Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Abortion is a socially accepted euphemism for killing a human too small and helpless to defend itself. America embraced abortion incrementally over the past 100 years until it was established as a woman's Constitutional right by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. The decision divided America more than any decision in a century, and while conservatives sought to limit abortion--to women in crisis or victims of rape or incest--liberals sought to expand it--to allow abortions into the third trimester and up to the point of birth, or for any reason including sex selection, birth defect, or even the mental health of the mother. As a Christian, I support abortion exclusively as a means to save the mother's physical life--as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. Having known many adoptees, and even children born to rape victims, I am fully confident that ending the child’s life would not have improved the mother’s life. Abortion is the killing of a human so it must happen only to save a life.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Yes

Our Founders clearly intended for neither government nor the church to control the other. History is replete with cultural collapse in various nations caused by one side cramming down policy or doctrine on the other. That’s pretty obvious since our Founders rejected a state religion, as some desired, and they spelled out such unmistakably clear language in the First Amendment that restrains government against limiting free expression of religion. To be clear, our Constitution never uses the term “separation of church and state.” That phrase was born in the mind of Thomas Jefferson who wrote it in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. The phrase has been used as a club by pro-government secular voices to silence people of faith. We don’t need a new policy or court decision to clarify this; we need better respect for the Constitution that literally changed the world and set appropriate limits on both church and state.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree

Free markets provide the highest and best possible outcomes for all concerned. This is the bedrock economic principle that built Western societies. I advocate for two major changes: FIRST, improve healthcare access, affordability and quality by opening barriers between states for medical services and insurance plans. Reducing government regulations and controls will improve access and affordability. Quality will be improved when citizens are free to choose without being forced by government or insurance carriers to accept what's offered. As a result the best programs survive and the worst die by market forces. SECONDLY, transparent pricing in everything -- the cost of surgeries, treatments, doctor's visits, medicines, insurance plans must be made publicly accessible. This would immediately bring down the cost as few people would select the $170,000 knee replacement surgery to get the same surgery for $41,000 somewhere else. This is working in some states.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Agree

All of it. Waste and fraud have grown explosively as government doubles in size every 20 years. We must (1) increase transparency in government spending, (2) pay a bounty to whistleblowers who save taxpayer money, (3) cut programs that have not accomplished their original goals; (4) give awards to innovators; (5) demand zero-based budgeting with no tolerance for hidden debt or incompetent leadership; (6) cut waste and fraud in social programs before social programs swallow the budget whole.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Every law-abiding person who wishes to embrace America and uphold its laws should be allowed to enter under the limits approved by Congress, which changes due to various economic, trade and geopolitical factors. This view of legal immigration limits expressly excludes persons who have criminal backgrounds, those who can be identified to hold extreme anti-American ideologies, those who seek to overthrow U.S. laws by the imposition of Sharia law, those who see the U.S. Constitution as an obstacle to peace and freedom rather than the prescription for it; and those who entered illegally.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Agree

Yes

All of the restrictions outlined in the Second Amendment should be upheld today. (Admittedly, there are none.) Our efforts to reduce crime by adding restrictions to the Second Amendment have failed. Most famously, America’s 1994 ban on assault weapons failed to reduce crime, so it was abandoned. The wicked heart of man is not controlled by external government force but by internal forces. Both sides of this debate have long agreed to ban automatic machine guns used in war. That can stand.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Disagree

I am eager to collaborate on legislation that would better protect civil liberties as defined in the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution (freedom of conscience, press, religion, expression, assembly, security, liberty, speech, privacy, due process, fair trial, right to life, and self-defense). Secondly, I believe the right to life has always been denied to the unborn and that a right to life should be recognized (not granted but recognized) for the unborn. And thirdly, I am committed to defunding, reversing or limiting the impact of bad legislation that expands government authority beyond its constitutional limits, both state and federal.

No. Actual racism and claims of racism are disparate. Racism will never be solved entirely as individuals who are racist emerge in every generation. But, fortunately for young people growing up in America today, institutional racism that existed in past generations in America – racism that allowed barriers to education, healthcare and housing -- has been largely resolved. The popular claims of widespread institutionally sponsored racism in modern America are disproven by the rates at which persons in minority groups now lead in government, military, corporate, charity and faith institutions. The doors to success are wide open to persons of every race, creed and color who embrace the challenges of hard work, disciplined thinking and good choices.

Strongly Disagree

Very Conservative

My conservative views are reflected recently in my campaign website at randytalley.com; for 15 years in Facebook at facebook.com/randy.talley.14; in this campaign through endorsements or grades from the Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights and the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association; in my membership to the National Rifle Association and the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association; through my public advocacy for faith and charity during 10 years as Chairman of The Salvation Army of Grady and Caddo Counties, as well as leadership in ACTS/Affirming Community Through Service; through my service to three different churches over 40 years as deacon, worship leader, elder, classroom teacher, etc.; and through my public advocacy for conservative priorities in government, leadership, business and public policy issues in Oklahoma during the past 34 years in this district.

My career began as a journalist with a news-editorial degree from Oklahoma State University. Urging transparency in government was literally my first instinct in professional life. Since then, I have worked for 30 years in higher education, creating many organizational and professional vehicles for encouraging leadership and service among state educators. During that time, I served as a consultant to small companies, many organizations and large Oklahoma firms in the healthcare and energy sectors. For the last seven years, I have enjoyed serving in communications for one of Oklahoma’s oldest independent community banks, founded in 1892. For 40 years, I have volunteered for charities, Chamber organizations, churches and civic clubs as a leader, multimedia designer, publisher and advocate. All of these experiences make me uniquely prepared to listen well, communicate with voters genuinely, build coalitions to achieve consensus on issues, and advocate for transparency in government.

No.

At all levels, politics tends to draw men and women seeking celebrity over service. That’s backwards. I’d like to join the special class of public servants who see “others first” as a core philosophy and for whom integrity and authenticity are richly valued as moral ideals. I’d like to serve District 56 in a way that respects “We the People” as the rightful source from whence government authority is drawn.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree

I am a Christian who holds conservative values of individual freedom and personal responsibility. My convictions are rooted in the Bible, humanity’s shared narrative for most of recorded history. My faith in Jesus Christ is rooted in the Gospel. This faith is first tolerant, as Christ urged his followers to "love those who hate you." True conservatives don't wish to create a theocracy, just as Christ denied every attempt to make his message political. As an advocate of the Greek Liberal Arts tradition, I respect everyone, seeing every person as a creation of God deserving respect. I don't seek to silence enemies. We conservatives see science, as did Isaac Newton, as the pursuit of understanding the natural world in order to glorify God not man. The science-vs-faith dynamic created by leftists is a fallacy used to attack people of faith. Our freedoms were born from these ideas and are defended by our Founders as “inalienable,” “natural” or “granted by God.”