Louis Buller Gohmert Jr. (; born August 18, 1953) is an American attorney, politician, and former judge who was the U.S. representative from Texas's 1st congressional district from 2005 to 2023. Gohmert is a Republican and was part of the Tea Party movement. In January 2015, he unsuccessfully challenged John Boehner for Speaker of the House of Representatives. In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the 2022 Texas Attorney General election. He failed to advance to the Republican primary runoff, finishing fourth with 17% of the vote.
Early life and education Gohmert was born in Pittsburg, Texas, the son of German Texan architect Louis Buller Gohmert and his first wifeAfter the passing of his wife, Sue, Louis married Marjorie "Margie" Rheman in 1991 with whom he shared the last 29 years of his life. Erma Sue (née Brooks). He was raised in Mount Pleasant, Texas, where he graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in 1971.
Gohmert enrolled in Texas A&M University, receiving a U.S. Army scholarship and earning a B.A. in history in 1975. He commanded a cadet brigade in the Corps of Cadets and served as class president. He was also a student leader for the MSC Student Conference on National Affairs alongside future U.S. Representative Chet Edwards, and a member of the Ross Volunteer Company.
Gohmert received a Juris Doctor degree from Baylor Law School in 1977.
Early political career Gohmert attended The JAG School at the University of Virginia and entered U.S. Army JAG Corps. He served in the JAG Corps at Fort Benning, Georgia, from 1978 to 1982. Most of his legal service in the U.S. Army was as a defense attorney.
Gohmert was elected as a state district judge for Texas's 7th Judicial District, serving Smith County (Tyler, Texas) from 1992 to 2002. He was elected to three terms. He first saw national recognition for a 1996 probation requirement where he ordered an HIV-positive man, who was convicted on motor vehicle theft charges, to seek the written consent from all future sexual partners on a court-provided form notifying them of his HIV status. The order angered LGBT activists and civil libertarians.
In 2002, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Gohmert to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice on Texas's 12th Court of Appeals, where he served a six-month term that ended in 2003.
U.S. House of Representatives
A mid-decade redistricting made the 1st District significantly more conservative than its predecessor. Tyler, which had long anchored the 4th District, was shifted to the 1st District. In the 2004 Republican primary, Gohmert defeated State Representative Wayne Christian of Center, Texas. He defeated Democratic incumbent 1st District Congressman Max Sandlin with 61% of the vote. He has never again faced another contest that close, and been reelected seven times, never with less than 68% of the vote. He only faced an independent in 2008, and a Libertarian in 2010.
On July 29, 2009, Gohmert signed on as a co-sponsor of the defeated H.R. 1503. This bill would have amended "the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of president to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the office of president under the Constitution".
On January 3, 2013, Gohmert broke ranks with the House leadership to nominate Representative Allen West for Speaker of the House, although West narrowly lost his bid for reelection in 2012 and was no longer a member of Congress.Chris Moody (January 3, 2013), "John Boehner re-elected as speaker of the House" , yahoo.com; accessed August 24, 2014.
Although Gohmert had previously ruled out the possibility of a bid for the U.S. Senate, in 2013 he was boosted by at least one "tea party" group (Grassroots America We the People) as a primary challenger to Senator John Cornyn.
A vocal critic of Speaker John Boehner, Gohmert challenged his reelection to the speakership for the 114th Congress when Congress convened on January 6, 2015. Boehner was reelected, even though 25 Freedom Caucus Republicans chose not to vote for him. Gohmert received three of those votes.
In 2017, Gohmert expressed fear that he might become the target of gun violence similar to that experienced by former representative Gabby Giffords and refused to hold public town hall meetings.
Also in 2017, Gohmert introduced legislation to simplify the 911 system, which was signed into law.
Reputation Gohmert is considered to be a conservative Tea Party Republican.
During his congressional career, Gohmert's actions and comments garnered much controversy, including when he compared homosexuality to bestiality, compared U.S. President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, said Hillary Clinton was "mentally challenged," speculated mask wearing caused his contraction of COVID-19, grieved over the arrest of January 6 rioters, and said cancelling a television show with homophobic comments was comparable to Nazism. Eric Neugeboren of The Texas Tribune described Gohmert as "something of an outlier in Congress for the ease with which he was willing to make unfounded and offensive pronouncements" and that he "was a precursor to former President Donald Trump's brand of populist, establishment-bucking conservatism that delights in offending progressives and makes no apologies for spreading misinformation." According to The Daily Sentinel, while Gohmert was seen nationally as "unhinged," he remained very popular with his constituents.
In May 2021, Gohmert made a rambling speech in which he admitted that many people think he is "the dumbest guy in Congress;" though, he added "I'm comfortable with who and what I am." The speech resulted in mockery of Gohmert by some in the media.Spocchia, Gino, Gohmert admits people think he's 'the dumbest guy in Congress' in speech immediately mocked for its stupidity The Independent via Yahoo News May 21, 2021
Fiscal policy Gohmert signed the Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge. He offered an alternative plan to kick-start the economy with his tax holiday bill, which would allow taxpayers to be exempt for two months from having federal income tax taken out of their paychecks.
He was one of a number of Republicans who voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 on grounds it did not do enough to deal with the government's growing debt.
Gohmert was one of four Republicans who joined 161 Democrats to vote against a balanced budget Constitutional amendment in November 2011.
Gohmert supports and has voted for legislation in favor of school vouchers.
Gohmert strongly supported the Baseline Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 1871; 113th Congress), a bill that would change the way in which discretionary appropriations for individual accounts are projected in the Congressional Budget Office's baseline. Under H.R. 1871, projections of such spending would still be based on the current year's appropriations, but would not be adjusted for inflation. Gohmert said, "conservatives have advocated for years that there should be no automatic spending increases in any federal department's budget ... that has been a trap so when we simply slow the rate of increase, we are accused of making draconian cuts." He argued the legislation would make clearer "what is an increase and what is a cut", put the government in the same situation as American families, and help with the task of getting the debt under control.
Climate change and the environment Gohmert rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and has asserted that data supporting it is fraudulent. He opposes cap-and-trade legislation, such as the one that passed the U.S. House when it had a Democratic majority, and supports expanding drilling and exploration in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
In a July 8, 2015, interview on the C-SPAN program Washington Journal, after Pope Francis issued his second encyclical Laudato si', Gohmert said Francis was incorrect to identify climate change as a serious problem. He supported the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
In a 2012 meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, Gohmert stated his strong support of a trans-Alaskan pipeline as a means for caribou to have more sex. According to Gohmert, "When [the caribou] want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline. So [my] real concern now [is] ... if oil stops running through the pipeline ... do we need a study to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing?" Gohmert's comments were not favorably received by the rest of the committee.
During a June 2021 House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Gohmert asked, "is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (Bureau of Land Management) can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun?" to mitigate climate change. Though some assumed he was being ironic, after receiving laughter and scorn for his comments online, Gohmert mistakenly believed that the scorn directed at him was due to the acronym "BLM" (as if people were confusing it with Black Lives Matter), and replied, "Exceedingly devious how you hid the context with an ellipses in your tweet. The hearing was about the BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT & climate change. BLM stands for the BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT", failing to realize people were laughing at him for asking his question seriously. Scientific American pointed out the practical and theoretical problems involved in Gohmert's proposal.A Modest Proposal: Let's Change Earth's Orbit – What's the worst that could happen? , Maddie Bender, Scientific American, 2021-06-18, accessed 2021-06-30
Abortion
Gohmert opposes abortion. He has said that he believes that life begins at conception. Gohmert sponsored the Sanctity of Human Life Act and voted for the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, a bill that prohibits the transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of an abortion without their parents' consent. He has a 100% pro-life voting record rating from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).
At a congressional hearing on May 23, 2013, on an abortion bill that would ban the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy, Gohmert told the story of a couple he knew who decided to go through with their pregnancy despite learning of fetal anomalies. He told Zink, a witness, that she should have gone through with her pregnancy despite a doctor's opinion that the brain function was impaired, and then have a better assessment of the baby's health once it was born. Gohmert said, "Ms. Zink, having my great sympathy and empathy both, I still come back wondering, shouldn't we wait, like that couple did, and see if the child can survive before we decide to rip him apart? ... So these are ethical issues, they're moral issues, they're difficult issues, and the parents should certainly be consulted. But it just seems like it's a more educated decision if the child is in front of you to make those decisions".
LGBT rights