TULSA, Okla. — Before he was elected to Congress, Oklahomans heard the phrase “Hi, I’m Markwayne Mullin with Mullin Plumbing, the Red Rooter” on their screens for years as future Congressman Markwayne Mullin promoted his family’s plumbing business on TV and online.
Whether it be plumbing or HVAC issues, Mullin started off the advertisements the same way every time. And during the holidays, he would even include his wife and children.
However, the famous phrasing for The Red Rooter’s advertisements stopped once Mullin was elected to Congress in 2013 and hadn’t been heard in years, but last spring, for nearly four months, Oklahomans heard that famous phrase once again. They did not see Mullin’s face, but they heard his voice for an entire 30-second commercial spot that aired on multiple stations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
To the average Oklahoman, Mullin was still in charge of Mullin Plumbing, and as he launched his bid for U.S. Senate, he continued talk about being a business owner and a Congressman at the same time. However, in 2021, Mullin quietly sold Mullin Plumbing to private equity firm CenterOak Partners in Dallas, Texas.
“It was a my wife and I’s livelihood,” Mullin told FOX23 in late October. “We didn’t take that decision lightly. It’s tough. It was a very tough decision. It was an emotional decision too. It was something my wife and I shed tears over.”
Mullin said his plumbing business was never officially for sale on the open market, and he was not seeking a buyer. He intended to remain a businessman well into the future no matter what his political fortunes held.
However, Mullin said, after saying “no” so many times, CenterOak Partners made him and his wife an offer they couldn’t refuse.
“Two years ago, people started making a run at us, and we said ‘no’,” he said. “It got to the point where my wife says everything is for sale except her and the kids, but it’s business.”
But Mullin told FOX23 he is maintaining a small minority stake. He didn’t like the fact that someone could use his family’s name without him, and he wanted to have some say and input into how the Mullin name will be used in the future.
And it’s that minority stake is where his opponent, Democrat and former Congresswoman Kendra Horn is crying foul, and it’s also why an ethics complaint was filed with the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year after the ad with Mullin’s voice ran.
“At every single turn, he has violated ethics laws,” Horn said. “He’s been forced to repay tens of thousands of dollars because he’s used his business to further his campaign and vice versa. It is objective fact that he is much much wealthier now than he was when he went into congress.”
Questions about Mullin Plumbing and Mullin’s role began quickly after he was elected in 2013, but some of the concerns were actually raised by Mullin himself.
The U.S. House Ethics Committee, in a 2018 report, praised Mullin for coming to the committee for guidance on how to manage his congressional duties with his business obligations almost immediately after he was elected in 2013.
“Mullin made a good faith effort to seek the Committee’s informal guidance on numerous issues with respect to his family business,” the committee stated in a report.
But in the same report, the committee reiterated no member of Congress should use their likeness to endorse products or services, especially ones that they can personally benefit from financially.
Congressional Ethics Rules State:
Under no circumstances should a Member be actively involved in personally selling or endorsing good services in which the Member has a financial interest.
The committee also ordered Mullin to pay back $40,000 to Mullin Plumbing for an automated accounting error that occurred shortly after he took office that happened, the committee found, unintentionally.
But Horn and Democrats said last spring’s Mullin Plumbing advertisement featuring Mullin is questionable because not only did it violate House ethics rules, she said, but it gave Mullin additional air-time during a heated Republican primary for the open seat in addition to the Mullin for Senate commercials his campaign paid for.
FOX23 reached out to the Mullin campaign for a specific response to the Mullin Plumbing advertisements that ran last spring, and FOX23 was simply told there was no comment. Simply put, the company had already been sold.
In an interview about the sale before Horn brought up the advertisements, Mullin said repeated claims of ethics violations have been dismissed, and he has maintained a clean record on balancing his business.
Mullin said Democrats love to attack his business because he brings up his experiences running Mullin Plumbing on the House floor and in committee meetings. In one exchange, Mullin told Democrats “my employees think coverage under ACA sucks. It gets you nothing.”
“They want politicians running Washington D.C.,” he said. “They don’t want business people. They don’t want veterans. They don’t want people outside the box.”
Mullin said many of his colleagues told him early on to sell his business and only focus on his career in Congress.
FOX23 asked Mullin if he sold his business in order to prepare for possibly winning election to the Senate. He said he expected Inhofe to remain in office longer, and it was simply an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“This sale happened in 2021,” Mullin said. “Inhofe had just won re-election. No one had any idea he was going to announce he was retiring early. Had you of asked me if I was interested in running for the Senate in 2021, I would’ve said no.”
Mullin said the sale of his family’s business was not the quick and easy cash his opponents paint it out to be. He said it is still an emotional thing he and his wife think about often.
“There’s a lot of pride when you have employees who have been working for us for 25 years, and you see their families grow and their kids graduate,” he said. “Some of them came to us right out of high school and have made a living for themselves with us and are raising their own families because there’s good money in this trade.”
Mullin said at times the sale feels as heavy as a death in the family.
“I had one employee, when we told the employees we were selling, who said the hardest day of my life is when my father passed away, and this is the second hardest day of my life. That employee has been working for me for 24 years. That was tough,” Mullin said.
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