Posted on 05/02/2005 1:42:42 PM PDT by HJH207
Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma for less than four months, last week was up to old tricks he started playing in the House a decade ago. He was making colleagues' lives miserable by exposing wasteful, unnecessary spending that is supposed to stay hidden. The Senate establishment, like its House counterpart, has retaliated by bringing ethics charges against the obstetrician-senator for going home to Muskogee, Okla., to deliver babies.
In a legislative body where members spend much of their time off the Senate floor begging for money, it is worthy of Kafka that the only pending ethical proceeding involves Coburn's concept of the citizen-legislator. Unless the rules are changed, Coburn must either break his campaign pledge of continuing baby deliveries or leave the Senate.
His early departure from the Senate would occasion rejoicing there, as he showed April 20. Not observing a freshman senator's customary silent period, he proposed reducing the $592 million for a new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad provided by the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Coburn argued that because only $106 million could be spent over the next two years, ''we are going to have $486 million hanging out there that will be rescinded and spent on something else.'' Instead of settling for the usual voice vote, Coburn insisted on a roll call (which he lost by only 54-45).
The Oklahoma GOP establishment thought it was finished with Coburn when he fulfilled his term-limit pledge and left Congress after three terms, ending in 2000. His subsequent memoir showed his contempt for Capitol Hill mores. When a Senate seat opened for the 2004 election, Coburn withstood vicious attacks in both the Republican primary and general election campaign.
On Dec. 2, a Senate staffer handed Sen.-elect Coburn's chief-of-staff a letter signed by Sen. George Voinovich, the Senate Ethics Committee's GOP chairman, and Sen. Harry Reid, then the panel's ranking Democrat. The letter ordered Coburn to stop practicing medicine.
The staffer was no stranger to Coburn: Robert L. Walker, staff director of the Senate Ethics Committee. He held the same post for the House Ethics Committee the year after it made the same demand in 1998. House rules were not as firm, and the ethics panel backed down in 1998 when Coburn made clear he would quit Congress before he quit medicine. But Senate rules prohibit ''substantial'' outside income.
During six years in the House, Coburn's campaign against pork-barrel spending made him anathema to Republican leaders. He planned a lower profile in the Senate, but the ethics complaint made that impossible. He also had an agenda ensuring him more attention than ordinary freshmen: bringing free market principles to health care, oversight of federal programs (as chairman of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee) and assaulting congressional pork. For the first time since Phil Gramm left the Senate, Sen. John McCain had an anti-pork partner.
In the April 20 debate on the supplemental appropriations bill, Coburn was the only senator to support McCain against Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who was mandating that a $40 million project go to a ''Philadelphia-based company.'' ''I believe this is the wrong way we should be doing things,'' Coburn told the Senate. ''We need to stop. Our future depends on the integrity of a budgeting and appropriations process that is not based on politics but is based on having the future best will for our country.''
It is hard to exaggerate how much Coburn's rhetoric riles pork-loving colleagues, explaining the absurd ethics proceeding against him. In answering charges that he is a part-time senator, Coburn wrote constituents that he will continue to ''devote at least 60-70 hours per week to my Senate duties.'' Other senators spend as much time as Coburn back home but mainly for fund-raising. They are not stopped from padding their bankrolls with book royalties, farm income and investments.
With little chance Voinovich will bury the complaint in the Ethics Committee, Coburn can hope that the Senate Rules Committee under Chairman Trent Lott will save the Senate from embarrassment by amending the rule. What is sure is that Tom Coburn will neither yield nor shut up.
FREEPER NEED YOUR HELP ON THIS ONE. COBURN IS GOING TO BE A GREAT US SENATOR AND HE NEEDS ALL RED STATES SENATORS TO HEAR FROM US.
After a bad statewide election, issues with Tabor, and some marital problems, the Club For Growth is shying away from their initial endorsement of CO Governor Bill Ownes and has fallen behind Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, another strong government slashing Conservative. I'd been hoping SC governor Mark Sanford would get in the race, but it appears he is adamant about not running. Pence may be the best bet for 2008. Why do I like Mike Pence? Because this past week he stood up to the 'Conservative' leadership in Congress and now any Representative can force a vote on any aspect of the budget. This will force lawmakers to go on record when they steal, say, $500,000 for the International Coffee Organization (true story), instead of being able to hide all their pork deep in large appropriations bills. Pence is also strongly in favor of opening our socialistic public school system up to private competition and was the only house member to serve as a plaintiff against the unconstitutional and failed campaign finance 'reform' bill.
Why do I take the Club For Growth's endorsement so seriously? Because they bankroll the election of people like Senator Tom Coburn of OK who believes in the radical concept that families will spend their money better than government. "There isn’t going to be an appropriations bill that I don’t go after,” Coburn vowed. Robert Novak reports: The Oklahoma GOP establishment thought it was finished with Coburn when he fulfilled his term-limit pledge and left Congress after three terms, ending in 2000. His subsequent memoir showed his contempt for Capitol Hill mores. When a Senate seat opened for the 2004 election, Coburn withstood vicious attacks in both the Republican primary and general election campaign. [The Club For Growth's financial backing was a primary reason he won] Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma for less than four months, last week was up to old tricks he started playing in the House a decade ago. He was making colleagues' lives miserable by exposing wasteful, unnecessary spending that is supposed to stay hidden. The Senate establishment, like its House counterpart, has retaliated by bringing ethics charges against the obstetrician-senator for going home to Muskogee, Okla., to deliver babies. The Washington Post reports that thieving Senators are stuffing a must pass emergency military spending bill with tons of pork: Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will go against the flow by attempting to strip out funds that he deems are not urgently needed. As Mark Twain said: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
read later
GOOD FOR THE GOOD DOC
You've got our senators on speed dial, why don't you let them know on this one. Coburn is a good guy, endorsed with Cain by club for growth.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1392923/posts
I think the best question is, if you're a pregnant woman in Oklahoma, do you really want your doctor being in Washington half the time?
Is this the same guy who favors the death penalty for abortionists and the adoption of Old Testament law?
In what sense has Club for Growth endorsed Pence? For POTUS in 2008? I would find that amazing...not impossible, but amazing.
Please call your Senators and demand that they support Dr. Tom. It will be a huge black mark on the Senate if this man is drummed out on trumped-up conflict of interest charges because he doesn't play the little insiders game the way they want.
Oh yeah! Expose them RINOs baby!!
Thanks for posting this....even though some of the comments I would expect to find over at DU. I guess some people do not read FR's homepage and the mission statement.
Anyway, Dr. Coburn is a true conservative and needed in the Senate. Please fellow freepers, call your Senator and demand they support Dr. Coburn.
We are proud of him in Oklahoma.
..rather have him in OK, than runnin' around w/ "Swimmer", F'nd and The Red Witch...and he is endorsed by Cain.
Enron style shell games. Who would have imagined?
I think the best question is, if you're a pregnant woman in Oklahoma, do you really want your doctor being in Washington half the time?
He is the best Senator in this state, but he is NOT the only doctor.
Too bad there aren't more like him.
If you're a pregnant woman in Oklahoma, don't you have the right to choose who your physician is? It's not as though the man conceals the fact that he's a Senator. If a woman can't deal with his accomodations to that fact, she can simply choose another physician, n'est pas?
One thing the Republican party doesn't want is a conservative to instill tradiional conservative values back into the party. The only thing the GOP stands for is Greed, Opression, Debt.
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