Doug Lamborn

Early life and career

Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, Lamborn earned a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas in 1978 and J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1985. Lamborn moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado and became a private attorney focusing on business and real estate law.

Elections

In 1994, Lamborn was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives. In 1998, he was elected to the Colorado State Senate.

He was elected Republican House Whip in 1997. He was elected Senate President Pro-tem in 1999. Lamborn served in the Colorado Senate until winning a seat in Congress.

Tenure

While in the State Senate Lamborn sponsored the largest tax cut in Colorado State history, and was named the highest-ranking tax cutter in the Senate five times, by a conservative activist group called the Colorado Union of Taxpayers.

Committee assignments

Lamborn was the ranking Republican on the Colorado State Military and Veterans Affairs, and Appropriations committees.

Elections

On February 16, 2006, Joel Hefley announced he would retire after 10 terms in Congress.

In the Republican primary to succeed him, Hefley backed his long-time aide, former administrative director Jeff Crank. The election was held on August 8, 2006, with Lamborn defeating Crank and four other candidates to win the party nomination in a contentious six-way race. In the Republican primary, Lamborn ran on conservative positions: opposing gun control, abortion except when the mother's life is threatened, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, not providing public benefits to illegal immigrants, and new eminent domain rulings.

He ran against Lieutenant Colonel Jay Fawcett, the Democratic nominee for the open seat in Colorado's 5th congressional district. Lamborn won the election on November 7, 2006.

Jeff Crank and Major General Bentley Rayburn both challenged Lamborn in the 2008 Republican primary. Both lost to Lamborn in the 2006 primary. Lamborn won the primary election on August 12, 2008 with 45 percent of the 56,171 votes cast. Crank got 29 percent and Rayburn got 26 percent.

Lamborn defeated Democratic challenger Lieutenant Colonel Hal Bidlack in the 2008 election.

Lamborn was challenged by Democratic nominee Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Bradley. He won re-election.

Lamborn was challenged in the Republican primary by businessman Robert Blaha. Lamborn won 62–38 percent. Lamborn had the support of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum political action committee.

Lamborn was challenged by Democratic nominee Major General Irv Halter. He won with 59.8% of the vote.

It was announced on April 1, 2017, that Lamborn would face a challenge in the 2018 primary from Colorado state senator Owen Hill.

Tenure

An office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was established in Colorado Springs in Lamborn's district. The office opened in February 2009 and increased immigration enforcement agents in the area from two to ten. “The immediate need is to address those that have committed a crime and make sure they’re sent out of the country”, Lamborn said. However, this would not place in jeopardy employers who hire illegal immigrants in the first place or who pay these workers without any withholding tax or below the minimum wage.

There has also been a Brigade Combat Team in his district since December 2007. The Brigade Combat Team consisting of almost 5,000 soldiers, their families, support personnel as well as increased military construction.

Congressional Quarterly said that through the first August recess, Lamborn had voted by strict partisan lines the most of any member in the U.S. House and more than any other Republican.

He led an effort among conservative Republicans to force the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to discard proposed regulations that would have affected accessibility to small arms ammunition, which were opposed by Second Amendment groups.

In February 2010, The National Journal named Lamborn the most conservative member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Lamborn is one of the House Republicans leading the effort against public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR (National Public Radio). "I have been seeking to push Big Bird out of the nest for over a year, based on the simple fact that we can no longer afford to spend taxpayer dollars on nonessential government programs. It's time for Big Bird to earn his wings and learn to fly on his own."

On August 24, 2007, Jonathan Bartha, who works for Focus on the Family (headquartered in Colorado Springs), and his wife Anna wrote a letter to the editor in a community newspaper expressing concerns about Lamborn's opposition to more restrictions on dog fighting. They were also concerned he had taken several campaign contributions from the gaming industry. A few days later, Lamborn allegedly left two voice mails threatening "consequences" if they didn't renounce their "blatantly false" letter. He also said that he would be "forced to take other steps" if the matter wasn't resolved "on a Scriptural level." The Barthas were shocked by the messages, and Anna Bartha called Lamborn's behavior "not anything we would ever anticipate an elected official would pursue."

Lamborn is a signer of Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

In 2008 Lamborn signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any Global Warming legislation that would raise taxes.

On July 29, 2011, Lamborn appeared on a Denver radio program to discuss the debt crisis and the failure of Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise on the problem. Lamborn stated "Now, I don't even want to have to be associated with [President Obama]. It's like touching a tar baby and you get it, you're stuck, and you're a part of the problem now and you can't get away." The term tar baby is sometimes considered to be a racial slur used towards African-Americans. Former Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll, an African-American, replied, “Looking beyond the fact that Congressman Lamborn's entire comment is nonsensical, his use of the term 'tar baby' is unfortunate because [of] the historical connotation of that term when used in conjunction with African Americans."

On August 1, 2011, Lamborn apologized for his use of the slur, "When I said 'tar baby', I was talking economic quagmire that our country is finding ourselves in because of poor economic policy from the White House. I could have used a better term."

On January 23, 2012, Lamborn announced he would not be attending the President's State of the Union address. According to his spokeswoman Catherine Mortenson, "Congressman Lamborn is doing this to send a clear message that he does not support the policies of Barack Obama, that they have hurt our country", and believed Obama was “in full campaign mode and will use the address as an opportunity to bash his political opponents."

On April 11, 2013, Lamborn read out in an open session broadcast on C-SPAN an unclassified section from a classified report on North Korean nuclear capabilities. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs refused to confirm the classified report. The Pentagon later confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had marked that sentence as unclassified mistakenly.

Doug Lamborn is one of the 80 members of the House that signed a letter to the speaker of the house, urging the threat of a government shutdown to defund Obamacare. This group was named the "Suicide Caucus". He voted against the measure that finally ended the shutdown on October 16, 2013

September 13, 2014, during a question & answer part of his speech, Doug Lamborn made controversial remarks concerning President Obama's foreign policy. According to reports, Doug Lamborn is quoted to have said "A lot of us are talking to the generals behind the scenes, saying, ‘Hey, if you disagree with the policy that the White House has given you, let’s have a resignation. You know, let's have a public resignation, and state your protest, and go out in a blaze of glory!'"

Lamborn 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 “By taking steps to temporarily stop refugee admittance from nations that are hotbeds of terrorist activity, the President is taking prudent action to ensure that his national security and law enforcement teams have the strategies and systems in place that they will need to protect and defend America.”

Lamborn was among GOP members of the House who did not support Speaker Paul Ryan's March 2017 effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Seeking a more thorough repeal of the healthcare law, Lamborn said that, "Right now Obamacare stays in place. That’s bad for the American people and it doesn’t leave Republicans an immediate opportunity to carry out their pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare. We need to regroup and very soon find a way to do that.” Subsequent town hall meetings in April of 2017 underscored the tension of Lamborn's relationship with the initial policies of the Trump Administration and voters in Lamborn's district.

Legislation

Lamborn supported Senate bill 2195, a bill that would allow the President of the United States to deny visas to any ambassador to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States or its allies and may pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.

The bill was written in response to Iran's choice of Hamid Aboutalebi as their ambassador. Aboutalebi was controversial due to his involvement in the Iran hostage crisis, in which of a number of American diplomats from the US embassy in Tehran were held captive in 1979. Lamborn said that selection by Iran of Aboutalebi as their U.N. ambassador was "unconscionable and unacceptable". He argued that this legislation was needed in order to give the President the "authority he needs to deny this individual a visa."

Committee assignments

Caucus memberships