Greene and Clyde Rack Up Fines for Defying House’s Mask Mandate

WASHINGTON — During a recent marathon session in the Residence, two Republican lawmakers from Georgia sat in full check out of tv cameras. Neither was wearing a mask.

It was the most up-to-date act of defiance by the pair, Reps Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde, in opposition to a rule requiring legislators to dress in masks on the Dwelling floor. Most Republican lawmakers, however grudgingly, have complied with the mandate, which can have fines that immediately increase up to significant amounts. But Ms. Greene and Mr. Clyde have frequently, and proudly, flouted it.

To date, the two have incurred additional than $100,000 combined in fines, which are taken straight from their paychecks.

A resolution accepted by the Residence in January states that associates will be fined $500 the very first time they are unsuccessful to use a mask on the Residence floor, and $2,500 for subsequent violations. The Household Ethics Committee notes just about every fantastic in a news release, but Ms. Greene’s and Mr. Clyde’s violations had been so many that the panel started asserting theirs in bunches.

Ms. Greene, who has reported she is unvaccinated, known as the mask requirement “communist,” “tyrannical” and “authoritarian.”

“The American people today have experienced enough and are standing up from these outrageous and unconstitutional insurance policies,” she claimed in a statement.

Ms. Greene has been fined more than 30 instances for violating the mask policies, accumulating more than $80,000 in penalties, in accordance to her workplace. She was fined 5 times in a row all through just one stretch this slide.

Only 20 of Ms. Greene’s fines, totaling almost $50,000, have been introduced by the Ethics Committee. (Household techniques and appeals can delay bulletins by up to two months.)

Mr. Clyde has been fined at least 14 situations for violating the mask rule, accruing at minimum $30,000 in penalties.

In contesting his fines, Mr. Clyde has accused the Home and the sergeant-at-arms, who enforces the penalties, of a “deeply troubling” practice of “selective enforcement.”

Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has also been fined, suggested that Mr. Clyde experienced identified a way close to having to pay the penalties. Mr. Massie explained to CNN that Mr. Clyde experienced adjusted his payroll withholdings so that he was paid out only $1 a month.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Clyde did not reply to a request for comment.

Other Republicans who have been fined at least when for not putting on a mask on the Residence floor involve Bob Superior of Virginia, Brian Mast of Florida, Mary Miller of Illinois, Beth Van Duyne of Texas, Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa.

Mr. Massie, Ms. Greene and Mr. Norman have submitted a federal lawsuit in Washington versus Speaker Nancy Pelosi, looking for a judge’s buy to strike down the fines as unconstitutional. The suit accuses Ms. Pelosi of making use of the mandate “as a cudgel” to dock the spend of her “political opponents.”

It argues that the Household could great users for disorderly conduct, but that the Republicans do not believe refusing to wear a mask falls into that group.

“Merely moving into the Dwelling chamber with out a mask,” the go well with claims, “did not constitute ‘disorderly behavior’ because it did not disrupt the House’s operations or superior order, nor is it normally unlawful carry out.”

Ms. Pelosi has mentioned the mask rule allows secure lawmakers and personnel users from a “terrible epidemic that has brought on struggling and dying on a scale not witnessed in this place because the 1918 influenza pandemic.”

In a court docket filing, Douglas N. Letter, the House’s normal counsel, observed that just one member of Congress, Representative Ron Wright, Republican of Texas, and a consultant-elect, Luke Letlow, Republican of Louisiana, died following contracting the virus.

Mr. Letter stated that issuing fines for refusing to wear a mask fell squarely inside the House’s constitutional powers to “govern its individual chamber proceedings and to self-discipline its individual users.”

“This is specially legitimate here,” he wrote, “where the resolution at situation is designed to safeguard the overall health of users and team in the position in which all comprehensive Home debates and votes consider spot.”

Those people arguments appeared to obtain assistance in courtroom this thirty day period, as a federal judge expressed skepticism about the deserves of the go well with.

A Dwelling rule necessitating members to move through a metal detector before getting into the chamber has also resulted in violations.

That rule was enacted after a professional-Trump mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 and Ms. Pelosi pushed for improved protection. A very first violation carries a $5,000 fine, followed by $10,000 for subsequent violations.

Mr. Clyde and seven other Republicans have been fined for violating the metallic detector rule, as was Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina.

The penalties versus Mr. Clyburn and 5 of the Republicans were dismissed on appeal.

But the fines versus Mr. Clyde — two totaling $15,000 — and the other Republicans, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, have been upheld.