Tenure
Peltola was sworn in as Alaska's U.S. representative on September 13, 2022. After her swearing in, Congress had an Alaska Native (Peltola), four Native Americans (Sharice Davids, Yvette Herrell, Markwayne Mullin, and Tom Cole); and a Native Hawaiian (Kai Kahele) serving simultaneously for the first time. During the 117th Congress, she was appointed to the House Natural Resources Committee and the Education and Labor Committee.
On September 29, 2022, the first bill sponsored by Peltola was passed through the House. It creates an Office of Food Security in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill passed the House in a 376–49 vote. During the 2022 United States railroad labor dispute, Peltola was one of eight House Democrats to vote against a bill that would impose a new contract on railroad workers; several rail unions were voting against it. She said she could not support a contract that did not include paid sick days. Peltola voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, passed in December 2022, a law protecting same-sex marriage and religious liberty. It also codified the recognition of interracial marriage as provided by Loving v. Virginia.
During the January 2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election, Peltola supported House Democratic leadership. However, she said, "If there are members who want to form a coalition majority like we often see in Alaska, I'm open to discussing that. Anything that gets us communicating with each other rather than talking at each other would be a good thing at this point." In February 2023, Peltola announced that she had chosen Josh Revak, a former Republican state senator who was a competitor in the 2022 special election, to run her Alaska office. Peltola's congressional staffers included Republicans. Her chief of staff, Alex Ortiz, was chief of staff to her Republican predecessor Don Young. In April 2023, Ortiz left her congressional office to take a position with her campaign in Southeast Alaska.
Peltola was among the top ten legislators who were most frequently absent from Congress, and missed more than 18 percent of the votes. In 2023, Peltola's office ranked second-highest in staff turnover for the U.S. House of Representatives, with a turnover four times the House average. After she joined the House in September 2022, much of her staff had been carried over from her Republican predecessor on a temporary basis. Still, "only five of the two dozen staff members who left her office before the end of her tenure had been working for Mr. Young", according to the LegiStorm research organization. The New York Times also reported that Peltola "required" aides to care for her family's pet chameleon, including purchasing and feeding it live crickets, both at her home and office, as well as catching escaped crickets.
In 2024, she supported several Republican-led immigration and crime-related measures, including a bill to deport undocumented migrants who assault police officers. She voted to condemn President Biden's handling of the southern border. She also backed legislation limiting the District of Columbia's authority over its sentencing laws.
In May 2024, Peltola introduced the Bottom Trawl Clarity Act and the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act as a result of declining salmon returns in western Alaska and concerns about salmon bycatch in pollock trawling in the Bering Sea. If passed, the bipartisan bills would limit bottom trawling to designated areas and expand NOAA research in bycatch reduction.
