Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been been hit with four more fines for defying mask rules on the House floor, the House Ethics Committee said on Monday.
In a
statement, the House Ethics Committee said Greene refused to comply with House rules on four separate incidents over the span of three days in late September. The Republican lawmaker did not appeal those fines, the committee said.
The
House floor mask mandate, established in January, penalizes violators $500 for a first offense and $2,500 if they violate the rules again.
“I will continue my stand on the House floor against authoritarian Democrat mandates, because I don’t want the American people to stand alone,” Greene told media outlets on Monday, defending her decision not to comply with the rules to wear a mask on the House floor.
Prior to Monday’s notice, Greene had already been hit with numerous fines for
defying the rules.
Nick Dyer, a spokesman for Greene,
told the Washington Post that she has been issued nearly two dozen fines for defying House rules, resulting in $48,000 in financial penalties. The news outlet obtained a letter from Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker to Greene dated Oct. 28 that confirms the figures.
“I have over $25,000 in mask fines bc I refuse to wear a mask in the chamber where over 80% of Congress is vaccinated and I’m NOT sick,” Greene
wrote on Twitter last month. “As a Congresswoman, if I don’t stand up against tyranny & suffer consequences, then how can others?”
The House mask mandate is part of a resolution passed on Jan. 12 that states that the sergeant-at-arms “is authorized and directed to impose a fine against a Member, Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner for the failure to wear a mask in contravention of the Speaker’s announced policies of Jan. 4.
Late July, Greene and two other Republican lawmakers
filed a lawsuit against House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over what they called an “unconstitutional mask rule.” Greene, alongside Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), said that the face coverings are “oppressive” and “nothing but a political tool.”
The lawmakers said they
refused to wear masks on the House floor after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance to state that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the disease caused by the
CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, were generally no longer required to wear masks or social distance.
Previous guidance from the CDC had recommended that people wear masks if they were within six feet of others outside, regardless of their vaccination status.
All fines imposed as a result of the House mask rules are deducted from members’ congressional annual pay of $174,000.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Greene’s office for additional comment.
