Rep. Tom Cole [R-OK4]
U.S. Representative, Oklahoma’s 4^th District

Track Tom Cole

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Outside Links

The following external websites may be of interest:

Tom Cole’s Official Website

Biography from the official Congressional Biographical Directory

Campaign Contributions tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics

State:	Oklahoma [map]
District:	4^th Congressional District [map]
Party:	Republican
Birthday:	Apr 28, 1949 / 60 years old

To contact Tom Cole, visit his official website. (Read our tips for communicating with Congress.) See the Project Vote Smart page for Cole for more biographical and issue information.

On the Floor

Watch House proceeding 11-07-09 01 5:45:50 to 5:46:15 at MetaVid. More Videos | Congressional Record

Congressional Service

Tom Cole has represented Oklahoma’s 4^th congressional district since 2003.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Tom Cole:

When	Role	Representing
2003-2010	U.S. Representative	Oklahoma’s 4^th	(was preceeded by Watts)

Sponsorship Analysis

Cole is a rank-and-file Republican according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship.

These labels come from the Political Spectrum statistical analysis that we have carried out. The statistical analysis puts members of Congress on a scale based on patterns of bill sponsorship, and is blind to party affiliation and the content of bills. From there, we have somewhat arbitrarily divided the Members of Congress into far-left/right, rank-and-file, and moderate (i.e. centrist). For each party, the most extreme 23% of Members of Congress are labeled far-left or -right. The most centrist 30% (i.e. those closest to the other party) are labeled moderate. The remaining 47% are labeled as rank-and-file.

Cole is a follower according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Cole tends to cosponsors the bills of other Members of Congress who do not cosponsor Cole’s own bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

To compute the leader-follower score for Cole, we make a table that lists all other Members of Congress. Each row has the number bills sponsored by Cole and cosponsored by the other Member of Congress divided by the number of bills sponsored by the other Member of Congress and cosponsored by Cole.

This is a measure of who is following who. The higher the number, the more times others are cosponsoring Cole's bills without Cole returning the favor. We then take the mean of (the logorithms of) these ratios. Thanks to Joe Barillari for the idea.

Voting Record

Tom Cole missed 131 (2%) of 5350 votes since Jan 7, 2003. The graph to the left shows the number of missed votes over time. Click for a larger chart and a list of recent votes.

Money & Influence

The top campaign contribution to Cole in 2007-2008 was $19,796 from employees of Chickasaw Nation. Tom Cole’s net worth was between $1,822,093 and $5,011,000 in 2007, according to Cole’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Cole.

Committee Membership

Tom Cole sits on the following committees:

Member, House Committee on Appropriations

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Tom Cole has sponsored 23 bills since Jan 7, 2003 of which 19 haven't made it out of committee and 1 were successfully enacted. Cole has co-sponsored 623 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Cole and companion bills identified by CRS that were themselves enacted, but not if they were incorporated into other bills, as that information is not readily available.)

Some of Cole’s most recently sponsored bills include...

	H.R. 3697: To amend the Act of June 18, 1934, to reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for Indian tribes.
	H.R. 1383: Air Force Depot Workers Fairness Act
	H.R. 2992: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prohibit the use of public funds for political party conventions.
	H.R. 2993: To amend chapters 95 and 96 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to terminate taxpayer financing of presidential election campaigns.
	H.Res. 469: Honoring the life of Wayman Lawrence Tisdale and expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives on his passing.

View All... (including bills from previous years)

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.

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