Virginia Senator Sues Her Colleagues Who Censured Her After Capitol Riot
Tom Ramstack
The Legal Forum, offering legal representation, language translation, media services.
A Virginia senator is suing her own state’s Senate in a lawsuit that says her colleagues violated her constitutional rights when they censured her late last month.
The Virginia Senate approved a censure resolution against State Sen. Amanda F. Chase after she called insurrectionists who invaded the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 “patriots.”
The Republican from Chesterfield was a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump. She is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
The censure was a formal reprimand that carried no other penalties. Only one other member of the Virginia General Assembly has been censured since 1987 after he faced criminal charges for a conflict of interest.
The Senate resolution said Chase’s support for the rioters was part of a pattern of “unacceptable conduct.”
On other occasions, she said the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump through voter fraud. In 2019, she said sexual assault victims were “naive and unprepared.”
Chase’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond says her statements were protected under constitutional rights of lawmakers to “legislative immunity” as well as First Amendment free speech. She wants the censure overturned and expunged.
She claims other senators censured her because they disagreed with her, not because she did anything wrong. Chase also says they violated proper rules of procedure and evidence.
The lawsuit says, “the Plaintiff is being singled out and selectively penalized for taking unpopular political positions that the majority of the members of the Virginia Senate disagree with.”
As damages, the lawsuit claims that “In addition to the public censure of the Plaintiff, which caused substantial mental anguish, tarnished reputation, Plaintiff additionally suffered a loss of Senate seniority and was demoted to a rank equivalent to that of a newly elected Senator.”
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