U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie is so upset that he was told to wear a mask for the safety of others that he is suing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her House floor mandate that has since ended for fully-vaccinated lawmakers.
Massie, along with Republicans Rep. Ralph Norman and QAnon-adjacent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, were fined $500 for not wearing a mask. They appealed and, last week, lost that appeal.
Now, they’re suing Pelosi, along with House Sergeant of Arms William J. Walker and Chief Admin Officer Catherine Szpindor claiming, among other things, that their First Amendment right to free speech was violated.
“I am fighting this fight because if they can get away with this in Congress, they’ll do the same things to our kids when they go back to school, they’ll do the same things to hard working Americans in their workplaces, and they’ll do the same things to our soldiers,” said Massie in a dramatic post on Facebook.
The mask mandate violated the First Amendment, Massie claims in a press release, because he declined to wear it as an expression of symbolic speech.
The representatives are challenging the rule on three other grounds, including another that it violated the 27th amendment of the Constitution, because the fine is supposed to come out of their salary. The 27th amendment says, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”
Pelosi created the mask mandate in June of 2020. Massie refused to wear his mask after the CDC issued a recommendation saying that fully-vaccinated people could go maskless in public. The House did not change its rule, and Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician for Congress said that it wouldn’t be until all representatives and floor staff were fully vaccinated. In June, Pelosi lifted the mask mandate for those who are vaccinated.
As of June, Massie was still not vaccinated. He has said that the won’t get the vaccine until he can see data that it improves post-infection immunity, according to Newsweek. Massie previously had coronavirus and has preached that his natural immunity is enough for him not to wear a mask. However, in Kentucky, at least, reinfection rates have gone up for people who previously had COVID as the Delta variant of the virus takes hold, according to Gov. Andy Beshear.
This article appears in July 21, 2021.