House Representatives
Bills Sponsored:
-
This bill would require the EPA to establish and carry out a strategy to recover critical minerals from discarded materials
-
This bill would be called the “Zeroing Out Monetary Benefits Improperly Expended Act” (ZOMBIE Act). This bill would require government agencies to be audited to try to find improper or excessive payments that lead to financial loss, and redirect 75% of lost and recovered funds to be given back to the original program. It would also expand reporting requirements to include information about the actions government agencies take to prevent improper or excessive payments.
-
This bill would be called the “Settlement Agreement Information Database Act of 2026”, and would require the publication of lawsuit settlement agreements.
-
This bill would give the President the right to waive any advanced manufacturing facility or critical mineral facility’s responsibility (implemented by the Clean Air Act) to offset increased air pollutant emissions
-
This bill would permit States to include a requirement for proof of citizenship as part of their mail voter registration.
-
The Defense Production Act of 1950 gives the president authority in cases of emergency to influence domestic industries and the supply of goods and services for national defense. H.R.4609 would allow this act to remain valid through 2031.
-
This bill would basically take some executive orders that relate to critical minerals and make them actual laws.
-
This act would be called the “All Economic Regulations are Transparent Act” (ALERT Act). It would require the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to publish the rules each agency expects to propose or finalize during the next 12 months, as well as the objectives and legal basis’s for these rules, etc.
-
This bill would allow individuals to opt out of Medicare benefits without also having to opt out of Social Security benefits or repaying Medicare benefits they have already received.
-
This bill was added to S.1003, which went on to become “Lulu’s Law”. This law made it so a shark attack is an event worthy of transmitting an Alert Message (like an amber alert or severe weather alert)
-
This bill would establish a reinsurance program within the Affordable Care Act, which would have the purpose of lowering some peoples insurance premiums
-
This bill would implement a uniform pricing plan for anyone who wants to place, modify, or maintain communications facilities on federal property.
-
This bill would award a Congressional Gold Medal to the 761st Tank Battalion (the “Black Panthers”) in honor of their role in winning WWII and for their role as the first Black soldiers to go to war as part of an American armored unit.
Gary Palmer in his own words:
On his website, Gary Palmer lists his priorities as: religious freedom, energy & environment, veterans, defense, budget, immigration, economic growth, second amendment, tax reform, right to life, health care, and national debt. One huge thing I will give him credit for is that he does not mention Trump a single time on his website. Good for him for taking a hint! I don’t care for his statement on immigration, wherein “he has formally pledged to oppose legislation that would grant work authorization or legal status to illegal immigrants”. According to the Center for American Progress, “immigration is the driving force behind America’s labor supply growth… large-scale removal of immigrant workers from the economy…result[s] in wage declines that are more than twice as large as any short-term gains… The broader macroeconomic impact of these policies - including lost business revenue, increased rent assistance needs, and heightened food insecurity - cost [Minneapolis] at least $203 million in January alone”. His pledge also ignores the fact that in order to even apply for U.S. citizenship, you have to have already lived in the U.S. for around 5 years. In order to get a green card, which would designate you as a lawful permanent resident, you have to be eligible, which means you need to be related to someone with a green card, invest $1.05 million into a new commercial enterprise, achieve special immigrant status, be a refugee or asylum seeker, be a victim of human trafficking or abuse, or have lived in the U.S. continuously since 1972. This, in my opinion, seems to be a case of Over-Engineering. The process is so complex it’s literally easier to just come to the U.S. illegally and try to become a legal resident with help from people who understand the system better. This isn’t an issue of illegal immigrants being bad evil people, it’s a management and design issue.
Gary Palmer in the bills he’s sponsored:
Gary Palmer vaguely styles himself on his website as a conservative who supports conservative leadership, and while I don’t disagree, he seems a lot more mild and therefore palatable than many of the other Republicans I’ve covered on this website so far. In fact, his first bill of 2025 was to give a Congressional Gold Medal to the 761st Tank Battalion for their role as the first Black soldiers to go to war as an American armored unit. A lot of his bills are solely focused on efficiency, both within the government’s spending and also in regards to reusing and recycling critical mineral resources (even if doing so would increase pollution). I feel that he’s actually the type of person Republicans claim they are when the rest of their viewpoints prove indefensible. He’s sponsored a Citizen Ballot Protection Act, which would permit states to require proof of citizenship in their mail ballot applications. It doesn’t particularly define what would qualify as proof of citizenship in this scenario, but typically that means a birth certificate, a REAL ID, or a passport which many people don’t have. This bill would restrict voting rights for disabled people who don’t have access to those things, but compared to many of the ballot acts other Republicans have proposed it’s relatively mild and would depend on the state that takes advantage of this permission. All that being said, he’s not my ideal politician but I don’t hate this guy. I think he means well.
His potential successor:
Gary Palmer is currently running against Maurice Mercer. Maurice Mercer lists his priorities as: lower costs for working families, healthcare that works for families and small businesses, family, faith, and life, education, unions, and workforce development, small business growth, public safety with accountability, infrastructure people can see, fair maps and less partisan blame, immigration reform, border security with respect to constitutional rights and due process, and leadership that puts people over politics. Maurice’s website gives him the appearance of a “common sense Democrat”; someone who recognizes the fears of both sides and wants to serve people overall. That may be what he needs to do in order to win, but it also makes me worry he will be another “do-nothing Democrat”; someone who only talks and doesn’t provide any true solutions. I think it’s important to consider both sides of an argument before intervening, but in a nation where one of the two parties bases all of their arguments and political takes on reacting violently to information and scenarios that they made up, and the other side writes strongly worded letters about it and allows the initial side to make crazy, unsupported claims without holding them to account, I’m less than confident that centrism and just asking everybody to be nice is going to fix anything. It’s hard to reach an agreement with someone when there’s such a huge discrepancy in the fundamental “facts” that your opinions are based in.