Who is Gary Palmer? Alabama congressman's D.C. bed is his office couch

U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, lives inside his Capitol Hill office when he's in Washington, has never watched "House of Cards," and isn't related to the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, but once said he was because he was tired of people asking.

The freshman Alabama congressman was the subject of Roll Call's Take Five feature, where the Capitol Hill newspaper asks five questions of a member of Congress that have nothing to do with the member's day job.

Palmer's sleeps on his office couch, which converts into a bed, for the roughly one-third of the year where he's in Washington and not in the Yellowhammer State.

"I had this custom made in a place in Dallas that makes 'em. I know two other members have bought these sofas. It's comfortable as any bed that you'll sleep on. People are always surprised when I tell them that, but when you think about our schedule [it makes sense]," he told the paper.

Although he's never seen an episode of "House of Cards," Palmer said the Netflix drama isn't an accurate portrayal of life in Washington.

"I'll run into people all the time and they say, 'Well, is it like the 'House of Cards?'" and I'll say, 'Well, first of all, I haven't seen 'House of Cards,' but I can tell ya if anyone ever made a TV show about what it's like to be in Congress, no one would watch it. And by the way, there is one, and it's called C-SPAN,'" he joked.

Palmer, who served as the president of the Alabama Policy Institute before running for Congress in 2014, said the low name recognition that he started his campaign with was actually due to people thinking he was related to Arnold Palmer.

"I'll tell you what I get asked a lot is, 'Hey, are you kin to Arnold Palmer?' And I got tired of it one day. A guy asked me that and I said, 'Yeah. He's my uncle.' And he said, 'You're kidding!' And I said, 'I am, but I'm tired of being asked,'" the congressman said. "The funny thing is, I had never run for office before, and in January 2014 there was a poll that showed my name ID was at 4 percent. And half the people who thought they knew my name thought I was a golfer. And the sad thing is, that was our own poll."