Lankford Learning Congressional Ropes

By Jerry Bohnen/NewsRadio 1000 KTOK ~ Oklahoma's newly-elected 5th district U.S. Representative James Lankford arrived in Washington on Sunday to begin 8 days of learning how to be a member of the House of Representatives. He's among 80 freshmen members.

"I feel somewhat like the termite standing at the edge of the Sequoyah National forest, looking at all the trees and thinking where do I bite first," said Lankford in an interview on KTOK's Gwin Faulconer-Lippert show Sunday Night.

'We won't have any earmarks,' he declares

"There's a million issues." He hopes to become an expert in several of them, depending on the committee assignments he gets from the Republicans who now control the House.

But one thing is for sure, he will vote to ban spending earmarks. "We're not gonna have that in the House. Until there's major reform on spending, we won't have any earmarks," pledged the Republican who won the race to succeed Congresswoman Mary Fallin who won election as Oklahoma's next governor.

"What I'm gonna tell ya is earmarks are off the table," he continued. "We gotta figure a way to resolve this and figure a way so that people can look at the way money is spent and say that's appropriate."

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