Virginia state senator Amanda Chase filed a federal lawsuit against the state legislature on Monday after her colleagues voted to censor her for praising the pro-Trump protesters who invaded the Capitol on January 6.
The lawsuit was filed against the Virginia Senate for alleged civil rights violations after a vote to rebuke Chase for exhibiting an “unacceptable standard of conduct” on January 27.
The action aims to prevent the Senate secretary from allowing the publication of the censorship resolution in the Chamber’s official newspaper and seeks that the censorship be completely eliminated.
Chase’s lawyers claimed that the censure vote caused her to suffer from “public embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish and loss of seniority” and “negatively impacted” her campaign for governor, The Virginia-Pilot reported.
Chase is currently one of two elected officials seeking to nominate the Virginia Republican Party in 2021 as governor.
The Republican Party senator claims that the censorship violates the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause by penalizing it “selectively” for “taking unpopular political positions that most members of the Virginia Senate disagree with.”
“In all reported cases of censorship of state-elected officials in the country, none were based solely on the speech of an elected official,” says the suit, according to ABC13 News.
The censorship resolution was introduced by Democratic Senator John Bell after Chase refused to apologize for calling pro-Trump protesters “patriots” and for using a speech on the floor to defend Ashli Babbitt, a woman who was killed a shots by the US Capitol police during the insurrection.
The move said Chase “exhibited improper conduct by a senator during her tenure, showing a disregard for civility in her speech to colleagues, making false and misleading statements both in committee and in the Senate floor, and showing a disregard for the meaning of her duty. to Commonwealth citizens as an elected representative in the Virginia Senate. “
The resolution passed 24–9 votes, with three Republicans joining the Democrats in the chamber to censor Chase.
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Chase, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, but said he left before things got violent.
In a Facebook post, Chase said he was there to “represent those of us who believe that this election was stolen from Us the People. It was not a fair and free election. We do not believe the lies, deception and complete theft of that Presidential Election 2020 of the year. “
At least five people were killed during the riots, including a Capitol Police officer. Days after the insurrection, the Democrats in the Virginia Senate issued a statement accusing Chase of “giving power to a failed coup” and invited her to resign.
“Senator Chase has shown no common sense or leadership to Senate District 11 or the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is in the interest of the Virginia Senate and its constituents to resign,” said the Virginia Senate Democratic Committee in a statement last month. .
In response to calls for resignation, Chase called his fellow Democrats “traitors to both the United States Constitution and the Virginia Constitution”.
Chase had previously asked for martial law to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and she made false claims that the election was stolen due to electoral fraud. On January 7, Chase was suspended from Facebook for false allegations that Antifa infiltrated the Trump rally and started the violence.
Bell said The Virginia-Pilot that the Senate ended up voting for Chase’s censorship after she did not denounce her previous statements.
“She definitely had due process along the way, and I and everyone gave her a chance to say what she wanted to say,” he said.
Newsweek contacted Chase for further comments, but received no response in time for publication.