The Kentucky congressman who forced lawmakers around the country to return to Washington, D.C., for a vote on the coronavirus stimulus legislation last week skipped out on a vote on the previous aid bill to attend a fundraiser in his home state.
“I would be a ‘no’ on that bill anyway. I’m not going to sit up there in D.C. and wait for four people in a back room to cook something up that I know I’m not going to vote for,” Rep. Thomas Massie told a local radio show of his decision to not show up for the vote on the earlier, $850 billion coronavirus package.
March 27, 202001:32
“My colleagues are fuming mad because they’re almost sequestered or quarantined up there with the rest of the Congress folks waiting around,” the Republican congressman said in the remarks, which were first reported by The Daily Beast.
In the same radio interview, Massie also referred to the coronavirus as “the kung flu.”
On the day of the March 14 vote, Massie tweeted that he and his wife were organizing their pantry.
Massie’s comments, are a stark contrast to his stance on voting for the $2 trillion “phase III” package.
Lawmakers had hoped to pass the bill by unanimous consent or voice vote, but Massie said he would object and demanded a recorded vote. That forced dozens of lawmakers — many of whom are elderly and at risk of greater coronavirus symptoms — to rush back to Washington for last Friday’s vote, because Massie’s maneuver to get a recorded vote would require a quorum of at least 216 members to be present.
“I came here to make sure our republic doesn’t die by unanimous consent,” he declared on the House floor ahead of the vote. His effort for a recorded vote was unsuccessful and the bill passed with a voice vote.
Massie’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Monday, one of the lawmakers who’d returned to Washington for the vote, Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York, said she’d been diagnosed with coronavirus.
