Markwayne Mullin graduated from Stilwell High School in Stilwell, Oklahoma. He then attended Missouri Valley College in 1996 but did not graduate. He then received an associate degree in applied sciences in construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, in 2010.

Markwayne Mullin Business career

Markwayne Mullin took over his family’s business, Mullin at the age of twenty, his father fell ill and he took over his father’s property, he owns Mullin Properties, Mullin Farms, and Mullin Services. He hosted House Talk, a home improvement radio program, on Tulsa station KFAQ and syndicated across Oklahoma.

He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and is one of four Native Americans in the 116th Congress. The others are fellow Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, a Chickasaw, and Democrats Sharice Davids of Kansas, a Ho-Chunk, and Deb Haaland of New Mexico, a Laguna Pueblo.

Markwayne Mullin U.S. House of Representatives

2012 election

Incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Dan Boren decided to retire in 2012. Markwayne declared his candidacy for the 2012 elections to the United States House of Representatives to represent Oklahoma’s 2nd congressional district in September 2011.

He was ranked as the sixth Republican candidate with 42% of the vote, failing to reach the over 50% threshold. State Representative George Faught ranked second with 22% of the vote.

In the run-off primary election, he defeated Faught 57%–43%. He branded himself as an outsider; his campaign slogan was “A rancher. A businessman. Not a politician!”

The second has historically been a classic “Yellow Dog” Democratic district. However, it has steadily trended Republican, as Tulsa’s suburbs have spilled into the northern portion of the district. For these reasons, Mullin was thought to have a good chance of winning the election.

In the general election, Mullin defeated the Democratic candidate, Rob Wallace, a former district attorney, 57%–38%. He became the first Republican to represent the district, since Tom Coburn in 2001, and only the second since 1921.

Miami Tribe revocation

On February 5, 2014, he introduced the bill To revoke the charter of incorporation of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma at the request of that tribe (H.R. 4002; 113th Congress), which would accept the request of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma to revoke the charter of incorporation issued to that tribe and ratified by its members on June 1, 1940.

2017 town hall comments

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.”

According to the January 2012 Congressional Research Service, the salary of a U.S. representative is $174,000 per year, and benefits include allowances, cost-of-living adjustments, enrollment in a pension, health benefits, personnel, mail and office expenses, and a travel allowance.

Running for a fourth term

During the 2012 campaign, Mullin promised to serve for only three terms (six years), meaning that he would have left Congress in 2019. However, in July 2017, Mullin released an eleven-minute video announcing that he would indeed run for a fourth term in 2018, saying he was ill-advised when he made the promise to only serve three terms.