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Republican (1854-present)

James Lankford

Before his service in Congress, James served students and families for more than 20 years in ministry, including 15 years as the Director of Student Ministry for the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma and Director of the Falls Creek Youth Camp, the largest youth camp in the United States, with more than 51,000 individuals attending each summer.

James and his staff enjoy serving people from all backgrounds across Oklahoma. As Ranking Member of the Government Operations and Border Management  Subcommittee, which covers border security, management, and operations; regulatory reform; and the federal workforce. He demands we have a secure, more fiscally responsible, and transparent federal government, and our nation remains the world leader. He believes that the federal government has an important role in our nation, but empowered families, individual people, and private businesses grow our economy and pass down our values.

Stopping Democrats' Federal Election Takeover

In America, it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat, but S.1 and S.4 make it easy to cheat and hard to verify any election. Safe and secure elections should be nonpartisan and noncontroversial. I will continue to support legislation that maintains states’ ability to run secure and open elections.

  • Senator Lankford opposed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021,(also known as S.4).
  • Lankford opposes the bill because it:
    • Updates and restores strict preclearance requirements overturned by the Supreme Court in Shelby v. Holder so states have to play “mother, may?” I with the Department of Justice
    • Guts Section 2 of the voting rights act “guideposts” established by the Bronvich v. Democratic National Committee decision
    • Requires preclearance for specific types of voting procedures in jurisdictions (regardless of preclearance) that have a growing minority population
    • Settlements and consent decrees count as voting rights violations looking back 25 years, as opposed to only final judgements
  • Senator Lankford does not support federalizing elections. He believes elections should continue to be run by states and localities.
  • Senator Lankford has worked since 2016 to strengthen our election system through things like enhanced cyber security; information sharing between federal, state, and local election partners; and paper ballot backups. After Russian attempts to interfere in our elections, every state has spent more time and state resources to protect our elections, which is good for our democracy.
  • While there are additional steps that can be taken to continue to enhance the security of our elections and ensure confidence in the results, federalizing elections is not the answer.

Oklahoma has secure voter laws. We require identification to vote in person and by mail and other important safeguards, but as we saw in the 2020 election, many states lack even basic election processes and protections. States should: 

  • Encourage every legal adult to vote
  • Provide enough polling places and machines to make voting faster 
  • Allow early in person voting and verified mail in voting 
  • Work to instill trust and confidence in the election system and the results 
  • Prevent voting in more than one state and prevent deceased people from voting 
  • Have paper ballot backups to ensure auditable results 
  • Start counting mail-in votes before Election Day, finish counting by Election Day, and receive all ballots by the time polls close on Election Day 
  • Continue cybersecurity enhancements.