Rep. Louie Gohmert
Former Representative for Texas’s 1st District
pronounced LOO-ee // GOH-mer
Gohmert was the representative for Texas’s 1st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2005 to 2022.
![Photo of Rep. Louie Gohmert [R-TX1, 2005-2022]](/static/legislator-photos/400651-200px.jpeg)
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 by themselves rather than by voters. 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.
Gohmert was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Gohmert 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, he called for violence.) Gohmert further sued the Vice President and participated in a coordinated campaign to pressure the Vice President to exclude some Democratic states from the electoral count rather than follow the procedure set in law in which Congress may vote to exclude electors. On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Gohmert voted to skip Arizona and/or Pennsylvania in the counting of presidential electors, states which returned certified results for Trump’s opponent. 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. President Trump was indicted in 2023 for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election and his role in the fraudulent slates of electors and the insurrection at the Capitol. In the days after Jan. 6, Gohmert requested from President Trump a pardon for crimes he may have committed in attempting to change the result of the election in Trump’s favor.
Misconduct
Rep. Gohmert failed to complete security screening on February 4, 2021 and was fined $5,000. He appealed on February 26 and the appeal was denied by the committee on March 30, 2021.
| Mar. 11, 2021 | House Committee on Ethics reported that the House Sergeant at Arms fined Gohmert and began a review of Gohmert's appeal |
| Mar. 30, 2021 | House Committee on Ethics announced that Gohmert's February 26 appeal was denied |
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Gohmert.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Gohmert is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2022 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 Gohmert sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Dec 27, 2022. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Gohmert was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 3901 (117th): To award four congressional gold medals to the United States Capitol Police and those who protect the U.S. Capitol.
- H.R. 582 (115th): Kari’s Law Act of 2017
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
Gohmert sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (25%) Health (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Economics and Public Finance (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (9%) Environmental Protection (9%) International Affairs (9%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Gohmert recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 9708 (117th): Fixing Administrations Unethical Corrupt Influence Act
- H.R. 9707 (117th): MOM Act
- H.R. 9701 (117th): Welfare Reform Act of 2022
- H.Res. 1532 (117th): Impeaching Joseph R. Biden.
- H.J.Res. 106 (117th): Proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
- H.R. 9692 (117th): Congressional Budget Office Termination Act
- H.R. 9680 (117th): To amend the Internal Revenue Code to establish a flat tax, and …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2005 to Dec 2022, Gohmert missed 853 of 12,042 roll call votes, which is 7.1%. This is much worse than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2022. 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
