2 Republicans rack up fines for defying mask mandate
WASHINGTON — During a recent marathon session in the House, two Republican lawmakers from Georgia sat in full view of television cameras. Neither was wearing a mask.
It was the latest act of defiance by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde against a rule requiring legislators to wear masks on the House floor. Most Republican lawmakers, however grudgingly, have complied with the mandate, which can carry fines that quickly add up to hefty amounts. But Greene and Clyde have repeatedly, and proudly, flouted it.
To date, the two have incurred more than $100,000 combined in fines, which are taken directly from their paychecks.
A resolution approved by the House in January says that members will be fined $500 the first time they fail to wear a mask on the House floor and $2,500 for subsequent violations. The House Ethics Committee notes each fine in a news release, but Greene’s and Clyde’s violations were so numerous that the panel began announcing theirs in bunches.
Greene, who has said she’s unvaccinated, called the mask requirement “communist,” “tyrannical” and “authoritarian.”
“The American people have had enough and are standing up against these outrageous and unconstitutional policies,” she said in a statement.
Greene has been fined more than 30 times for violating the mask rules, accumulating more than $80,000 in penalties, according to her office. She
was fined five days in a row during one stretch this fall.
Only 20 of Greene’s fines, totaling nearly $50,000, have been announced by the Ethics Committee. (House procedures and appeals can delay announcements by up to two months.)
Clyde has been fined at least 14 times for violating the mask rule, accruing at least $30,000 in penalties.
In contesting his fines, Clyde has accused the House and the sergeant-atarms, who enforces the penalties, of a “deeply troubling” practice of “selective enforcement.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, RKY., who also has been fined, suggested Clyde had found a way around paying the penalties. Massie told CNN that Clyde had changed his payroll withholdings so that he was paid only $1 a month.
A spokesperson for Clyde didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Other Republicans who have been fined at least once for not wearing a mask on the House floor include Chip Roy of Austin, Beth Van Duyne of Irving, Bob Good of Virginia, Brian Mast of Florida,
Mary Miller of Illinois, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Mariannette Miller-meeks of Iowa.
Massie, Greene and Norman have filed a federal lawsuit in Washington against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seeking a judge’s order to strike down the fines as unconstitutional. The suit accuses Pelosi of using the mandate “as a cudgel” to dock the pay of her “political opponents.”
It argues that the House may fine members for disorderly behavior, but that the Republicans don’t believe refusing to wear a mask falls into that category.
“Merely entering the House chamber without a mask,” the suit says, “did not constitute ‘disorderly behavior’ because it did not disrupt the House’s operations or good order, nor is it otherwise unlawful conduct.”
Pelosi has said the mask rule helps protect lawmakers and staff members from a “terrible epidemic that has caused suffering and death on a scale not seen in this country since the 1918 influenza pandemic.”