“Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” is now proud to present our 497th original profile, and in it, we’ll be talking about sixteen-term Congressman Frank Lucas, who is currently representing Oklahoma’s 6th Congressional District (originally he served Oklahoma’s 3rd, until redistricting renumbered it the 6th). We name-dropped Lucas briefly back in our profile of Timothy Ray Murray, a primary opponent who challenged Rep. Lucas in the 2014 elections who had declared the election results invalid because according to him, Lucas had been killed while on a diplomatic tour overseas and replaced with a lifelike android (no, really, read about GOP candidate Timothy Ray Murray, we’re not making that up.)
As insane as that is, Frank Lucas probably wasn’t the best person to deride insane conspiracy theories at that point, considering a year earlier, in 2013, he floated his own paranoid bit of fiction when in a radio interview, he claimed that the Obama administration was “leading a conspiracy to buy up all the bullets so they’re not available to us”. At the point Rep. Lucas was wetting his pants at the thought of this sinister takeover, the theory had already been debunked not just by the administration, but by the NRA (who you’d think would be the first to cry foul). Lucas was not content just to push this as a theory, actually trying to legislate based off of it to ban any federal agency outside of the Pentagon from buying ammunition (it didn’t pass, because, y’know, crazy talk).
That was, of course, when he wasn’t working supporters up into a lather on his own website about “the truth about Benghazi” for years after the attack took place, and making the ridiculous prediction that Hillary Clinton would flop as a presidential candidate because of it (except for how she clowned the GOP in hearings on it on their turf).
Anyway, Lucas found his way into office in a special election prior to the 1994 mid-terms to replace Glenn English, and his upset victory for the GOP was considered to be a sign of the “Red Wave” to come in the ‘94 mid-terms. And, for the past 22 years, as his district has been gerrymandered to be more and more conservative, he’s grown bolder and bolder in his conservative agenda:
- May 7th, 1996: Rep. Lucas co-sponsors and votes for the Defense of Marriage Act.
- December 19th, 1998: Frank Lucas voted for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.
- June 17th, 1999: Lucas votes for a constitutional amendment to allow government buildings to erect monuments of the Ten Commandments.
- November 4th, 1999: Rep. Lucas votes for the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act, which repeals key parts of the Glass-Steagall Financial Regulation Act, and opens the door for big banks to create the 2007 Sub-Prime Mortgage Housing Crisis.
- October 10th, 2002: Lucas votes for the Iraq War Resolution.
- March 21st, 2005: Rep. Lucas votes for the Terry Schiavo Incapacitated Persons Protection Bill.
- July 18th, 2006: Lucas co-sponsors and votes for a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
- October 25th, 2007: Lucas votes against the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, denying health insurance to millions of children.
- December 6th, 2006: Rep. Lucas votes for the “Abortion Pain Bill”, which would create an unconstitutional ban on abortion at 20 weeks.July 31st, 2007: Frank Lucas votes against the Equal Pay Bill.
- November 7th, 2007: Frank Lucas votes against ENDA, allowing the continued discrimination of LGBT citizens based on their sexual identity in the workplace.
- January 27th, 2009: Lucas votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- April 29th, 2009: Frank Lucas votes against the Hate Crimes Expansion that would provide protections to LGBT citizens.
- June 30th, 2010: After Wall Street bankers taking unnecessary risks nearly imploded the global economy in 2007, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform is created and comes to the floor to prevent future calamities. Frank Lucas voted against.
- July 30th, 2010: Months after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a bill comes to the floor to better regulate off-shore drilling. Lucas is apparently alright with ecological disasters continuing in the future, as he votes against it.
- December 8th, 2010: Rep. Lucas votes against the DREAM Act.
- December 15th, 2010: Lucas votes against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
- On January 5th, 2011, Lucas co-sponsors the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- On February 18th, 2011, Lucas votes to defund Planned Parenthood, on the very same day his “smaller government principles” compelled him to vote to continue funding taxpayer dollars towards NASCAR sponsorships.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Lucas votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Lucas votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- February 28th, 2013: Lucas votes against the new version of the Violence Against Women Act.
- June 19th, 2013: Lucas votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Lucas voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the time came to vote to re-open the federal government, Lucas voted to keep it closed.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Frank Lucas goes “all in” on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by co-sponsoring and voting for the “Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act”.
- July 10th, 2014: Lucas votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, which has many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
- January 22nd, 2015: An anti-abortion bill, HR 7, was moving through the House, and was halted because even some members of the GOP were put off by the language in the bill regarding its definition of rape. Frank Lucas, however, had no problem with that, and voted for it anyway.
- February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Lucas votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act.This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- March 3rd, 2015: Lucas votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a GOP protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
- May 13th, 2015: Frank Lucas co-sponsors and votes for HR 36, a 20 week abortion ban.
- September 11th, 2015: Lucas votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Lucas co-sponsors and votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: Lucas co-sponsors and votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
- February 2nd, 2016: Frank Lucas votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- May 19th, 2016: Rep. Lucas votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. So if you were wondering, he’s pro-discrimination.
These days, Oklahoma’s 3rd Congressional District has a +26 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, putting it somewhere in the “don’t even bother Team Blue” category. Frank Lucas is a wide favorite to win in the GOP Primary over Desiree Brown, and Frankie Brown is the bold Democrat running a “Hail Mary” campaign for this gerry-mandered red district (as he was as the Democratic nominee in 2008, 2010, and 2014). Expect Lucas to again pull down two-thirds of the vote or more, in spite of the fact that Congress has a 9% approval rating at the moment.