page_title: Tom Cotton
section_title: U.S. House of Representatives (2013-2015)
hierarchical_section_title: Tom Cotton / Political career (2013–present) / U.S. House of Representatives (2013-2015)
caption_attribution_description: Debate 10.4.12
context_page_description: Thomas Bryant Cotton is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015, and has served as the junior United States Senator from Arkansas since 2015.
  In 2005, Cotton was commissioned in the United States Army, where as an infantry officer he rose to the rank of captain. His military record includes service in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge. He was elected as the U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 2012 and to the Senate at age 37 in 2014, defeating two-term Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor.
context_section_description: In September 2011, the Arkansas Times editor, Max Brantley, criticized Cotton for an article that he wrote in The Harvard Crimson in 1998, in which he questioned the value of the Internet as a teaching tool in the classroom, referring to the internet as having "too many temptations" to be useful in schools and libraries. Cotton later stated that the internet had matured since he wrote the article in 1998.
  Beth Anne Rankin, the 2010 Republican nominee, and John David Cowart, who carried the backing of the Louisiana businessman and philanthropist Edgar Cason, were the only other Republican candidates in the race after candidate Marcus Richmond dropped out in February 2012. In the primary on May 22, 2012, Cotton won the Republican nomination, with 57.6% of the vote; in second place was Beth Ann Rankin who received 37.1% of the vote.
  The Club for Growth endorsed Cotton. Of the $2.2 million Cotton raised for that campaign, Club for Growth donors were responsible for $315,000 and were Cotton's largest supporters. Cotton was also endorsed by Senator John McCain. Cotton was supported by both the Tea Party movement and the Republican establishment.
  In the general election on November 6, Cotton defeated state senator Gene Jeffress, 59.5% to 36.7%. Cotton was the second Republican since Reconstruction Era of the United States to represent the 4th district. The first, Jay Dickey, held it from 1993 to 2001 — during the presidency of Bill Clinton, whose residence was in the district at the time. On January 3, 2013, Cotton was sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives by Speaker John Boehner.
  As a freshman, Cotton soon became a vocal opponent of the Obama administration's foreign and domestic policies. He voted for An Act to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for Federal employees, which prevented a 0.5% pay increase for all federal workers from taking effect in February 2013. Cotton voted against the 2013 Farm Bill over concerns about waste and fraud in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program voting later that month to strip funding from food stamps. He also voted against the revised measure, the Agricultural Act of 2014, which expanded crop insurance and a price floor for rice farmers.
  Cotton accused Obama of holding up a "false choice" between his framework deal on Iran's nuclear program and war. Cotton was also criticized in some media outlets for underestimating what successful military action against Iran would entail, stating: "the president is trying to make you think it would be 150,000 heavy mechanized troops on the ground in the Middle East again as we saw in Iraq. That's simply not the case." Drawing a comparison to President Bill Clinton's actions in 1998 during the Bombing of Iraq (1998), he elaborated: "Several days' air and naval bombing against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities for exactly the same kind of behavior. For interfering with weapons inspectors and for disobeying Security Council resolutions." On July 21, 2015, Cotton and Mike Pompeo claimed to have uncovered the existence of secret side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on procedures for inspection and verification of Iran's nuclear activities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. Obama administration officials acknowledged the existence of agreements between Iran and the IAEA governing the inspection of sensitive military sites, but denied the characterization that they were "secret side deals", calling them standard practice in crafting arms-control pacts and arguing the administration had provided information about them to Congress.
caption: Cotton participating in a 2012 congressional debate at Southern Arkansas University
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