Markwayne Mullin

Markwayne Mullin (born July 26, 1977) is an American and Cherokee politician and businessman serving since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Oklahoma. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected in a special election in 2022 to serve the remainder of Jim Inhofe's term.

A member of the Cherokee Nation, Mullin is the first Native American U.S. senator since Ben Nighthorse Campbell retired in 2005. He is also the second Cherokee citizen elected to the Senate; the first, Robert Latham Owen, retired in 1925. From 2013 to 2023, Mullin served as the U.S. representative for Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district.

Early life, education, and businesses

Mullin was born on July 26, 1977, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the youngest of the seven children of Jim Martin Mullin and Brenda Gayle Morris Mullin, of Westville, Oklahoma. His first name is a tribute to two of his paternal uncles, Mark and Wayne; his mother put both names on his birth certificate, intending to later shorten his name to one of the two, but ultimately never did.

He graduated from Stilwell High School in Stilwell, Oklahoma. He attended Missouri Valley College in 1996, but did not graduate. In 1997, at age 20, Mullin took over his father's business, Mullin Plumbing, when his father fell ill.

In 2010, Mullin received an associate degree in construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. He is the only currently serving senator without at least a bachelor's degree.

At the time he was first elected to Congress in 2012, Mullin hosted House Talk, a home improvement radio program syndicated across Oklahoma, on Tulsa station KFAQ.

When elected to Congress, Mullin owned Mullin Properties, Mullin Farms, and Mullin Services, in addition to Mullin Plumbing. In 2012, he reported between $200,000 and $2 million in income from two family companies, and another $15,000 to $50,000 from shares he held in a bank.

At the end of 2021, Mullin's reported assets increased to a range of $31.6 million to $75.6 million, compared to a range of $7.3 million to $29.9 million at the end of 2020. The increase was from the sale of his plumbing-related companies to HomeTown Services, a multi-state residential heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical company. Mullin said that the sale happened in early 2021, while Mullin was serving in the House of Representatives.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2012

In June 2011, incumbent U.S. Representative Dan Boren announced that he would retire at the end of 2012 from his 2nd Congressional District seat. In September 2011, Mullin declared his candidacy for the seat. He branded himself as an outsider; his campaign slogan was "A rancher. A businessman. Not a politician!" In the six-candidate Republican primary, Mullin finished first with 42% of the vote; state representative George Faught ranked second with 23% of the vote. As a majority is required to win a congressional nomination in Oklahoma, a runoff was held; Mullin defeated Faught, 57%–43%.

The district had historically been a "Yellow Dog" Democratic constituency, but had steadily trended Republican as Democrats lost ground with Southeast Oklahoma's rural whites. For this reason, Mullin was thought to have a good chance of winning the election. He defeated the Democratic nominee, former district attorney Rob Wallace, 57%–38%. Mullin was the first Republican to represent the district since Tom Coburn in 2001, and only the second in a century.

2014

In 2014, Mullin was reelected with 70% of the vote, defeating Democrat Earl Everett, who got 24.6% of the vote.

2016

In the June 2016 Republican primary, Mullin defeated Jarrin Jackson by 27 percentage points. In the November general election, he defeated Democrat Joshua Harris-Till by 47 percentage points.

2018

When he first ran for Congress in 2012, Mullin promised to serve only three terms (six years), but in July 2017 he released a video announcing that he would run for a fourth term in 2018, saying he was ill-advised when he made the promise to only serve three terms. After he reneged on this promise, former U.S. senator Tom Coburn said he would work to oust Mullin from office. Mullin won a four-way Republican primary with 54% of the vote, and was reelected in November with 65% of the vote.

2020

In 2020, Mullin won the Republican primary with 79.9% of the vote, and was reelected in November with 75% of the vote.

Tenure

In April 2017, Mullin drew criticism when he was recorded during a town hall meeting telling his constituents that it was "bullcrap" that taxpayers pay his salary. He said, "I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go." As of 2022, Mullin still collects the U.S. Congress base salary of $174,000.

In a 2018 report, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said that "Mullin made a good faith effort to seek the Committee's informal guidance on numerous issues with respect to his family business." But the committee noted that Congressional ethics rules state that members of Congress should not endorse products or services, particularly if they personally benefit financially from the endorsement.

In August 2022, he came out against President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, but subsequently received criticism after the White House Twitter account pointed out that Mullin had benefited from $1.4 million of federal PPP loan forgiveness.

In 2022, Mullin introduced resolutions to remove the first and second impeachments of President Trump from the Congressional Record. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik supported the resolution. At the time, the House had a Democratic majority and the resolution did not pass.

January 2021 Capitol attack

During the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Mullin and Representatives Troy Nehls (a former sheriff and Army veteran) and Pat Fallon (an Air Force veteran) helped U.S. Capitol Police build barricades and protect the doors to the House Chamber from the rioters. He and many of his colleagues were later ushered to a secure location, where he declined offers to wear a mask, in violation of House rules. Mullin said that he witnessed the shooting of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt during the attack, which occurred after she climbed through a barricade leading toward the House Chamber; Mullin said the Capitol police officer had no choice but to shoot, and that this action saved people's lives, with members of Congress and their staff in danger from the mob.

In January 2025, although Mullin had said that Capitol rioters who committed violent crimes "need to pay for that", upon being asked about Trump's pardon of Capitol attack defendants, he replied: "Well, are we making a big deal about the pardons that Biden put in place? That'd be worse."

August 2021 Afghanistan plan

In August 2021, during the final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Mullin and several other Americans flew to Greece and asked the U.S. Defense Department for permission to continue to Kabul, Afghanistan. Mullin planned to rent a helicopter to fly an unidentified family of U.S. citizens out of Afghanistan. At that time, the U.S. was in the process of evacuating 124,000 people out of Afghanistan as Taliban forces retook the country. The Defense Department refused Mullin's group's request. On August 30, Mullin telephoned the U.S. embassy in Tajikistan and asked officials there for immediate assistance in entering Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for the same purpose. Dushanbe is 150 miles (242 km) north of Kunduz, Afghanistan. Because Mullin planned to bring in a large sum of money for the helicopter rental, the plan was deemed in violation of Tajikistan's currency importation restrictions. Embassy staffers therefore refused to help. Mullin's group ultimately did not visit the region.

The U.S. State Department had warned Mullin not to try to rescue Americans in Afghanistan, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy had both urged members of Congress to avoid travel to Afghanistan during the final days of the U.S. military presence.