U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden may have sought improper luxury travel expenses and misreported campaign spending, according to a report by the Office of Congressional Conduct.
According to its findings, which were made public on Monday, the OCC said it had “substantial reason to believe” that the Terrell Republican engaged in improprieties after receiving more travel reimbursements than any other House member — totaling $140,000 in 2025 alone — and demonstrating a “pattern of extravagant expenditures by Rep. Gooden that appear inconsistent with his official duties.” The report also says Gooden and members of his staff declined to cooperate, hindering the investigation.
The OCC referred its findings to the House Ethics Committee in June before the findings were made public. The committee announced Monday it is extending its review.
“There’s a reason the Senate doesn’t have an OCC – because of insane, bogus referrals like this one,” Gooden said in a statement Monday. “The Ethics Committee will expose this witch hunt, and I’m calling on House Administration to launch an oversight investigation into the OCC’s target selection and record of failed inquiries.”
The ethics committee is composed of five members of each party, including Texan Reps. Nathaniel Moran, R-Tyler, and Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston.
Gooden isn’t the only sitting member of Texas’ congressional delegation to have been investigated by the committee over potential campaign finance violations. Others include Reps. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, and Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, who were both cleared by the committee, as well as Rep. Troy Nehls, whose case has not had any findings or action made public since the release of the OCC’s report in 2024.
The release of the OCC’s report on Gooden comes just after he narrowly beat Chelsey Hockett by three percentage points last week, setting the Republican up for a fifth term in Congress.
In a June response to the OCC’s referral to the ethics committee, counsel for Gooden wrote that the scope of materials requested by the OCC for its investigation were “unreasonably burdensome.” They also argued that Gooden and other staff would have provided responses to the OCC if it had shared “specific theories or concerns.”
Specifically, the OCC’s report wrote that Gooden’s frequent, brief stays at luxury hotels of more than $1,000 per visit raised questions of whether the expenses were improper. It also read that Gooden and his staff “almost exclusively” use business or first-class travel, which have strict guidelines to be eligible for reimbursement.
Additionally, some travel expenses were made using accounts under his wife’s name. That would allow the “accumulation of private rewards and benefits from official funds, which is prohibited by House rules,” the report read.
Regarding Gooden’s campaign spending, the OCC wrote that Federal Election Commission data revealed discrepancies between expenses from accounts the office associated with Gooden’s campaign committee and corresponding reported entries in FEC filings.
“For nearly every disbursement listed, the itemized values fail to account for the total amount charged,” the office wrote.
Without Gooden’s cooperation, the report often read, the office could not determine whether the litany of expenses complied with House rules.
“Rep. Gooden remains fully committed to transparency and looks forward to working cooperatively with the Committee on Ethics to provide the context, documentation, and clarification necessary to resolve any outstanding questions,” counsel for Gooden wrote in June. “He welcomes the opportunity to demonstrate what the OCC’s process did not allow: a complete and forthright accounting of the matters at issue.”
Source link
