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Quick facts for kids Tom Cotton
Official portrait, 2015

United States Senator from Arkansas
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2015 Serving with John Boozman
Preceded by	Mark Pryor
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas's 4th district
In office January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
Preceded by	Mike Ross
Succeeded by	Bruce Westerman

Personal details
Born	Thomas Bryant Cotton (1977-05-13) May 13, 1977 (age 46) Dardanelle, Arkansas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Anna Peckham (m. 2014)
Children	2
Education	Harvard University (BA, JD)
Military service
Branch	United States Army
Years of service	2005–2009 (regular) 2010–2013 (reserve)
Rank	Captain
Unit	506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (2006, 2008–2009) 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) (2006–2008)
Battles/wars	War in Afghanistan Iraq War
Awards	Bronze Star Medal Army Commendation Medal (2) Army Achievement Medal Air Force Achievement Medal See more

Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former military officer serving as the junior United States senator from Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015.

Early life and education
Career
Military service
U.S. House of Representatives
- Committee assignments
U.S. Senate
- Committee assignments
  - Current
  - Previous
- Caucuses
Political positions
Personal life
Military awards
See also

Early life and education

Thomas Bryant Cotton was born on May 13, 1977, in Dardanelle, Arkansas. His father, Thomas Leonard "Len" Cotton, was a district supervisor in the Arkansas Department of Health, and his mother, Avis (née Bryant) Cotton, was a schoolteacher who later became principal of their district's middle school. Cotton's family had lived in rural Arkansas for seven generations, and he grew up on his family's cattle farm. He attended Dardanelle High School, where he played on the local and regional basketball teams; standing 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall, he was usually required to play center.

Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority. In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as "sacred cows" such as affirmative action. He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton's senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1998, Cotton was accepted into a master's program at Claremont Graduate University. He left in 1999, saying that he found academic life "too sedentary", and instead enrolled at Harvard Law School. He graduated with a J.D. degree in 2002.

Career

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Cotton spent one year as a law clerk for Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He then went into private practice as an associate at law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C., until he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2005.

Military service

Cotton in 2006

On January 11, 2005, Cotton enlisted in the United States Army. He entered Officer Candidate School (OCS) in March 2005 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June. He completed the U.S. Army Ranger Course, a 62-day small unit tactics and leadership program that earned him the Ranger tab, and Airborne School to earn the Parachutist Badge.

In May 2006, Cotton was deployed to Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. In Iraq, he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment, and planned and performed daily combat patrols.

In December 2006 Cotton was promoted to first lieutenant and reassigned to the 3d Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, as a platoon leader.

From October 2008 to July 2009, Cotton was deployed to eastern Afghanistan. He was assigned within the Train Advise Assist Command – East at its Gamberi forward operating base (FOB) in Laghman Province as the operations officer of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), where he planned daily counter-insurgency and reconstruction operations.

Cotton was honorably discharged in September 2009. During his time in the service, he completed two combat deployments overseas, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Army Commendation Medals, a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Ranger tab, an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and an Iraq Campaign Medal.

Following his active duty service, Cotton went to work for management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In July 2010, Cotton entered the Army Reserve (USAR). He was discharged in May 2013.

U.S. House of Representatives

Cotton was elected as the U.S. representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 2012.

He 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 the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, voting later that month to strip funding from that program. He also voted against the revised measure, the Agricultural Act of 2014, which expanded crop insurance and a price floor for rice farmers.

Committee assignments

United States House Committee on Financial Services
- United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
- United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade
United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs
- United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa
- United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade

U.S. Senate

Senator Jon Kyl and Cotton speaking at the Hudson Institute

Senator Cotton and former ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

U.S. secretary of defense Ash Carter and senators Joni Ernst, Daniel Sullivan, John McCain, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, and Cory Gardner attending the 2016 International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit in Singapore

Tom Cotton (left) with President Donald Trump and Senator David Perdue (right)

Cotton was elected to the Senate at age 37 in 2014, defeating two-term Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor.

Committee assignments

Senator Cotton visits Air Defenders at Osan Air Base during his three-country tour to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

Current

United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
- United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland (Chair, 2015–2021; Ranking Member, 2021–present)
- United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities (2015–2017)
- United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel (2015–2017)
- United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower (2017–present)
- United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces (2017–present)
United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (2021–present)
Joint Economic Committee

United States Senate Special Committee on Aging (2015–2017)
United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (2015–2021)
United States Senate Committee on the Budget (2018–2019)

Caucuses

Senate Republican Conference

Political positions

Cotton is considered politically conservative.

Senator Cotton at First in the Nation Townhall, New Hampshire

Tom Cotton and Brett Kavanaugh in August 2018

In January 2019, Cotton was one of 31 Republican senators to cosponsor the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a bill introduced by John Cornyn and Ted Cruz that would grant individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state the right to exercise this right in any other state with concealed carry laws while concurrently abiding by that state's laws. In June 2022, Cotton introduced the "Stop Gun Criminals Act", which sought to increase minimum sentences for existing offenses but provided no new regulation.

On February 7, 2017, in the presence of President Trump, Cotton and Senator David Perdue proposed a new immigration bill, the RAISE Act, which would limit the family route or chain migration. The bill would set a limit on the number of refugees offered residency at 50,000 a year and would remove the Diversity Immigrant Visa. Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain expressed opposition to the bill.

Cotton opposed the Affordable Care Act, saying in 2012 that "the first step is to repeal that law, which is offensive to a free society and a free people".

In 2012, Cotton said, "Strong families also depend on strong marriages, and I support the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. I also support the Defense of Marriage Act."

In August 2013, Cotton voted against the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013, which sets interest rates on student loans to the 10-year Treasury note plus a varying markup for undergraduate and graduate students. He preferred a solution that ended what he called the "federal-government monopoly on the student-lending business", referring to the provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that changed the way the federal government makes student loans.

Personal life

Cotton married attorney Anna Peckham in 2014. They have two children.

Cotton has said that Walter Russell Mead, Robert D. Kaplan, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Silva, C. J. Box, and Jason Matthews are among his favorite authors.

In 2019, Cotton published a book about the role of the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, partly based on his service in that unit as an officer.