Lankford is the senior senator from Oklahoma and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 6, 2015. Lankford is next up for reelection in 2028 and serves until Jan 3, 2029. He is 55 years old.
He was previously the representative for Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district as a Republican from 2011 to 2014.
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided instead by incumbent politicians running in the very same election. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Lankford was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. In the days leading up to January 6, 2021’s congressional certification of the election, Lankford announced his intent to object to the inclusion of some states from the certification, which would have disenfranchised millions of voters and amplified lies, conspiracy theories, and preposterous legal theories about purported fraud. (He ultimately did not vote to exclude any states from the Electoral College, however.) The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
![Photo of Sen. James Lankford [R-OK]](/static/legislator-photos/412464-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Lankford.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Lankford is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Lankford has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 22, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
James Lankford sits on the following committees:
- Senate Select Committee on Ethics Vice Chair
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Senate Committee on Finance
- Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure subcommittee Ranking Member
Health Care, Taxation and IRS Oversight subcommittees -
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
- Government Operations and Border Management subcommittee Ranking Member
Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight subcommittees - Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Enacted Legislation
Lankford was the primary sponsor of 14 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 3470 (117th): End Human Trafficking in Government Contracts Act of 2022
- S. 5059 (117th): CHIP-IN Improvement Act of 2022
- S. 3804 (117th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1233 North Cedar Street in Owasso, Oklahoma, as the “Technical Sergeant Marshal Roberts …
- S. 946 (117th): A bill to amend title 40, United States Code, to modify the treatment of certain bargain-price options to purchase at less than fair market value, and for …
- S. 4138 (116th): Telework for U.S. Innovation Act
- S. 1430 (116th): Representative Payee Fraud Prevention Act of 2019
- S. 2132 (116th): Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019
Does 14 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Lankford sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (37%) International Affairs (16%) Armed Forces and National Security (14%) Taxation (10%) Health (10%) Economics and Public Finance (7%) Immigration (5%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Lankford recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 566: Charitable Act
- S. 471: Women’s Public Health and Safety Act
- S. 470: Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act of 2023
- S. 451: DISRUPT Act of 2023
- S. 450: STOP Iran Act of 2023
- S. 392: No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act of 2023
- S. 361: Pistol Brace Protection Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to Mar 2023, Lankford missed 10 of 2,830 roll call votes, which is 0.4%. This is better than the median of 2.3% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
