Rep. Steven Palazzo
Former Representative for Mississippi’s 4th District
pronounced STEE-vun // puh-LA-zoh
Palazzo was the representative for Mississippi’s 4th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2011 to 2022.
![Photo of Rep. Steven Palazzo [R-MS4, 2011-2022]](/static/legislator-photos/412443-200px.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.
Palazzo was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Palazzo 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, Palazzo 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.
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Palazzo.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Palazzo 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 Palazzo sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Dec 27, 2022. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Palazzo was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 3175 (117th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 135 Main Street in Biloxi, Mississippi, as the Robert S. McKeithen Post Office Building.
- H.R. 7265 (115th): NASA Enhanced Use Leasing Extension Act of 2018
- H.R. 2615 (115th): Gulf Islands National Seashore Land Exchange Act
- H.R. 5196 (115th): CENOTE Act of 2018
- H.R. 6586 (112th): Space Exploration Sustainability Act
Does 5 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
Palazzo sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Armed Forces and National Security (36%) Immigration (27%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (18%) Science, Technology, Communications (18%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Palazzo recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 9502 (117th): To amend title 10, United States Code, to eliminate the eligibility age …
- H.R. 8371 (117th): Border Bonds for America Act of 2022
- H.R. 6258 (117th): AQUAA Act
- H.R. 6176 (117th): SPR Act
- H.Res. 731 (117th): To recognize the centennial of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
- H.R. 3175 (117th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at …
- H.R. 4304 (116th): NASA Enhanced Use Lease Authority Act of 2019
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2011 to Dec 2022, Palazzo missed 317 of 7,297 roll call votes, which is 4.3%. 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
