Jim Inhofe

Family, early life, and education

James Mountain Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 17, 1934, the son of Blanche (née Mountain) and Perry Dyson Inhofe. He moved with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, after his father became president of the National Mutual Casualty company in August 1942. His father, Perry Inhofe, was educated at Duke University and worked as a lawyer, president of multiple insurance companies, and banker. In 1949, his company, Tri-State, was ordered by the National Labor Relations Board to cease discouraging union membership. His father was also active in the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and YMCA; and he was the official sponsor of Miss Tulsa and Miss Oklahoma winner Louise O'Brien in 1950. His mother was a Tulsa socialite and hosted guests such as Johnston Murray.

Inhofe's family had been involved in Oklahoma politics since the 1950s. His father, Perry Inhofe, had served on the executive committee for Democratic governor Raymond D. Gary's successful 1954 campaign. In 1958, his brother, Perry Jr., ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Oklahoma House of Representatives as a Democrat.

Education, military and business careers

Inhofe started kindergarten in Des Moines, Iowa, but moved halfway through the year to Hazel Dell in Springfield, Illinois. He skipped first grade after the schoolhouse burned down and started second grade after his family moved to Tulsa at Barnard Elementary School. As a teenager, he would "hire Indians to pick wild blackberries" and then sell them in his neighborhood. He went on to attend Woodrow Wilson Junior High and Tulsa Central High School, where he was a member of his high school's track team. In 1952, his mile relay quartet team broke a school record with a 3:32.6 time. In January 1953, he was elected treasurer of the Brones social club; he graduated from Central High School later that year. He attended the University of Colorado for three months and worked as a bartender.

In 1956, he received a draft letter from the United States Army and he served from 1957 to 1958. He attained the rank of Specialist 4 and spent most of his service performing quartermaster duties at Fort Lee, Virginia. In 1961, his father formed a new life insurance company, Quaker Insurance, and Inhofe was appointed vice president. On June 17, 1970, Perry Inhofe died of a heart attack; Inhofe became president of Quaker Life Insurance and vice president of Mid-Continental Casualty Co. and Oklahoma Surety Co., while his brother Perry Jr. became president of Mid-Continental and Surety and vice president of Quaker Life. Inhofe and his brother eventually ended up in litigation over the companies that ended in 1990 with Perry paying his brother $3 million.

Inhofe received a B.A. in economics from the University of Tulsa in 1973. Until his 1994 U.S. Senate campaign, his official biographies and news articles about him said he had graduated in 1959. Inhofe initially denied the stories that uncovered the discrepancy but later acknowledged them. After admitting that the stories were true, he said he had been allowed to take part in graduation ceremonies in 1959 though he was a few credits short of completing his degree, and did not finish his coursework until 1973.

State legislative career

Oklahoma House of Representatives

In February 1966, Inhofe launched his first campaign for office as a Republican; he ran for the Oklahoma House of Representatives's 71st district against incumbent representative Warren Green. He lost the May primary election and then worked on J. Robert Wooten's 1966 lieutenant gubernatorial campaign as the Tulsa County campaign chair. In November 1966, Joseph McGraw resigned from the Oklahoma House of Representatives 70th district to run for newly elected governor Dewey Bartlett's former state senate seat, triggering a special election. Inhofe was the first to announced his campaign for McGraw's former house seat. He won the Republican primary and the general election. He was sworn in December 29, 1966. During his time in the State House, Inhofe formed a close friendship with Democratic Representative David Boren.

In the Oklahoma House, Inhofe's first successful measure was a bill to allow for personalized license plates in Oklahoma that passed during his first legislative session. During his first term, he spoke against federal regulation at the United States House Committee on Public Works Sub-committee on Roads and voted in favor of an abortion liberalization law. In 1968, he served as the vice-chair of the rules committee for the Oklahoma Republican Party state convention. That May, he announced he would not seek re-election to the Oklahoma House of Representatives and instead would challenge Democrat state senator Beauchamp Selman for his seat in the next election.

Oklahoma Senate

After Inhofe had already announced his campaign for the Oklahoma Senate, Beauchamp Selman announced he would not seek reelection, creating an open seat for the 1968 election. He faced Madison J. Bowers, who was endorsed by the Political Action Committee of Educators, in the Republican primary election. He won the primary and faced Democratic nominee Jerry L. Goodman in the general election. Governor Dewey Bartlett knocked doors with Inhofe during his campaign and he won the general election. After winning the special election, Republican party officials began considering Inhofe as a potential future U.S. Senate candidate.

In 1969, he was the chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Convention and supported efforts to liberalize abortions laws in Oklahoma in the 32nd Oklahoma Legislature that passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives but failed in Senate committee. Republican party officials tried to recruit Inhofe to run for Treasurer of Oklahoma in 1970, but he declined. In 1970, Governor Dewey Bartlett created the Oklahoma Narcotics and Drug Abuse Council and appointed Inhofe as an inaugural member. That November, he was elected minority caucus chair of the Oklahoma Senate for the 33rd Oklahoma Legislature. In 1971, Inhofe served as the chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party's State Convention. While Inhofe had initially filed a resolution for Oklahoma to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, he retracted his support later that year.

In 1969, Inhofe sponsored a successful bill to bring a retired U.S. Navy submarine to Oklahoma. Inhofe initially wanted the USS Piranha for Tulsa, but it was determined that the Arkansas River was too shallow for the ship to travel that far upriver. The Muskogee City-County Trust Port Authority donated five acres of waterfront property to locate the ship in Muskogee. In September 1970, the USS Batfish was considered as an alternative and on December 9, 1971, the Batfish was given to the State of Oklahoma. The ship was unofficially opened to the public July 4, 1972, with its official opening on Memorial Day 1973.

In 1972, Inhofe was appointed to serve as co-chair for Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign in Oklahoma with Ralph Gordon Thompson. During the campaign, Inhofe solicited Barry Goldwater to write a letter of endorsement for Nixon's campaign in Oklahoma to win over conservative Republicans and he represented Oklahoma at the 1972 Republican National Convention. He also worked on U.S. senator Dewey Bartlett's campaign as the co-chair for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district. In his own district, Inhofe faced no Republican primary challenge and faced Democratic nominee Happy Miles in the general election. He won the general election by over 7,000 votes; afterward, he was elected by fellow Republican state senators to serve as the assistant floor leader in the 34th Oklahoma Legislature. He was elected minority leader of the Oklahoma Senate for the 35th Oklahoma Legislature to succeed Donald Ferrell who had lost re-election. In April 1975, he appointed the first blind page in Oklahoma history: 15 year-old Angela Keele. Later that year, Inhofe and Charles Ford wrote an article criticizing David Boren and spending by the Democratic Party in a party newspaper. Newspapers in the state responded by pointing out Inhofe had supported just as much spending; the article was syndicated by the Associated Press and Inhofe responded by publishing a Tulsa World op-ed arguing he had tried to amend bills to remove wasteful spending and was consistently critical of spending. He did not seek a third term to the Oklahoma Legislature and was succeeded as minority leader by Senator Stephen Wolfe.

Mayor of Tulsa

In January 1978, the Tulsa Daily World reported Republican party officials were courting Inhofe to run for Mayor of Tulsa. He initially denied he would run for any city office and instead insisted he was considering a rematch against Congressman Jones, but Inhofe announced his mayoral campaign in February. He won the Republican primary with over 92% of the vote, defeating Keith Robinson and Paul Cull. During the first three weeks of the primary, he was injured with a broken leg from a tennis injury and could not campaign. In the general election against Rodger Randle, he was endorsed by then-Mayor Robert LaFortune and U.S. senator Dewey Bartlett. Randle had won the Democratic primary with a coalition of labor union and black voters, and Inhofe was supported in the general election by his Republican base, anti-union and anti-black Democrats, and 22% of black voters. In April, he was elected mayor of Tulsa, defeating Randle, 51%–46%. The Tulsa Daily World heralded the race as Inhofe's "first general election victory in six years, and Randle's first election loss since he entered politics in 1970." The race broke then-fundraising records for a Tulsa mayoral election with Randle raising $78,062 and Inhofe raising $48,987. Inhofe's biggest donors were the Metropolitan Builder's Association, oilman Robert L. Parker, and Paul D. Hinch.

On May 2, he was sworn in as Mayor of Tulsa. Inhofe's first proclamation as mayor was to celebrate Sun Day and support alternative energy; in the proclamation he said, "I think we're all interested in looking for alternative sources of energy. And of course, we want clean sources." In his first month in office, he decried the city's reliance on federal funding, promised to "seek minorities to fill positions in city government, and nominated Jewish, senior citizen, anti-abortion, and Christian fundamentalist members to the Tulsa Human Rights Commission. In January 1979, Inhofe attended the first swearing in of a governor of Oklahoma to occur in Tulsa when George Nigh was sworn in to serve the last five days of David Boren's term after Boren was elected to the U.S. Senate. In February, he appointed Ronald L. Young, the first African-American to ever serve on the City Commission. In December 1979, Inhofe officially announced his re-election campaign for a second term as mayor. He ran unopposed in the Republican primary and later won the general election, fending off Democratic nominee Richard Johnson and Independent candidate Robert Murphy. He broke Rodger Randle's record fundraising for a Tulsa mayoral race set in the last election by raising $87,667.

In 1982, he was reelected with 59% of the vote. He lost his 1984 reelection campaign to Terry Young.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

In 1986, when Representative James R. Jones decided to retire to run for the U.S. Senate, Inhofe ran for the 1st District and won the Republican primary with 54% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Gary Allison 55%–43%. In 1988, he won reelection against Democrat Kurt Glassco 53%–47%. In 1990, he defeated Glassco again, 56%–44%. After redistricting, the 1st District contained only two counties, all of Tulsa and some parts of Wagoner. In 1992, Inhofe was reelected with 53% of the vote.

Tenure

In 1987, Inhofe voted against President Ronald Reagan's budget, which included tax increases and no increase in defense spending.

He first came to national attention in 1993, when he led the effort to reform the House's discharge petition rule, which the House leadership had long used to bottle up bills in committee.

U.S. Senate

Inhofe was the longest-serving U.S. senator from Oklahoma, having served between 1994 and 2023.

Elections

In 1994, incumbent senator David Boren, who had served in the Senate since 1979, agreed to become president of the University of Oklahoma and announced he would resign as soon as a successor was elected. A special election was scheduled, in which Inhofe defeated Congressman Dave McCurdy. 1994 also saw the Republican Party take both houses of the U.S. Congress and the Oklahoma governorship.

Inhofe took office on November 17, giving him more seniority than the incoming class of senators. After serving the last two years of Boren's term, he won his first full term in 1996. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020.

Tenure

In the 2008 election cycle, Inhofe's largest campaign donors represented the oil and gas ($446,900 in donations), leadership PACs ($316,720), and electric utilities ($221,654) industries/categories. In 2010, his largest donors represented the oil and gas ($429,950) and electric ($206,654) utilities.

The primary PACs donating to his campaigns were Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association ($55,869), United Parcel Service ($51,850), National Association of Realtors ($51,700), NRA Political Victory Fund ($51,050), and American Medical Association ($51,000). Additionally, if company-sponsored PACs were combined with employee contributions, Koch Industries would be Inhofe's largest contributor, with $90,950 according to OpenSecrets.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Inhofe was among the panelists questioning witnesses about the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, saying he was "outraged by the outrage" over the revelations of abuse. Although he believed that the individuals responsible for mistreating prisoners should be punished, he said that the prisoners "are not there for traffic violations ... they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents". In 2006, Inhofe was one of only nine senators to vote against the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of individuals in U.S. Government custody.

When chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain was absent seeking medical treatment for brain cancer, Inhofe became acting chairman of the committee. During this time, Inhofe helped secure the passage of the record $716 billion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. McCain died in August 2018, and Inhofe lauded him as his "hero". Inhofe also said that McCain was "partially to blame for" the White House's controversial decision to raise flags back to full mast after less than two days, as McCain previously "disagreed with the President in certain areas and wasn't too courteous about it".

On March 6, 2019, Inhofe said he intended to put language in the next defense authorization act to reinforce President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and reintroduce severe sanctions on Tehran.

During the 115th, 116th, and 117th Congresses, Inhofe was a member of the following committees:

Retirement

On July 15, 2021, Inhofe told Tulsa World he planned to retire at the end of his current term, in 2027. In February 2022, The New York Times reported that Inhofe was planning to resign at the end of the 117th Congress. A special election for Inhofe's replacement was held in 2022 while he remained in office. He endorsed his former chief of staff, Luke Holland, in the special election. Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district Congressman Markwayne Mullin won the Republican primary and the special election. Inhofe resigned on January 3, 2023. It was reported in February 2023 that the primary reason for Inhofe's resignation was his symptoms of long COVID, which had severely limited his capacity to do day-to-day activities, after an initial infection he had called "very mild".

Political positions

Inhofe was ranked the most conservative member of Congress on the 2017 GovTrack report card. He received the same ranking for 2018. For 2019, he was ranked as the fifth-most conservative member of the U.S. Senate with a score of 0.91 out of 1, behind Marsha Blackburn, Joni Ernst, Mike Braun, and Ted Cruz.

Environmental issues

Inhofe was known for his denial of climate change, which he called a "hoax", and his defense of the oil industry, a major industry in Oklahoma. In December 1997, Inhofe called the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, a "political, economic, and national security fiasco."

Before Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 2002 elections, Inhofe had compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to a Gestapo bureaucracy, and EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose. In January 2003, he became Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and continued challenging mainstream science in favor of what he called "sound science", in accordance with the Luntz memo.

Beginning in 2003, when he was first elected Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Inhofe was the foremost Republican promoting climate change denial. He famously claimed in the Senate that global warming is a hoax, invited contrarians to testify in Committee hearings, and spread his views via the Committee website run by Marc Morano as well as through his access to conservative media. In 2012, Inhofe's The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future was published by WorldNetDaily Books, presenting his global warming conspiracy theory. He said that, because "God's still up there", the "arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous", but also that he appreciated that this argument was unpersuasive, and that he "never pointed to Scriptures in a debate, because I know this would discredit me."

As Environment and Public Works chairman, Inhofe gave a two-hour Senate floor speech on July 28, 2003, in the context of discussions on the McCain-Lieberman Bill. He said he was "going to expose the most powerful, most highly financed lobby in Washington, the far left environmental extremists", and laid out in detail his opposition to attribution of recent climate change to humans, using the word "hoax" four times, including the statement that he had "offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax" and his conclusion that "manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". He supported what he called "sound science", citing contrarian scientists such as Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, and Sallie Baliunas as well as some mainstream scientists. Two of these, Tom Wigley and Stephen Schneider, later issued statements that Inhofe had misrepresented their work.

Foreign policy

In October 2017, Inhofe co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), which would have made it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.

Inhofe supported the Polisario Front and traveled to Algeria many times to meet with its leaders. He urged Morocco to hold a referendum on independence for Western Sahara. In 2017, Inhofe blocked the Trump administration's nomination of J. Peter Pham for Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, citing a disagreement over Western Sahara.

After the December 2020 Israel–Morocco normalization agreement, Inhofe sharply criticized the Trump administration for recognizing Morocco's claim over Western Sahara, calling the decision "shocking and deeply disappointing" and adding that he was "saddened that the rights of the Western Sahara people have been traded away".

Inhofe opposed the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan under President Biden, saying that Biden should maintain "a relatively small troop presence until the conditions outlined in the 2020 U.S.-Taliban Agreement are fully implemented."

Immigration

Inhofe wrote the Inhofe Amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which was debated in Congress in May 2006. The amendment would make English the national language of the United States and require that new citizens take an English proficiency test. The amendment was passed on May 18, 2006, with 32 Democrats, one independent, and one Republican dissenting. The measure had 11 cosponsors, including one Democrat.

Social issues

In the aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Inhofe blamed the "culture of sanctuary cities" for the shootings.

Inhofe was generally seen as overtly hostile by LGBT advocacy groups, earning a 0% in every one of his terms on the Human Rights Campaign's position scorecard. He was in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes, and voted against prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2008, Inhofe said his office "does not hire openly gay staffers due to the possibility of a conflict of agenda."

Inhofe campaigned for his Senate seat in 1994 using the phrase "God, guns, and gays." In 2008, his campaign was noted by the Associated Press for running an ad with "anti-gay overtones" featuring a wedding cake with two male figures on top, fading into his opponent's face.

In 1999, along with Republican colleagues Tim Hutchinson and Bob Smith, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Inhofe stalled the nomination of James Hormel, a gay man, as US Ambassador to Luxembourg for over 20 months specifically because of Hormel's sexual orientation. President Bill Clinton eventually appointed him in a recess appointment, making him the United States' first openly gay ambassador in June 1999, and angering Inhofe, who held up seven more Clinton appointees in retaliation.

In 2015, Inhofe condemned the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage bans violate the Constitution.

In 1995, Inhofe voted to ban affirmative action hiring with federal funds. In 1997, he voted to end special funding for minority- and women-owned businesses. The bill he voted for would have abolished a program that helps businesses owned by women and minorities to compete for federally funded transportation; it did not pass. The next year, Inhofe voted to repeal the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, which is designed to "remedy ongoing discrimination and the continuing effects of past discrimination in federally-assisted highway, transit, airport, and highway safety financial assistance transportation contracting markets nationwide" by allocating 10% of highway funds to benefit the business enterprises of racial minorities and women.

Economic issues

Trained by the U.S. Navy, Inhofe was one of the few members of Congress holding a Commercial Airman certificate. In 1994, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, he used his plane as a daily campaign vehicle to travel throughout Oklahoma and visit almost every town in the state. He was influential in Senate and Congressional debates involving aircraft regulation. In 2012, he authored the Pilot's Bill of Rights bill.

Inhofe said that he made over 140 trips to Africa over about 20 years and helped to get United States Africa Command established. He made multiple foreign trips, especially to Africa, on missions that he described as "a Jesus thing" and that were paid for by the U.S. government. He used these trips for activities on behalf of The Fellowship, a Christian organization. Inhofe said that his trips included some governmental work but also involved "the political philosophy of Jesus, something that had been put together by Doug Coe, the leader of The Fellowship ... It's all scripturally based." Inhofe used his access as a senator to pursue religious goals.

Inhofe consistently voted against federal disaster relief, most notably in the case of relief for the 24 states affected by Hurricane Sandy, but argued for and voted for federal aid when natural disasters hit Oklahoma. In defense of his decision to vote against a relief fund for Sandy but not in Oklahoma after tornadoes ravaged it in May 2013, he claimed the situations were "totally different", in that the Sandy funding involved "Everybody getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place. That won't happen in Oklahoma." Inhofe pointedly did not thank President Obama for his attention to the tragedy in his state, so as to not be compared to Chris Christie.

Inhofe was instrumental in securing millions of dollars of federal funds to clean up contamination at a former mining hub in northeast Oklahoma after the affected site had spent decades on the Environmental Protection Agency Superfund list. He supported participation in the massive federal government buyout program for the Tar Creek Superfund site that purchased homes and businesses within a 40-square-mile (104-square-kilometer) region where for decades, children consistently tested positive for dangerous levels of lead in their blood.

In April 2021, Inhofe expressed support for bringing back earmarks to the United States Senate. The Tulsa World credited Inhofe for how he "relentlessly pursued" federal investment for highways, aviation, and military bases in the state.

Tribal sovereignty

In 2005, Inhofe included a midnight rider in that year's transportation bill that prevented federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma from administering Environmental Protection Agency regulations, a practice allowed by federal law in other states.

Presidential impeachments

On February 12, 1999, Inhofe was one of 50 senators to vote to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office. On February 5, 2020, he voted to acquit Donald Trump, and on February 13, 2021, he voted to acquit Trump for the second time.

2016 presidential election

Early in the Republican Party presidential primaries in 2016, Inhofe endorsed John Kasich. During Donald Trump's presidency, he voted in line with Trump's position 94.2% of the time.

Purchase of Raytheon stock

In December 2018, Inhofe bought $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in Raytheon, a major defense contractor that has billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Pentagon. The week before, he had successfully lobbied the Trump administration to increase military spending. Ethics watchdogs said the purchase raised conflict of interest concerns, and noted that members of Congress are not allowed to purchase stocks on the basis of information that is not publicly available. Inhofe sold the stock shortly after reporters asked him about the purchase. He said the purchase was made by a third-party adviser who manages Inhofe's investments on his behalf.

Judiciary

In March 2016, around seven months before the next presidential election, Inhofe argued that the Senate should not consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee because "we must let the people decide the Supreme Court's future" via the presidential election. In September 2020, less than two months before the next presidential election, Inhofe supported an immediate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.

Inhofe also voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh (Trump's other two Supreme Court nominations) and against Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan (Obama's two Supreme Court nominations). All four were successful.

2020 presidential election

Inhofe refused to support delaying the certification of the 2020 United States presidential election and said doing so would have violated his oath of office.

2021 storming of the United States Capitol

On May 28, 2021, Inhofe abstained from voting on the creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

Personal life

On December 19, 1959, Inhofe married Kay Kirkpatrick, with whom he had four children. His mother, Blanche M. Inhofe, died in 1975. On November 10, 2013, one of Inhofe's sons, Perry Inhofe, died in a plane crash in Owasso, Oklahoma, flying alone for the first time since training in a newly acquired Mitsubishi MU-2. Molly Rapert, an academic, is Inhofe's daughter.

Inhofe had his pilot's license since he was 28; he flew a Van's Aircraft RV-8. He attended the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh for 20 years; in 2021, he said, "I've slept in the same tent for 20 years. If you're not sleeping in a tent, it's not like being at Oshkosh." Inhofe had to emergency-land his plane multiple times throughout his career.

He was the first recipient of the U.S. Air Force Academy's Character and Leadership Award for his character and leadership in public service.

Toward the end of his life, Inhofe had symptoms of long COVID, which severely limited his capacity to do day-to-day activities.

Inhofe died from complications of a stroke at a hospital in Tulsa, on July 9, 2024, at the age of 89.

Electoral history