About
Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2011, representing Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District along the Gulf Coast and Pine Belt regions. After losing the GOP primary in June 2022 due to ongoing ethics concerns, he will be out of office as of January 2023.
In March 2021, a House Ethics Committee report revealed “substantial” evidence of wrongdoing by Palazzo, who “converted funds to personal use to pay expenses that were not legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.” He then reportedly spent campaign funds on his own legal defense against the ethics violation allegations.
Prior to running for Congress, Palazzo served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 2006–11. A lifelong resident of the Gulf Coast, he is a member of the National Guard and a Marine Corps veteran who served in the Persian Gulf War.
A longtime Trump supporter, Palazzo had been endorsed several times by the former president. After the 2020 election, he adhered to the GOP playbook by casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s win and voting against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
In August 2022, after the FBI seized highly classified government documents from Trump’s home, Palazzo vehemently objected. “The Biden Administration is pulling out all the stops, no matter how despicable, before the midterms,” he tweeted. “President Biden weaponizing the DOJ and going after a former president is setting a dangerous precedent…. Republicans in Congress should act immediately to… hold Democrats accountable for their blatant corruption.”
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Palazzo joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- Palazzo voted against impeaching Trump for his role in instigating the attack on Congress and the Capitol, and for fanning the flames once the riot broke out.
- Palazzo voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the genesis of the violent assault that disrupted the congressional proceedings underway that day.
The Big Lie
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Palazzo signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- In justifying his vote against certification of the 2020 Electoral College results, Palazzo simply repeated the lie Trump and his allies had begun spreading well before the November election, tweeting: “I cannot vote to certify the results of an election that cannot be wholeheartedly trusted.”