A federal appeals court sounded ready Wednesday to back the power of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to fine three Republican members who violated a pandemic-era rule that required lawmakers to wear a mask on the House floor.
An attorney for Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina told the judges at an oral argument that the mask requirements on the House floor and fines used to enforce them are unconstitutional.
But questions from all three judges on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit expressed skepticism that courts had the power to tell the lawmakers how to run the House — part of the reason why a lower court threw out the lawsuit in March.
