The United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from three Republicans in the House of Representatives who were fined for defying a mask mandate enacted by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ralph Norman of South Carolina were each fined $500 for refusing to wear face masks in 2021 in compliance with COVID-19 protocols. The House’s mask requirement was lifted in June of 2021 and reinstated the following month.
The justices did not offer an explanation for their decision to turn down the appeal.
The representatives have contended that the mask requirements were unnecessary and infringed on their constitutional rights. Each received a written warning from Pelosi. Greene shared a video of herself putting her’s through a paper shredder.
Massie, Greene, and Norman filed a lawsuit against Pelosi, House Sergeant at Arms William Walker and House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in July of 2021. The suit argued Pelosi’s order violated the 27th Amendment to the Constitution because she sought to change their salaries on the same day she herself did not wear a mask.
“We are 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,” Massie stated, per the Northern Kentucky Tribune. “We are standing up to Pelosi for the American people who are tired of mask mandates, vaccine coercion and violations of basic constitutional rights.”
The group also argued in the suit that Pelosi violated their First Amendment rights because the mask mandate constituted compelled speech and that the regulation was enforced in a partisan and discriminatory manner.
The U.S. District Court for D.C. dismissed the case, a motion that was upheld by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023.
“If we accept the logic applied by the lower courts, the 27th amendment to the Constitution is unenforceable and therefore dead,” Massie told The New York Post in response to the court’s ruling. “We are hopeful the Supreme Court will hear our plea, because the lower courts’ effective nullification of the 27th amendment creates a serious Constitutional issue that must be resolved.”
The Democrats lost control of the House in 2022 during midterm elections and Pelosi stepped down as speaker.
“Lawyers for House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, had urged the [the Supreme Court] to reject the appeal from fellow Republican representatives, though they noted that Johnson and every other member of the Republican leadership voted against the mask policy,” reports ABC News.
