Palmer is the representative for Alabama’s 6th congressional district (view map) and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 6, 2015. Palmer is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. He is 68 years old.
He is also House Republican Policy Committee Chair, a party leadership role. Party leaders focus more on setting their party’s legislative priorties than on introducing legislation.
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided instead by incumbent politicians running in the very same election. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Palmer was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Palmer joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Palmer voted to reject the state-certified election results of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania (states narrowly won by Democrats), which could have changed the outcome of the election. These legislators have generally changed their story after their vote, claiming it was merely a protest and not intended to change the outcome of the election as they clearly sought prior to the vote. The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
![Photo of Rep. Gary Palmer [R-AL6]](/static/legislator-photos/412608-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Palmer.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Palmer is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Palmer has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 21, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Gary Palmer sits on the following committees:
Enacted Legislation
Palmer was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2502 (116th): Transparency in Federal Buildings Projects Act of 2019
- H.R. 4646 (115th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1900 Corporate Drive in Birmingham, Alabama, as the “Lance Corporal Thomas E. Rivers, Jr. Post …
Does 2 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Palmer sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (56%) Health (22%) Energy (11%) International Affairs (11%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Palmer recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 1023: To repeal section 134 of the Clean Air Act, relating to the greenhouse …
- H.R. 1022: 761st Tank Battalion Congressional Gold Medal Act
- H.R. 300: Settlement Agreement Information Database Act of 2023
- H.R. 8221 (117th): To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require States …
- H.R. 8222 (117th): To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to eliminate reliance …
- H.R. 8223 (117th): Citizen Ballot Protection Act
- H.R. 7834 (117th): Preventing Racism in Medicare Act of 2022
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
As House Republican Policy Committee Chair, Palmer may be focused on his responsibilities other than introducing legislation, such as setting the chamber’s agenda, uniting his party, and brokering deals.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to Mar 2023, Palmer missed 54 of 4,632 roll call votes, which is 1.2%. This is on par with the median of 1.5% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
