James Inhofe: A Snowball on the Senate Floor and a Submarine in Oklahoma

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James Mountain Inhofe (1934 to 2024), Oklahoma's longest serving U.S. senator, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and moved to Tulsa in 1942, where his father was an insurance executive. He sold blackberries as a boy, set a school record in a mile relay, was drafted into the Army in the late 1950s, and later led his father's insurance business. His official biography long listed a 1959 University of Tulsa degree that he did not complete until 1973. Elected to the Oklahoma House in 1966 and then the state Senate, he led the effort to bring the World War II submarine USS Batfish up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers to a museum in Muskogee.

A 1974 pact with Democrat David Boren to both run against the incumbent governor ended with Boren defeating him, and he lost a 1976 House race despite campaign help from Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. Elected Tulsa mayor in 1978, he issued a first proclamation celebrating alternative clean energy and appointed the first Black member of the city commission. He won a House seat in 1986, led a 1993 discharge petition drive that changed House rules, and in 1994 won the Senate seat Boren vacated. As chairman of Environment and Public Works he opposed climate regulation, famously tossing a snowball on the floor, and in 2020 he refused to back delaying certification of the presidential election, citing his oath.

• He voted against Hurricane Sandy relief while seeking federal disaster funds after tornadoes struck Oklahoma.
• His travels in Africa and ties to leaders there helped lay the groundwork for AFRICOM.
• A licensed pilot, he flew his own plane to campaign stops and slept in a tent at aviation conventions.
• In the late 1990s he held an ambassadorial nominee for 20 months over the nominee's sexual orientation.
• He retired early citing long COVID and died in 2024 at 89 after a stroke, having lost his son in a private plane crash.