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Sen. James Lankford

Senator for Oklahoma

pronounced jaymz // LANK-ferd

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 57 years old.

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

Photo of Sen. James Lankford [R-OK]
Elections must be decided by counting votes

Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. After the 2020 Presidential Election, President Trump, his advisors and associates, and Republican legislators collaborated in a failed coup to have the election decided by themselves rather than by voters.

Lankford was among the Republican legislators who participated in this. In the days leading up to January 6, 2021’s congressional certification of the election by counting electors, Lankford announced his intent to object to the inclusion of some states in the count based on debunked accusations of mass fraud or a legal theory which was already rejected. (He ultimately did not vote to exclude any states from the Electoral College, however.)
In 2023, Trump associates and top advisors pleaded guilty to submitting a fraudulent slate of electors to Congress from Georgia, making false statements about purported widespread fraud in the election, and tampering with voting machines after the election, admitted in civil court to posing as fake electors in Wisconsin, and were convicted of contempt of Congress for withholding documents during its investigation and assaulting police officers at the Capitol. Trump associates and top advisors are also currently facing charges for submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin. Trump himself faces related criminal charges in state court, and a federal investigation which terminated because he won re-election alleged that Trump sought to ignore true vote counts, manufactured fraudulent slates of presidential electors, and used the January 6 riot to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election. Trump was impeached but not convicted in 2021 for incitement of insurrection related to the same events. (He was also impeached but not convicted of using the presidency to solicit the help of a foreign government to benefit his reelection in 2019, and he was convicted in state court in 2024 for falsifying business records to cover up acts that he believed might have hurt him in the 2016 election.) The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups one member of which was convicted of sedition, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2024 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 legislators have sponsored and cosponsored from Jan. 6, 2021 to Aug. 2, 2025. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Lankford sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Lankford was the primary sponsor of 18 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 18 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 (34%) Taxation (13%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Health (12%) International Affairs (10%) Immigration (7%) Emergency Management (5%) Sports and Recreation (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Lankford recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

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Voting Record

Key Votes

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 June 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 2011 to Aug 2025, Lankford missed 16 of 3,948 roll call votes, which is 0.4%. This is better than the median of 2.8% 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 absences, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

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