GOP Reps. Greene, Clyde accrue over $160K in combined mask fines

Georgia Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde have racked up a combined total of more than $160,000 in fines for refusing to wear masks on the House floor during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The House Ethics Committee disclosed Tuesday that Clyde has been fined at least 28 times for a total of $68,000 for violating rules requiring everyone to wear masks in the House chamber.

Greene, meanwhile, said that she has more than $100,000 in mask fines.

All attendees at President Biden’s State of the Union address next Tuesday will be required to wear KN95 or N95 masks and present a negative COVID-19 test result from within a day of the event.

A memo from the House sergeant-at-arms last week stated that “failure to follow guidelines or removal of the mask in the House Chamber will result in the attendee’s removal from the event and/or fines.”

But for lawmakers such as Greene and Clyde who’ve already accrued tens of thousands of dollars in fines, that threat may not serve as much of a deterrent.

“I’m well over $100,000 in masks fines, no need to start wearing a mask now,” Greene tweeted last week.

Rank-and-file members of Congress earn $174,000 annually. The fines, which start at $500 for the first offense and $2,500 for subsequent offenses, are deducted from lawmakers’ salaries and can’t be paid for with campaign or office budget funds.

Clyde filed an appeal to the House Ethics Committee last month to contest some of the fines, arguing that the mask requirement is unconstitutional for levying fines out of lawmakers’ salaries.

He also pointed to Biden delivering a joint address to Congress last year without a mask, calling it “a deeply troubling example of selective enforcement.” The mask requirement does not apply when someone is recognized to speak before the House.

But the Ethics Committee, which is evenly split between the two parties, rejected Clyde’s latest appeal and upheld the fines.

The committee does not publicly disclose fines until after the 30-day window for a lawmaker to file an appeal has passed.

Nine other House Republicans have also been fined at least once for violating the House floor mask mandate: Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa), Bob Good (Va.), Mary Miller (Ill.), Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Brian Mast (Fla.), Beth Van Duyne (Texas) and Thomas Massie (Ky.).

Miller-Meeks has been fined twice, while the others have not been repeat offenders.

The mask requirement is enforceable with fines only on the House floor. While masks are required in hallways outside the chamber and in surrounding House office buildings, anyone who isn’t wearing a mask in those areas isn’t subject to fines. The Senate side of the Capitol, meanwhile, has never had a mask mandate.

The House mask mandate first went into effect in late July 2020 and was briefly lifted last summer during the nationwide drop in COVID-19 cases. House Democrats began imposing fines to enforce the mask requirement shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when many Democrats were angered by Republicans who declined to wear masks while they were crowded together in a secure space for hours.