The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request by three House Republicans to revive a lawsuit that was filed after their paychecks were docked for violating mask requirements on the chamber floor that were in place in May 2021.
Without any dissents, the court allowed a lower ruling to stand after it dismissed a constitutional challenge filed by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C.
The House mandate at the time fined lawmakers $500 for their first infraction of then Speaker Nancy Pelosi's mask mandate and $2,500 for additional violations to be deducted from their yearly pay. Greene accumulated more than $100,000 in fines during the course of the mask rules, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The three conservative lawmakers argued their payroll deductions violated the 27th Amendment, which prohibits salary adjustments for members of Congress from taking effect until after the next election. It was ratified in 1992 as the most recent addition to the Constitution.
"While the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is commonly, but wrongly, thought of today as merely a limitation on Congress' ability to vote itself a pay raise (as will be demonstrated below), that was merely one of its purposes," the lawmakers' attorneys wrote in court filings.
The Supreme Court has never weighed in on any case interpreting the 27th Amendment and the conservative lawmakers had argued it was long overdue.
"In addition to concerns about pay increases, the Founders were also greatly concerned that diminishing congressional pay could be used to pressure Members from exercising independent judgment, which could prevent qualified men of modest means from serving in the new national legislature," they told the justices.
By denying the Republican representatives' appeal, the Supreme Court sided with the House general counsel, which represented Mike Johnson, R-La., who became the new defendant in this upon taking the speaker's gavel.
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