Lance Carter Gooden[1] (born December 1, 1982) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Texas's 5th congressional district since 2019.

A native of Terrell in Kaufman County, an eastern suburb of Dallas, Gooden graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts in government in 2001 and a BBA in finance in 2004.

In the 2010 primary election, Gooden won 50.5% of the vote, upsetting six-term incumbent Republican Representative Betty Brown.

In December 2020, Gooden was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated[11] incumbent Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state.

"[15][16] New Jersey Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell, called for Pelosi to not seat Gooden and the other Republicans who signed onto the brief supporting the suit, arguing that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States.

Later that evening, he tweeted that he voted for the bill "accidentally", claiming he pushed the wrong button, a mistake he failed to notice in time.

[28] In August 2022, he co-sponsored a bill put forth by Marjorie Taylor Greene that would criminalize gender-affirming health care for trans youth.

[31] In September 2021, nonprofit group Campaign Legal Center filed an ethics complaint against Gooden with the Office of Congressional Ethics, claiming that Gooden appeared to have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, a federal transparency and conflict-of-interest law, by failing to properly disclose a dozen purchases of stock worth between $60,019 and $376,000 that he made in 2020.