Quotes from James Lankford

Centralized national decision-making on education reduces the role of the parent and the local districts.

At times, conservatives become defined by their volume rather than by their ideas.

I firmly believe the Senate should see more voting and debate and less standing around and waiting for backroom deals.

The Congressional Prayer Caucus has worked successfully to advocate for and protect values that are fundamental to the fabric of our nation, and I'm honored to serve as co-chairman.

We must go through every area of the federal budget to isolate waste and abandoned projects.

This is why it's bad to run a country by executive order: because our nation runs on laws - when everyone knows the law, and everyone knows what it is, you know both the law and the consequence, and you get that.

Assad has to go. I mean, the way that ISIS can recruit, and the rebels that are in the north, and all the chaos that's happening through a lot of Syria circles around a lot of people that do not like Assad.

President Obama and I disagree on policy with Israel. He seems to say... 'We want peace, but we want to act like Switzerland. We're going to be a neutral party to everyone.' I think that's negotiating from weakness.

I see myself as more of a student, that I love to get down into the weeds of different problems and try to go through that. I don't mind messaging, but I'm going to default back to the research side of things.

Religion that is contained only within a church building is a weekend hobby, not a personal faith.

We have two programs dealing with bulletproof vests, two different systems of actually distributing bulletproof vests from the federal government. Two sets of applications, two different sets of personnel to approve those applications.

America is strongest when families take care of each other and walk with one another through need and loss.

Marriage is a unique cultural relationship that has a long-standing tradition and societal meaning, which should not be redefined by the courts.

We've overmedicated kids. Quite frankly, some of the overmedication of kids are because welfare moms want to get additional benefits, and if they can put them on SSI through maintenance drugs, they can also put them on Social Security disability and get a separate check. That is wrong on every single level.

Hillary Clinton has her own issues with just her own arrogance as a leader; that has been well known for a long time.

We still have a major problem in debt with America that we have to find efficiencies in government to get us back to a balanced budget.

The future of our nation is dependent on the future of our families.

You talk about leading Republicans. That's no easy task on just like you were trying to lead Democrats on the other side. We all have independent thoughts and independent ideas.

There is a way for the IRS to be able to have a double check to make sure individuals don't file on your Social Security number early and try to get a tax return and make it chaotic for you to file your own taxes. That's not been done.

My focus has always been: I can be an incredibly conservative, principled idea person, but that doesn't mean I have to shout at people.

One of the hardest areas is duplication; everyone knows there's lots of duplication in government. But when you ask someone, 'OK, name two programs that are duplicative,' typically there's a long pause.

There's a Biblical mandate to reach out to those who are the orphans, the widows in their distress, to take care of the stranger in your land. But that does not mean citizenship.

The number of fighters that are ISIS fighters wouldn't fill up most American football stadiums. This is not a large group of individuals, but they're tenacious, and they rule with absolute terror.

I'm one of those folks that look and say the Old Testament laid out clearly the path for Christ to come, but when He came, every scholar at that time missed it.