Since Lankford is a super religious guy, I wondered what type of blackmail the Democrats could possibly have on him. Then I realized it could be something most folks would think of as a mere peccadillo such as pics of him downing a few beers. That wouldn't work on a normal person such as me (ok, maybe not so normal) since I would call those cruise pics posted by myself of me having a few too many but for Lankford, he might find such pics as shameful.
Otherwise I can't think of what the Democrats would have on Lankford to cause him to back such an INSANE proposal.
That would be an example of a Rumsfeldian "Known Unknown", something that right now is left to speculation with the limits of the information at hand. So it's the right question to ax, but we don't know the answer. It's an unknown and we know that we don't know.
Hey! Do you know, that James Lankford's claim to fame among the Oklahoma Baptists that got him elected to the State House to begin with is that from 1996 to 2009 he was President of "the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a youth camp operated by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma"?
People who grew up in Oklahoma are familiar with Falls Creek as a beautiful, scenic, coeducational place where teenagers go to spend a few weeks in the summer to have a spiritual reformation...
Just a trivia note. But back to your original question... "We don't know, and we know that we don't know."
My wife suspects he’s been threatened. Remember, 3 letter agencies are experts in identifying people’s hot-buttons and manipulating them accordingly.