U.S. Congressman Brian Mast (FL-18) today joined in filing a lawsuit in the D.C. Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of Speaker Pelosi’s proxy voting scheme. The lawsuit is in response to House Democrats’ partisan H. Res. 965, a resolution passed earlier this month that changed House Rules to consolidate voting power in the hands of a small group of Speaker Pelosi’s closest allies. This week 72 Democrats abdicated their elected duty to represent their Constituents by giving away their votes to other Members of Congress. As a result, one Member of Congress voted 7 times.
“For 231 years, the House of Representatives has met in person to conduct the business of the American people – through the Yellow Fever of 1793, the Civil War, the War of 1812’s burning of the Capitol, the Spanish Flu of 1918, September 11th and more. Voting by proxy is against everything the American people elected us to do, and even more than that, it is clearly unconstitutional,” Rep. Mast said. “Democrats have already admitted that they view coronavirus as ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,’ and now they are using the pandemic as cover to unconstitutionally consolidate power in the hands of a few close allies of Speaker Pelosi. Much to Speaker Pelosi’s disappointment, the House of Representatives is not a dictatorship. All 435 Members of the House of Representatives were elected by their constituents to do a job, and I will not allow this pandemic to be used as cover for Speaker Pelosi to ram through her personal political agenda without consent of the American people!”
You can view the list of Members voting by proxy here. A summary of the lawsuit can be found here.
