In 2016, public television gave Cole its Champion of Public Broadcasting Award — citing his work protecting service to 'the Native American nations of Oklahoma.' In 2025, as Appropriations chairman, he cosponsored the bill that shut the whole system's funder down.
Cole has pushed the same bill for seven Congresses. It hands Social Security to 13 appointees, then forces Congress to vote yes or no on whatever they write — no amendments, four hours of House debate, no filibuster.
In April 2025 Hern joined a congressional tour of El Salvador's CECOT prison. Asked about it, his office said only that it could not confirm his location. Days later he went on Newsmax and said of the men held there: 'These folks will never see the light of day.'
Bloomberg reported that Hern pushed to make it easier for franchises to get pandemic loans — and a company he controls got $1.07 million, forgiven. Two years later he attacked student loan relief, and the White House replied with the exact number: $1,082,302.
Leading the Future — funded by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI's president and Palantir's co-founder — exists to stop states and cities from writing their own AI rules. It's running ads for Hern from before his primary through November. Meanwhile Oklahoma City, Edmond, Broken Arrow and Luther are all pausing data centers.
The STOCK Act asks members of Congress to do one thing: tell us what they bought and sold, within 45 days. Forty-five of the Republicans on this site couldn't manage it — some by years. The penalty is $200, and it's often waived.
The farm supports went into Trump's budget bill and passed with a simple majority. Food aid got cut $187 billion. Then Frank Lucas voted for a 'skinny' farm bill that doesn't put back a dime — while 45,277 households in his own district are on SNAP.
DOGE fired all 10 federal predator-control workers in Oklahoma and 15 of 61 scientists at the El Reno research station. Frank Lucas got them their jobs back — then went to a breakfast in Washington and praised the program that fired them.
For nearly two decades, a line buried in the farm bill has stopped the USDA from giving Fort Reno back to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The 2026 version Frank Lucas helped write deletes the expiration date.
