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Sen. James Lankford

Senator for Oklahoma

pronounced jaymz // LANK-ferd

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Lankford is the junior senator from Oklahoma and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 6, 2015. Lankford is next up for reelection in 2022 and serves until Jan 3, 2023.

He was previously the representative for Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district as a Republican from 2011 to 2014.

Lankford is among the Republican legislators who, by calling for entire states to be disenfranchised in the 2020 presidential election, fomented the terrorist attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 that aimed to prevent the determination of the next president of the United States. In the days leading up to January 6, Lankford had announced his intent to object on that day to the inclusion of some states in the count of electors that determines the next president, disenfranchising millions of voters based on lies, conspiracy theories, and preposterous legal theories all falsely claiming various sorts of mass fraud that did not occur. The announcement amplified the message that inspired the attack on the Capitol.
Photo of Sen. James Lankford [R-OK]

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2020 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, 2017 to Apr 29, 2021. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

The Club for Growth: 86% United States Chamber of Commerce: 80% American Civil Liberties Union: 8% Planned Parenthood Action Fund: 6% League of Conservation Voters: 5% Human Rights Campaign: 0% The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws: F

Committee Membership

James Lankford sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Lankford was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 8 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 (47%) International Affairs (16%) Taxation (10%) Health (10%) Economics and Public Finance (6%)

Recent Bills

Some of Lankford’s most recently sponsored bills include...

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Voting Record

Key Votes

Lankford voted Yea

Lankford voted Nay

Bill Passed 97/1 on May 14, 2015.
The Trade Preferences Extension Act extends a trade agreement with sub-Saharan African partners and prevents trade partners from undercutting United States businesses with artificially low ...

Lankford voted Nay

Passed 219/206 on Dec 11, 2014.
This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 [pdf], which was approved by the House on December ...

Lankford voted No

Lankford voted Aye

Lankford voted No

Lankford voted Nay

Lankford voted Aye

Lankford voted Aye

Passed 304/117 on Jun 23, 2011.
The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack ...

Missed Votes

From Jan 2015 to Apr 2021, Lankford missed 3 of 1,998 roll call votes, which is 0.2%. This is better than the median of 1.6% 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 and major life events.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: