Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said Monday that House lawmakers are not planning to vote remotely amid the coronavirus outbreak, echoing previous remarks from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.).
“We went out of session after midnight on Saturday morning, we all dispersed very quickly. I know that [Pelosi] has said, she’s been very adamant about the fact that we will not vote remotely,” Yarmuth said in an interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
“Which means only one thing if she holds to that, and that is that we have to operate by unanimous consent,” he said, adding that it is unlikely that all House members would vote the same way.
Yarmuth also said that if all House members have to congregate in a room, that’s “not very healthy either.”
“This is a real challenge,” he said.
Pelosi told Democrats in a closed-door meeting last week that business in the Capitol will carry on amid the concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.
“We are the captains of the ship. We are the last to leave,” she said in the meeting, according to multiple sources in the room.
Yarmuth is among a handful of lawmakers self-quarantining after being notified they’ve been in contact with people who tested positive for COVID-19.
The Kentucky Democrat said Sunday he will be self-quarantining after he being notified he was in the presence of an individual last week who tested positive for the virus. He said he would be teleworking from home and staying in contact with federal, state and local officials to combat the pandemic.
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