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Tom Cole

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Tom Cole
Tom Cole official congressional photo.jpg
Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee
Assumed office
January 3, 2019
Preceded byJim McGovern
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Oklahoma's 4th district
Assumed office
January 3, 2003
Preceded byJ. C. Watts
26th Secretary of State of Oklahoma
In office
January 9, 1995 – March 16, 1999
GovernorFrank Keating
Preceded byGlo Henley
Succeeded byMike Hunter
Personal details
Born
Thomas Jeffery Cole

(1949-04-28) April 28, 1949 (age 70)
Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)Ellen Cole
Children1 son
EducationGrinnell College (BA)
Yale University (MA)
University of Oklahoma (PhD)

Thomas Jeffery Cole (born April 28, 1949) is the U.S. Representative for Oklahoma's 4th congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party serving as Deputy Minority Whip. The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) from 2006 to 2008, he was, during his tenure, the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the House. Cole – a member of the Chickasaw Nation – is one of only four registered Native Americans in Congress, the others being fellow Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin and Democrats Sharice Davids of Kansas and Deb Haaland of New Mexico.

Early life, education, and educating career[edit]

Cole was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the son of Helen Te Ata (née Gale) and John D. Cole.[1] He is a fifth-generation Oklahoman, having been raised in Moore, halfway between Oklahoma City and Norman. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1971 with a B.A. in history. His postgraduate degrees include an M.A. from Yale University (1974) and a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma (1984), both in British history. Cole's Ph.D. thesis was entitled Life and Labor in the Isle of Dogs: The Origins and Evolution of an East London Working-Class Community, 1800–1980. Cole did research abroad as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and was a Fulbright Fellow (1977–78) at the University of London. He was a college professor in history and politics before becoming a politician.

Early political career[edit]

Following his mother Helen, who served as a state representative and senator, Cole served in the Oklahoma Senate from 1988 to 1991, resigning mid-term to become Executive Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. From 1995 to 1999, he was Oklahoma's Secretary of State under Governor Frank Keating, and assisted with the recovery efforts following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He resigned to become chief of staff to the Republican National Committee.[2][3] He also served as Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party for much of the 1980s.

Cole has been heavily involved in national politics as well, having served both as Executive Director of the NRCC and as Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Cole spent two years working as a paid consultant for the United States Chamber of Commerce, but his primary involvement in politics was as a political consultant for candidates. Along with partners Sharon Hargrave Caldwell and Deby Snodgrass, his firm (Cole, Hargrave, Snodgrass and Associates) played a large part in the reconstruction of Oklahoma's political landscape, and backed a number of candidates that took office during the Republican Revolution of 1994. Among their clients have been Keating, J.C. Watts, Tom Coburn, Frank Lucas, Mary Fallin, Wes Watkins, Steve Largent, former Mississippi congressman Chip Pickering, and Hawaii governor Linda Lingle.

U.S. House of Representatives[edit]

Elections[edit]

During his initial campaign for the House of Representatives in 2002, Cole received the endorsement of Watts, the popular outgoing congressman. This helped him win a hard-fought general election over Democratic nominee and former Oklahoma State Senator Darryl Roberts, taking 53.8 percent of the vote to Roberts' 46.1 percent. Cole has subsequently taken at least 63 percent of the vote in his eight reelection campaigns, and ran unopposed in 2010.

Tenure[edit]

Following the 2006 election cycle, the members of the House Republican Conference elected Cole to the post of NRCC Chairman, placing him in charge of national efforts to assist Republican candidates for Congress.

His voting record during his nine years in the House marks Cole as a solid conservative with occasional libertarian sympathies. He has consistently voted anti-abortion and pro-business positions, and established himself as a supporter of free trade, gun rights, the military, veterans, and American Indian issues. He favors loosening immigration restrictions and imposing stricter limits on campaign funds. In 2012, he sponsored H.R. 5912 which would prohibit public funds from being used for political party conventions. This legislation passed the House in September but awaits action by the Senate.[4]

In June 2013, after another failure of the United States farm bill in Congress, Cole called the failure of the legislation inexcusable. His district in Oklahoma includes some of the state's farming communities, and if the Farm Bill passed, it would have saved $40 billion over a ten-year period.[5]

As Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, Cole was responsible for introducing the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 4487; 113th Congress).[6] The bill would appropriate $3.3 billion to the legislative branch for FY 2015, which is approximately the same amount it received in FY 2014.[7] According to Cole, the bill meets its goals "in both an effective and efficient manner, and has done so in a genuinely bipartisan, inclusive and deliberative fashion."[8]

In 2013, Cole introduced the Home School Equity Act for Tax Relief. The bill would allow some homeschool parents to take tax credits for purchasing classroom materials.[9]

Cole expressed his intention in 2018 to push his Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act into the spending bill as an omnibus. The bill would "make clear that the National Labor Relations Board has no jurisdiction over businesses owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on tribal land."[10]

Cole was ranked as the 91st most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).[11]

2016 House Speakership election[edit]

In the contest for House Speaker that followed the resignation of John Boehner Cole supported the claims of Paul Ryan:

"Anyone who attacks Paul Ryan as being insufficiently conservative is either woefully misinformed or maliciously destructive...Paul Ryan has played a major role in advancing the conservative cause and creating the Republican House majority. His critics are not true conservatives. They are radical populists who neither understand nor accept the institutions, procedures and traditions that are the basis of constitutional governance."[12]

Committee membership[edit]

As of the 115th United States Congress, Tom Cole is a member of the following U.S. House committees:

Political positions[edit]

Cole supported President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to impose a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. He stated that "It is fair and appropriate to debate the merits of President Trump's executive order and its initial implementation. But it is inappropriate to engage in demagogic, inflammatory, inaccurate and reckless rhetoric that is designed to create and exploit a political issue rather than address a real threat to our security. I fear that is exactly what we are seeing from many of the President's critics."[13]

Electoral history[edit]

Oklahoma's 4th congressional district: Results 2002–2016[14]
Year Republican Votes Pct Democrat Votes Pct 3rd Party Party Votes Pct
2002 Tom Cole 106,452 53.83% Darryl Roberts 91,322 46.17%
2004 Tom Cole 198,985 77.77% (no candidate) Charlene K. Bradshaw Independent 56,869 22.23%
2006 Tom Cole 118,266 64.61% Hal Spake 64,775 35.39%
2008 Tom Cole 180,080 66.02% Blake Cummings 79,674 29.21% David E. Joyce Independent 13,027 4.78%
2010* Tom Cole 32,589 77.26% (no candidate) RJ Harris Republican 9,593 22.74%
2012 Tom Cole 176,561 67.89% Donna Marie Bebo 71,155 27.60% RJ Harris Independent 11,725 4.51%
2014 Tom Cole 117,721 70.80% Bert Smith 40,998 24.66% Dennis B. Johnson Independent 7,549 4.54%
2016 Tom Cole 203,942 69.64% Christina Owen 76,308 26.08% Sevier White Libertarian 12,548 4.28%
2018 Tom Cole 149,127 63.07% Mary Brannon 78,022 33.00% Ruby Peters Independent 9,310 3.94%
  • In 2010, no Democrat or independent candidate filed to run in OK-4. The results printed here are from the Republican primary, where the election was decided.

Personal life[edit]

Cole and his wife, Ellen, have one son, Mason. He is a member of the United Methodist Church and lives in Moore.

Cole has said, "I was raised to think of myself as Native American and, most importantly, as Chickasaw."[15]

Cole has said that a great-aunt of his was the Native American storyteller Te Ata.[15] Describing his heritage, he said his "mother Helen Cole[16] was...extraordinarily proud of [their] Native American history and was, frankly, the first Native American woman ever elected to state senate in Oklahoma."[15]

Cole sits on the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and the National Fulbright Association.[17]

Cole is featured in the play Sliver of a Full Moon by Mary Kathryn Nagle for his role in the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.[18]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "cole". Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
  2. ^ Official Lands GOP Post Keating to Name New Secretary of State
  3. ^ RNC picks new chief of staff
  4. ^ "H.R. 5912: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prohibit the use of public funds for political party conventions". Retrieved 12 October 2012.
  5. ^ Casteel, Chris (June 21, 2013). "Oklahoma Reps. Tom Cole, Jim Bridenstine Disagree on Farm Bill". NewsOK. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  6. ^ "H.R. 4487 – All Actions". United States Congress. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  7. ^ Marcos, Cristina (25 April 2014). "Next week:Appropriations season begins". The Hill. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  8. ^ Hess, Hannah (2 April 2014). "Legislative Branch Bill Keeps House Spending in Check". Roll Call. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  9. ^ Jim East, "Legislation would give home school families access to education tax deduction" Archived 2013-08-28 at Archive.today, The Ripon Advance, August 28, 2013. (Retrieved August 28, 2013)
  10. ^ Wong, Scott. "Five things lawmakers want attached to the $1 trillion funding bill". The Hill. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  11. ^ The Lugar Center - McCourt School Bipartisan Index (PDF), The Lugar Center, March 7, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2017
  12. ^ Steinhauer, Jennifer (12 October 2015). "Latest Unease on Right – Is Ryan Too Far to the Left?". New York Times. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  13. ^ Blake, Aaron. "Coffman, Gardner join Republicans against President Trump's travel ban; here's where the rest stand". Denver Post. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  14. ^ "Election Statistics". Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
  15. ^ a b c Native American Heritage Month Keynote Address (Speech). Library of Congress. 2007-11-06. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
  16. ^ Helen Cole Archived 2010-05-31 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ "Tom Cole Full Biography". Tom Cole U.S. Congressman. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  18. ^ "sliver of a full moon". sliver of a full moon. Retrieved 2016-12-12.

External links[edit]

Political offices
Preceded by
Glo Henley
Secretary of State of Oklahoma
1995–1999
Succeeded by
Mike Hunter
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by
J. C. Watts
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Oklahoma's 4th congressional district

2003–present
Incumbent
Preceded by
Jim McGovern
Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee
2019–present
Party political offices
Preceded by
Thomas Reynolds
Chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee
2007–2009
Succeeded by
Pete Sessions
U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial)
Preceded by
John Carter
United States Representatives by seniority
75th
Succeeded by
Mario Díaz-Balart