page_title: Louie Gohmert
section_title: Tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Louie Gohmert / U.S. House of Representatives / Tenure
caption_attribution_description: English: Rep. Louie Gohmert and President George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States of America.
context_page_description: Louis Buller Gohmert Jr. is an American attorney and former judge currently serving as the U.S. Representative from Texas's 1st congressional district since 2005. Gohmert is a member of the Republican Party and is part of the Tea Party movement. In January 2015, he unsuccessfully challenged John Boehner for the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives.
context_section_description: 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".
  Gohmert stated in a House Judiciary Hearing on May 15, 2013, that he believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not act with due diligence concerning alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. His contention was that the FBI was more interested in Christian groups such as those led by Billy and Franklin Graham than in groups that might be considered less politically correct to target. Attorney General Eric Holder responded to his claims: "The only observation I was going to make is that you state as a matter of fact what the FBI did and did not do. Unless somebody has done something inappropriate, you don't have access to the FBI files ... I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That's all". Gohmert objected to this on the grounds that Holder had "challenge[d]" his character and made several unsuccessful attempts to inject his viewpoint as a point of personal privilege.
  On January 3, 2013, Gohmert broke ranks with the House leadership to nominate outspoken Florida Representative Allen West for Speaker of the House, although West narrowly lost his bid for re-election in November 2012, and was no longer a member of Congress.
  Although he has previously ruled out the possibility of a bid for the U.S. Senate, he has recently been boosted by at least one "tea party" group (Grassroots America We the People) as a primary challenger to current Republican Senator John Cornyn.
  A vocal critic of House speaker John Boehner, Gohmert challenged his re-election to the speakership for the 114th Congress when Congress convened on January 6, 2015. Boehner was re-elected, even though 25 Freedom Caucus Republicans chose not to vote for him – Gohmert received 3 of those votes.
  In 2017, Gohmert expressed fear that he might become the target of gun violence similar to that experienced by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and refused to hold public town hall meetings.
  In April 2018, Gohmert testified at a hearing supporting Derrick Miller, a former US Army National Guardsman Sergeant who was sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole for the premeditated murder of an Afghan civilian during a battlefield interrogation.
caption: Gohmert with President George W. Bush in 2005
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