With "leadership" such as this, it's no wonder that the United States has had the worst response to COVID-19 on the planet. Political expediency and personal ambition trumps human lives.
Source: Washington Post
Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley (R) has repeatedly pushed back against imposing a mask mandate inside the legislature, saying that he cannot force lawmakers to cover their faces — just as he cannot stop someone from voting on the House floor in their bathing suit.
But when one Democratic lawmaker attempted to speak during a floor debate on Tuesday — not in a bikini or one-piece but in jeans — Grassley called her out for violating the chamber’s dress code.
“You will not be recognized to speak for debate,” he told state Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell (D), according to the Des Moines Register. “You can continue to vote from the floor.”
And yes, of course he's related to Iowa's senile Senator Chuck Grassley.
Grassley, who is the grandson of Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R), did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to the Associated Press, Melissa Deatsch, a spokeswoman with the speaker’s office, said Grassley had the right to decide if and how he would direct state representatives to follow the rules.
“There is no way to enforce a mask mandate short of having state patrol remove a duly-elected representative from the floor, which is not something he is willing to do, for masks or for jeans,” Deatsch said in a statement. “Rep. Wessel-Kroeschell was in violation of House rules and it is within the speaker of the House’s discretion to handle such violations as he sees fit.”
Iowa Republican Speaker @PatGrassley refuses to require members to wear masks on the floor of the House after he said it was “impossible to enforce” but would not let Representative @bweskroe speak while wearing jeans. https://t.co/2C1H4P6rC2
— Jessica Post (@JessicaPost) February 4, 2021
An outbreak of COVID in the past week has now seen five cases among staff there, another one since this tweet.
Pat Grassley refused to enforce mask wearing and now, thanks to the @IowaGOP, the Iowa Capitol has an outbreak https://t.co/0myiOyj6l1
— Lyz Lenz (@lyzl) January 31, 2021
