of a new class of fervently conservative Republicans.  He defeated 71-year old retired teacher Virgil Cooper by a 52%-48% margin, becoming the first Republican to represent Oklahoma’s 2^nd District since 1921.  He spent much of his six years in the House working on health-related legislation, including laws that required AIDS counseling for pregnant women and labels on condoms disclosing that they didn’t prevent infections that lead to cervical cancer.  He played an influential role in reforming welfare and led efforts to balance the budget through countless proposed amendments.  Moreover, he earned a reputation as a political maverick due to his frequent battles with House Speaker Newt Gingrich stemming from Coburn’s belief that the Republican caucus was moving toward the political center.

In 2000, Coburn kept his pledge to serve only three terms in office and returned to Muskogee to practice medicine.  Retired but not one to shy away from controversy, Coburn wrote Breach of Trust. Detailing Coburn’s perspective on the internal Republican Party debates over the Contract with America, the book displayed a personal disdain for career politicians.  Moreover, Coburn criticized past and present Republican figures, leading to speculations that some congressional Republicans wanted no part of Coburn in politics.  His blunt critique of the insider politics within his party and that of Capitol Hill established him as an outsider, a man of the people who acknowledged the rotten core of the system he once called home.

Not surprisingly, his return to politics was more of a question of when and not if.  After practicing medicine for four years, Coburn saw his chance to re-enter politics in 2004.  In spite of announcing he wouldn’t be running for Senate in a 2003 press release, Coburn changed his mind the next day and entered the race – months after his opponents.  Challenging the Republican establishment in the process, Coburn faced Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys in the Republican primary.  In spite of Humphrey having the support of the state’s Republican leadership, Coburn secured the primary with 61% of the vote.  He went on to face then-Rep. Brad Carson who had succeeded Coburn in his House seat in 2000.

In the general election, Coburn established himself as an opponent of pork-barrel spending and corruption in Washington.  His focus on spending reduction, and his reputation for fighting the practice of awarding federal dollars to special interest causes, won him supporters that otherwise disagreed with him on social issues.  He eventually won with 53% of the vote.  He was easily re-elected in 2010.

His voting record in the Senate is as conservative and confrontational as his House record.  His staunch conservative values have resulted in a non-conformal voting record –only 80% of the time with Republican Party – and unusual political stances.  In 2000 he sponsored a bill to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from developing, testing, or approving the abortifacient RU-486.  Though the bill failed in the House, Coburn sparked controversy with his remark on the issue of abortion, “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life.”  Moreover, his opposition to earmarks has annoyed many senators, Republicans and Democrats, due to his preferred tactics of filibustering and stalling bills he thinks are too wasteful.

Thomas Allen “Tom” Coburn is a polarizing figure.  A man with a network that includes far-right conservative leaders and surprisingly, Barack Obama, Tom Coburn faces a true test of his convictions in the coming months.  The toxicity of the John Ensign scandal is threatening to derail Coburn’s reputation as an outsider stuck in the insider treachery of Capitol Hill.  Tom Coburn pledged to retire from the Senate in 2016 prior to the Ensign scandal.  One can’t help to feel that Coburn can’t have that date come soon enough.

–Amendment202

Enjoy our article on Tom Coburn, click here for other Members of the Week!