In the fall of 2021, Norman tried to impeach the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State and the Homeland Security Secretary. Then his own party took power, and the man who wrote an impeachment article about hiding information from Congress voted to keep the Epstein files sealed.
Three companies tied to Ralph Norman took four pandemic loans worth $608,500, and the government forgave them. Weeks later he signed a letter calling student debt relief an 'election-year bribe' and 'highway robbery.' Now he wants a Senate seat.
Food, rent, electricity, healthcare - in America we should be able to afford these basic necessities of life without going bankrupt.
Ralph Norman has supported the current administration's tariffs and other policies which have led to:
Half of all Americans struggling to afford groceries
47% struggling to afford their utility bills
47% struggling to afford healthcare
48% struggling to afford housing
1 in 4 Americans saying they have skipped a medical checkup due to affordability
23% skipping a prescription dose
Gas prices skyrocketing
South Carolina's auto industry gets hit coming and going. Manufacturers here mostly build for export — South Carolina-made cars went to Germany ($3.9 billion), South Korea ($1.3 billion) and Belgium ($1 billion) in 2024 — while the parts to build them come from Mexico ($2.9 billion) and Germany ($2 billion). "They're seeing increased cost on the production side, as well as lower demand from their consumer base, so it can hurt them in both ways," University of South Carolina economist Joey Von Nessen told the SC Daily Gazette. A Clemson University economist estimated the 25% tariff on foreign-made auto parts would raise the cost of a car built and sold in the U.S. by $3,000 to $7,000.
It is not only cars. Boeing's North Charleston plant, which assembles the 787 Dreamliner, relies on a global supply chain, and University of South Carolina economist William Hauk warns that steel and aluminum tariffs are "particularly troublesome for aircraft manufacturers." He also notes the money goes to Washington, not Columbia: "While the federal government may raise revenues from tariffs, the state government will not."
And South Carolinians pay for it at the register. A Yale University study found the tariffs would cost the average American household $2,400 in 2025, with shoes 39% more expensive and apparel 37% more expensive in the short run — and the overall consumer tariff rate of 18.6% was the highest since 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression.
When the Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariff authority in February 2026, Norman called the ruling "disappointing" and defended the tariffs as a revenue source: "Tariffs are a tool to confront unfair trade and bring revenue into the Treasury. That revenue matters." That "revenue" is the money South Carolinians paid at the register.
We are feeling this directly in our wallets. What is Ralph Norman doing about that? Making things worse. We deserve better.
We all deserve access to quality healthcare so we can live healthy and productive lives.
Ralph Norman disagrees:
He voted to cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance as part of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"
He voted to let ACA tax credits expire, increasing health costs for millions of Americans, driving many of them to switch to cheaper plans or abandon health insurance coverage altogether. And the less people there are with coverage, the higher the rest of our premiums will be.
He wants to repeal the ACA, reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, and add work requirements to Medicaid.
The cuts he voted for hit the district he represents: an estimated 36,161 people in SC-05 are projected to lose health coverage — 28,800 losing Affordable Care Act coverage and 7,361 losing Medicaid — according to the Joint Economic Committee.
Asked on national television how Republicans could justify cutting the Medicaid his constituents rely on, Norman told PBS NewsHour on July 2, 2025: "We're not cutting people off Medicaid. We're making changes for waste, fraud and abuse." He went further: "I reject the liberals who are saying that it's cuts. It's not cuts. It's righting a wrong that's been existed — for a long period of time." When the interviewer pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office had found the paperwork and work requirements would push eligible people off Medicaid, Norman changed the subject to immigration: "the CBO office is the same office that said that the influx of the 15 million in this country legally were a net positive to the economy. That's just not true."
We need healthcare to live. Literally. What is Ralph Norman doing to help us? Making things worse. We deserve better.
Wants to Gut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security aren't handouts. They're earned benefits that we pay into out of every single paycheck, our entire working lives, so that we can see a doctor, take care of our parents, and retire with dignity instead of going bankrupt when we get old or sick.
For years, Ralph Norman and his party have been quietly laying the groundwork to gut these programs. Now they've said the quiet part out loud.
They admitted the plan. Speaker Mike Johnson told the "Moon Griffon Show" that "entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and things like Social Security ... have to be adjusted and fixed," and that "We have a plan to do that next year ... desperate times call for desperate measures."
We know what the plan looks like. The Republican Study Committee — a caucus of more than 170 House Republicans that includes Speaker Johnson and his top three deputies in leadership — released a budget calling for raising the Social Security retirement age for future retirees and converting Medicare into a privatized "premium support" model that would hand seniors over to for-profit insurance companies.
They already started. The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that Ralph Norman supported cut roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts for the richest 1 percent.
Even Republicans admit what "reform" means. Sen. Josh Hawley, on the push to "address" and "reform" these programs: "That's usually code for 'cut.' I'm not in favor of that."
It's a broken promise. Donald Trump pledged in 2024, "I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare." Ralph Norman and his party are now preparing to do exactly that.
These programs are a promise: work hard, pay in your whole life, and your country will be there for you when you need it. Ralph Norman wants to break that promise so he can keep cutting taxes for billionaires. We deserve better.
Cut Taxes for the Rich, While Making the Rest of Us Pay For It
We all need to pay our fair share to the government so it can provide the services that benefit all of us.
But billionaires in the U.S. pay a smaller tax rate than most teachers and nurses. That's not fair.
The wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
23 of the largest and most profitable companies in the US paid no federal corporate income taxes from 2018-2022. And 109 corporations paid zero federal tax in at least one of those years.
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that Ralph Norman supported will reduce taxes for the top 1 percent of taxpayers by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, while raising taxes for the poorest Americans.
Norman celebrated the bill on his own website a month after it was signed, writing that "working Americans have TONS to celebrate!!" and that "Republicans stopped the largest tax hike in American history." He did not mention the health care and food assistance cuts that paid for it.
Ralph Norman is on the side of the billionaires and big business. We deserve better.
We all deserve clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet to live on.
Ralph Norman has supported the repealing and rolling back of environmental protections and climate change regulations, all so that billionaires and big business can plunder natural resources and destroy our environment in the name of profit.
Is Intentionally Wrecking Our Public Schools and Our Kids' Futures
Nine out of ten American children — 49.6 million of them — go to a public school. It's where they learn to read, where they eat breakfast and lunch, where kids with disabilities are guaranteed an education by law, and where a kid from any family, rich or poor, religious or not, gets a fair shot.
Ralph Norman and his party are taking that apart on purpose: draining public school money into private and religious schools, pushing one religion into everybody else's classrooms, and shutting down the federal department that is supposed to look out for our kids.
He voted to create the first national private school voucher in American history. It is hidden inside the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." You give up to $1,700 a year to a charity that hands out private school scholarships, and the government gives you back every penny you gave on your taxes. It costs you nothing — no other tax break in the country works that way. Each person is capped at $1,700, but any number of people can do it, so there is no limit on what it drains from the Treasury. It starts January 1, 2027. Congress's own scorekeepers say $26 billion over ten years; one tax research group says as much as $51 billion every year — more than the government spends on Title I ($18.4 billion) for poor schools and IDEA ($14.6 billion) for kids with disabilities combined. And "low-income" means a family earning three times what a normal family in their area earns still qualifies — in some places, $500,000 a year.
They are giving away our tax dollars to families who are already wealthy and were never in public school to begin with. Every state that has tried it gets the same result — the money goes to people already paying private tuition: 95% of Arkansas voucher users never attended a public school. In Florida's first year of universal vouchers, 69% of new recipients were already in private school and only 13% had ever set foot in a public one. In Iowa, two-thirds were already in private school. We aren't rescuing kids from bad schools — we're cutting checks to families who never needed them, with the money coming out of the schools 90% of our kids actually attend.
And the kids who do switch end up doing worse. Four careful studies found the same thing. In Washington, DC, voucher kids fell behind in math. In Louisiana, a student who started in the middle of the class dropped to the bottom third in math after three years. Indiana and Ohio found the same. Kids with disabilities lost the most.
The money goes to religious schools that can turn our kids away. Ohio now spends nearly $1 billion a year on vouchers, the vast majority going to Catholic and evangelical schools — schools that, unlike public schools, can reject your child over their religion, their disability, or who their parents are, or for ANY REASON AT ALL with almost no accountability for the public money they take. Many have simply raised tuition to capture the vouchers instead of enrolling more students.
The governor has proposed $61 million to put 5,000 more students on vouchers, and South Carolina has opted in to the federal program. $61 million of state money, for 5,000 kids. Every dollar of it is a dollar the General Assembly doesn't put into the public schools where the overwhelming majority of South Carolina's children — roughly 9 in 10 nationally — actually sit.
Our public schools took generations to build, and they are the one institution that has to take every single child who walks in the door. Ralph Norman is helping tear them down and hand the pieces to private interests. Our kids will pay for it for the rest of their lives. We deserve better.
A good job where we can make a living to support our families, own a home, and have a good life. That's the American Dream.
Ralph Norman supports policies and an administration that are turning the American Dream into a nightmare.
There were 20.8 million layoffs in the U.S. in 2025
55% of employed Americans say they're concerned about losing their jobs
The unemployment rate is 4.2%
In 2025 the U.S. economy averaged just 15,000 jobs added per month, a dramatic decrease from the monthly average of 125,000 the year before Trump took office.
Overall employment for workers without college degrees fell by 361,000 jobs from January to September 2025.
58,000 net manufacturing jobs have been lost from April, when the administration announced "Liberation Day" tariffs, to September 2025.
Works for Billionaires, Big Business & Special Interests and Not for Us
Our elected officials should work for us, the people.
Ralph Norman works for billionaires and big business, not for us. Norman makes his living in real estate and construction — "Our family's in the construction business," as he told Fox News in August 2025 — and he sits on the House Financial Services Committee, the panel that writes the rules for the banks, mortgage lenders, credit unions, insurers and debt collectors that the property business runs on. He also sits on the Rules Committee, which decides which bills the full House is allowed to vote on at all, and on the Budget Committee.
His donor list reads that committee assignment back almost line by line: home builders, realtors, apartment landlords, bankers, credit unions and the debt-collection industry's trade association. Only 11% of Norman's money came from small grassroots donors. 86% came from PACs and large donors. Look at who some of his top funders are:
The BUILD PAC of the National Association of Home Builders — the home-building industry, giving to a home builder who sits on the committee that writes the rules for housing finance.
National Association of Realtors Political Action Committee
The National Apartment Association's PAC — the corporate landlord lobby, before the same committee.
The lending lobby, from both sides of its own fight: the American Bankers Association's BANKPAC and America's Credit Unions PAC — rivals on Capitol Hill, both funding the same member of the committee that regulates them.
ACPAC — the political action committee of ACA International, the debt-collection industry's trade association.
The hotel industry, from both directions: the American Hotel and Lodging Association's HOTELPAC and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association's PAC. Norman's own family companies include three hotel businesses.
The House Freedom Fund, the hard-right caucus's fundraising arm, which bundled $34,300 to him in the 2024 cycle. The related Freedom Caucus Fund gives to him directly as well.
Koch, Inc. Political Action Committee (KOCHPAC)
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying group, whose PAC has given to him since 2022.
Let Elon Musk and DOGE Cut More Than $291 MILLION from South Carolina
We all want a government that works for us as efficiently and effectively as possible. Unfortunately our government doesn't always work that way, so reform is badly needed. Given how big and complicated the government is, it's a tough problem that needs well-thought out solutions, so that we don't make things worse.
That's not what we got.
Ralph Norman didn't just stand by — he voted to lock the cuts into law while billionaire and ketamine-addled chaos monkey Elon Musk and his DOGE goons chainsawed their way through the U.S. government, promising to save the government at least $2 trillion annually in waste, fraud and abuse. Because they had no idea what they were doing and no one to stop them, in the end our government suffered, people suffered, South Carolina suffered, government spending actually went UP and Elon Musk became even richer.
Elon Musk and DOGE:
Had access to and exfiltrated (stole) all our sensitive personal information.
Kneecapped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had returned over $26 billion to the American people since 2011.
Attempted to cut $4 billion in funding for medical research.
Will cost the federal government an estimated $500 billion in lost tax revenue (that could pay for programs for us), due to cuts at the IRS.
Laid waste to the employees at several government departments, removing their top experts and most skilled practitioners, and making their services less effective for all of us. This badly affected veterans, who make up 30% of the federal workforce.
Norman voted to turn DOGE's spreadsheet into law. On June 12, 2025 he voted for the Rescissions Act of 2025, which cancelled $9.4 billion Congress had already approved for foreign aid and public broadcasting — and which passed by two votes, 214 to 212. He voted for it again on July 18, 2025, clearing the final version for the President's signature.
We'd like to thank you, Ralph Norman, for voting to make the cuts permanent while an unelected South African big tech billionaire took a chainsaw to vital U.S. government functions and completely failed to make the government more efficient. We deserve better.
As a member of Congress, part of Ralph Norman's job is to act as a check and balance to the executive branch. He and his fellow members of Congress from South Carolina have completely abdicated their responsibility. These spineless cowards are rubber stamping everything Donald Trump wants to do, no matter how crazy, dangerous or harmful. And we've seen the results. We deserve better.
We deserve to feel safe in our neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship.
In order to do that, we need to take real steps to prevent gun violence. And despite what we've been told, it is possible to support the 2nd Amendment and support common-sense gun safety laws at the same time. But Ralph Norman has opposed bipartisan gun safety laws, while offering meaningless thoughts and prayers every time there's a new mass shooting.
A child or adolescent is killed with a gun every 2 hours and 48 minutes in the U.S.
Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the U.S. are 33 times greater than in Australia and 77 times greater than in Germany
Every day, 125 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 200 are shot and wounded
Women in the U.S. are 28 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries.
South Carolina has one of the highest gun death rates in the nation — 19.5 per 100,000 people, about 52% higher than the national average, with around 1,100 people dying from gun violence every year.
Norman brought a loaded gun to a meeting with his own constituents and put it on the table. On April 6, 2018, at one of his "coffee with constituents" meetings at the Rock Hill Diner, Norman was talking with volunteers from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America about gun violence when he pulled out his personal, loaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and placed it on the table for about five minutes. His point, he said, was that "guns don't shoot people; people shoot guns." Then he added: "I'm not going to be a Gabby Giffords" — invoking the congresswoman who was shot in the head at a constituent event in 2011.
Lori Freemon, one of three people sitting with him, said she had looked forward to a respectful conversation about gun violence prevention. "Instead, I felt unsafe when he insisted on showing us his loaded gun and keeping it out on the table for much of our conversation," she said, calling it "a far cry from what responsible gun ownership looks like." Another attendee said it "almost felt like an intimidation tactic." Norman did not back down.
Ralph Norman is OK with our kids dying, as long as he has his guns. We deserve better.
America is the land of FREEDOM. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to start a business, freedom to choose your own career path, freedom to make your own medical decisions, freedom to raise your children according to your values, and freedom to pursue happiness. Freedom is what makes America great.
Unless you're a woman and you're making the deeply personal decision about whether to have a baby or not. A decision that will dramatically affect the rest of your life. In that case Ralph Norman thinks that your freedom doesn't matter and that the government should get to control your body. That's not freedom, that's tyranny.
Ralph Norman:
Opposed Roe v. Wade
Supported federal efforts to ban abortion
Attacked Planned Parenthood throughout his career
Here in South Carolina, abortion is banned after about 6 weeks — before many women even know they're pregnant. Abortions in the state fell from 8,187 in 2023 to 3,025 in 2024, and a clinic reported that 75% of people seeking care had to be turned away for being too far along.
Personally led the legal campaign that let South Carolina cut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid — spearheading a bicameral friend-of-the-court brief on February 10, 2025, joined by nearly 100 members of Congress, backing the state in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. When the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 for South Carolina in June 2025, he called it "a victory for South Carolina, for state sovereignty, and for taxpayers." The practical effect is that Medicaid patients in South Carolina — low-income women — can be blocked from using Planned Parenthood for ordinary care like cancer screenings and birth control.
Arkansas House of Representatives candidate (and pastor) Robb Ryerse stated it well: "Abortion should remain safe and legal. These are personal decisions best made by patients, their doctors, and their faith — not politicians. You don't have to agree with every decision someone makes to believe they should be free to make it. That's what personal liberty means." Almost 2/3 of Americans agree and believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But Ralph Norman thinks he knows better, and doesn't believe that we should have the freedom to make our own decisions. We deserve better.
In America our vote represents our will. It gives us the power to make the change that we want to see in the world.
Unfortunately that's not a sentiment that Ralph Norman's billionaire and big business donors can stomach. Because when we have voting power, we use it to make our lives better, and they lose power. Read about all the ways they're trying to take away our voting power on our about page, then come back here.
Ralph Norman has opposed legislation to make voting easier while supporting the SAVE Act, which would force every single American citizen to prove their citizenship status in person when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. For the vast majority of Americans, this would mean presenting a passport or birth certificate at their local election office. This would disenfranchise millions of U.S. citizens: 146 million Americans do not have a passport, and 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name. Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill became law, as the vast majority of these groups do not possess a passport.
Norman spent the summer of 2026 publicly pushing the SAVE America Act, posting poll numbers on his official website for proof of citizenship to vote, mandatory voter ID and purging voter rolls, and signing off: "GET THIS PASSED."
YOU HAVE POWER. Why else do you think Ralph Norman and his bosses are working so hard to take it away? Don't let them. We deserve better.
Whether white, black, or brown, we should all be able to live in America and exercise our constitutional rights without fear that law enforcement will turn on us.
But the current administration has created a secret police force that is abusing their power against anyone who stands in their way, U.S. citizen or not. They claim to be going after "the worst of the worst", but are taking daycare workers, day laborers, grandmas and kids who are valued members of our communities. And Ralph Norman, staunch defender of the Second Amendment to fight back against government tyranny, is doing nothing while the government tyrannizes us.
ProPublica:They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world's most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force.
ProPublica:Accosting people outside of their immigration court hearings where they're showing up and trying to do the right thing and then hauling them off to an immigration jail in the middle of the country where they can't access loved ones or speak to counsel. Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country, to a prison where there's a documented record of serious torture and human rights abuse.
New York Times:Masked and heavily armed, ICE agents are sent to cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis to terrorize immigrant communities and brutalize people who challenge their efforts to stop and detain anyone deemed suspicious. To expand its reach, ICE greatly lowered its recruitment standards, effectively enlisting anyone who cares to sign up. To attract new officers, ICE advertises the chance to do violence to people deemed "enemies" of the United States, likening civil immigration enforcement to a war on a dangerous, alien force. The result is an agency whose agents' first recourse appears to be violence or the threat of violence.
They are executing American citizens. On January 7, 2026 an ICE agent in Minneapolis murdered an American citizen, a mother of 3, by shooting her in the face as she tried to drive away. Then the killer walked away, and our government lied and tried to gaslight us about what happened. Decent politicians condemned the murder. What did Ralph Norman have to say? Nothing.
They are executing American citizens: Part 2. On January 24, 2026 ICE agents in Minneapolis murdered an American citizen, a 37 year old ICU nurse, who was filming their activity and trying to help others. Then our government lied and tried to gaslight us about what happened.
And the list of the dead keeps growing. ICE agents — on duty and off — keep killing members of our communities, while Ralph Norman says nothing:
On December 31, 2025, an off-duty ICE officer in Northridge, Los Angeles shot and killed Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old U.S. citizen and father of two who was born and raised in Compton. Federal officials called it self-defense against an "active shooter," but Porter's family says he was peacefully returning home and never posed a threat — and witnesses reported only three shots, matching his autopsy and contradicting claims of an exchange of gunfire.
On July 7, 2026, an ICE officer in Houston shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three and small-business owner who had lived in the U.S. for 35 years. Agents had been hunting a different white van. Harris County's medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and his co-workers disputed ICE's claim that he used his vehicle as a weapon.
On July 13, 2026, an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian father who was legally authorized to work in the U.S. and supported his wife and 3-year-old daughter by delivering food and cleaning a veterinary clinic. He was not the target of ICE's warrant — agents were looking for someone else — and were not wearing body cameras. Even Maine's Republican Senator Susan Collins urged DHS to halt non-urgent vehicle stops in the state.
Norman says the people being taken are criminals. The numbers from his own state say otherwise. In March 2026, as the White House was quietly backing away from "mass deportation" language, Norman told The Daily Signal the media had misconstrued the whole thing — that Trump was never deporting "innocent children and nurses." "Trump's exactly right," he said. "He's taking criminals off the street." The arrest numbers from his own state, above, say otherwise.
He wants more of it, permanently. After the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling, Norman posted that it was "a catastrophic ruling" that was "supercharging the incentive for illegal aliens to come here," and called on Congress to "codify Trump's border security wins" so a future administration could not undo them.
If ICE can murder innocent U.S. citizens without repercussions, what could they do to you? ICE is out of control and a danger to us all - no one is safe. What's Ralph Norman going to do about it? Absolutely nothing. We deserve better.
Voted for the Unnecessary and Unpopular War in Iran
War destroys human lives, families and innocent people, causes economic ruin, and triggers immense suffering. War should always be the option of last resort.
In order to distract from the Epstein Files, Donald Trump started an illegal war of choice with Iran, and now:
We are being dog-walked by Israel, who has been trying to convince presidents to attack Iran forever, and finally found one dumb enough to do so
The American people don't want this war with Iran. But Ralph Norman supports this madness and voted against the War Powers Resolution that would have stopped it. Does Ralph Norman work for Israel or the people of South Carolina? We deserve better.
Avoids His Constituents and Refuses to Hold In-Person Town Halls
Good leaders meet with their constituents and have town halls where citizens can voice concerns, ask questions, and provide input on policies. Ralph Norman doesn't want to hear what we have to say. He only wants to talk to his rich donors or people who agree with him.
Norman's idea of a town hall is a phone call. His office runs "tele-town halls" — telephone events where staff control the queue and pick which callers get through — and posts the replays afterward. The last in-person town halls on his official event calendar are seven meetings held over four days in August and September 2021. There is nothing after that — nearly five years.
The last time Norman sat in a room with constituents who disagreed with him and it made the news, he took out a loaded revolver and put it on the table.
Ralph Norman is avoiding us because he doesn't care what we think. We deserve better.
That is not a policy disagreement. That is a sitting member of Congress asking the President to use the U.S. military to cancel an election. When the text became public in December 2022, Norman said it "came from a source of frustration." Here is the rest of his record:
In December 2020 he put his name to the friend-of-the-court brief signed by 126 House Republicans asking the Supreme Court to throw out the presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — four states he does not represent.
Then turned on the Republican who did vote to impeach. At the closed-door conference meeting where at least half the speakers said they would remove Liz Cheney from leadership, Norman was one of them — expressing disappointment in her impeachment vote, according to The New York Times.
Voted to Release the Epstein Files in Committee, Then Voted to Bury Them on the Floor
Jeffrey Epstein ran a global sex trafficking network that sexually abused dozens of girls and women for decades. The FBI identified at least 35 minors with similar abuse histories. When finally released in 2026, the files — over 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images — revealed what UN human rights experts called "disturbing and credible evidence" of a possible global criminal enterprise. Those experts said some of the conduct may meet the threshold for crimes against humanity, including sexual slavery, torture, and enforced disappearance.
Norman sits on the House Rules Committee — the small panel that decides which bills and amendments the full House is allowed to vote on. That put him in the room, twice, when the Epstein files were on the line. He voted both ways.
Behind closed doors, he voted yes. On the night of July 14, 2025, in the Rules Committee, Norman was the only Republican to cross over and vote with the panel's four Democrats for Rep. Ro Khanna's amendment forcing the Justice Department to publish the Epstein files. It was defeated anyway. Norman told Axios: "The public's been asking for it. I think there are files. All of a sudden not to have files is a little strange." Minutes later, on a second Epstein measure the same night, he voted with his party against it, saying the Rules Committee "isn't the body to do this."
By September he would not even say where he stood. On September 2, 2025, the day the discharge petition was filed, Norman told Politico he had not read it and would first review the alternative his own leadership was offering — a measure that would have given only symbolic support to a committee investigation. "We're all for releasing the information and getting this moving forward," he said. Asked whether he had a view on the Massie–Khanna effort he had voted for seven weeks earlier, he answered: "Not yet."
Norman knew. He said so out loud, in committee, in July. Then he walked onto the House floor the very next day and voted to keep the files buried — and waited four months for the President's permission to say it in public. We deserve better.
Voted Against Juneteenth, Went to Bat for Steve King, and Joked About Sexual Assault
We should hold our leaders to high standards. Ralph Norman has failed that test over and over, in public, on the record.
He voted against making Juneteenth a federal holiday. On June 16, 2021 the House voted 415–14 to recognize the day enslaved people in Texas learned they were free. Norman was one of the 14 who voted no — in a state where slavery built the economy and where the Emanuel AME massacre happened within his own lifetime of public service.
He went to bat for Steve King. In 2019, after Rep. Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments over a series of racist and white nationalist remarks, Norman was among the conservative lawmakers who came to King's aid in his bid to get them back — alongside Louie Gohmert and Paul Gosar.
He opened a debate with a joke about sexual assault. On September 20, 2018 — while the country was watching Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Brett Kavanaugh — Norman opened a debate against his Democratic opponent at the Kiwanis Club of Rock Hill by joking that "Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln." Ginsburg was 85 years old. Lincoln died in 1865.
He used a pandemic rule to skip a vote and go to a conference. In February 2021, Norman was one of thirteen House Republicans who had colleagues cast proxy votes for them on a COVID relief bill, formally citing the "ongoing public health emergency." They were at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando instead. On March 10, 2021 the watchdog group Campaign for Accountability asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate, alleging they "knowingly made false statements."
We're all going to pay the price for this with increased rates of asthma, cancer, and premature deaths. We deserve better.
