Collin Walke

Biography

Collin grew up in Del City, Oklahoma and graduated from Oklahoma State University. After college, Collin attended Oklahoma City University School of Law and graduated magna cum laude.

While in law school, Collin met his wife, Rev. Lori Walke, who is a minister in Oklahoma City. Collin owns his own law firm and is also the co-founder of AwakeOKC, Inc., a local non-profit that helps schools, the community at large, and at-risk youth and adults. Collin is the former Chairman of the Board for City Rescue Mission, the state’s largest homeless shelter, where he still serves on the Board. Collin began his work with City Rescue Mission as a volunteer. Collin also serves on the Oklahoma Autism Center Foundation, as well as the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Associate Board. In 2019, the Journal Record recognized Collin as an “Achiever Under 40” and the Oklahoma City Gazette has named Collin as a “40 Under 40” award recipient.

Collin was first elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2016 and was re-elected in 2018. Collin and Lori love northwest Oklahoma City and have dedicated their outreach efforts to making Oklahoma City a better community for everyone. Collin serves on the Judiciary Committee, Appropriations and Budget Committee, Administrative Rules Committee, and Utilities Committee. He Co-Founded the Freshman Bipartisan Caucus. Collin is also the Vice-Chair of the Native American Caucus.

Platform Issues

Education

While Oklahoma has started to improve its educational system, the reality is that we are still funding education below 2009 levels when adjusted for inflation. Even in 2009, Oklahoma ranked at the bottom of funding for education. Undoubtedly, money does not fix every problem; however, without sufficient funding, we cannot begin to address the real issues in our schools. As a result, Collin is committed to fighting for increased education funding, as well as educational reforms to help Oklahoma move into the 21st Century."

Healthcare

As a result of Oklahoma's failure to expand medicaid, more and more rural healthcare providers are struggling to make ends meet. This is not simply a rural problem either, as many urban hospitals provide care that ends up being unreimbursed, resulting in higher healthcare costs for everyone. Collin is committed to ensuring that medicaid expansion is accomplished in Oklahoma so that more Oklahomans can have access to quality healthcare, including preventative care."

Criminal Justice Reform

The Oklahoma criminal justice system has historically been tough on crime without being smart on crime. We now know that drug courts and mental health courts save tax payers an average of $15,000.00 per individual. As a result, Collin is working on legislation to help promote mental health courts statewide. This is only one piece of the puzzle as we need to ensure that violent offenders are kept off of the streets, while non-violent offenders are afforded the opportunity to move towards self-sustainability and independence.