Louie Gohmert - Life and Career

Life and Career

Gohmert was born in Pittsburg, Texas. He received his B.A. from Texas A&M University in 1975. At A&M, he was a brigade commander of the Corps of Cadets and class president. He later received his Juris Doctor from Baylor University in Waco in 1977 where he also served as class president. Gohmert served in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, at Fort Benning, Georgia, from 1978 to 1982. The majority of his U.S. Army legal service was as a defense attorney.

Gohmert was elected as a state district judge for Texas's 7th Judicial District comprising Smith County (Tyler) in 1992 and was reelected two times before being appointed by Governor Rick Perry to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice on Texas's 12th Court of Appeals, where he served from 2002 to 2003. After Texas' 2003 mid-decade redistricting process, he defeated Democratic incumbent 1st District Congressman Max Sandlin for his seat in Congress, becoming the first Republican since Reconstruction to represent the 1st District of northeast Texas. In the Republican primary, Gohmert defeated State Representative Wayne Christian of Center, who thereafter returned to the state legislature but was unseated in the 2012 Republican primary.

Gohmert serves on two House committees: Judiciary (because of his judicial background) and Natural Resources (as his district sits on top of the East Texas oil field).

In 2006, Gohmert won his second term by defeating independent Roger L. Owen, a swimming pool builder from Hallsville. He faced no major party opposition in 2008 or 2010.

On November 6, 2012, Gohmert was elected to his fifth term with 182,621 votes (71.7 percent) to the Democrat Shirley J. McKellar's 67,758 (26.6 percent). The Libertarian Clark Patterson polled the remaining 1.6 percent of the ballots.