Thomas Massie is used to being a political outsider. But Kentucky’s 4th district Congressman may have even topped himself when he tried to use a procedural move to force a roll-call vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the CARES Act in March of 2020.
“I had [President] Donald Trump calling me a third-rate grandstander, I had [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi called me a dangerous nuisance. I had [former Secretary of State] John Kerry calling me something we can’t say on KET,” says Massie.
But in his mind, the move was a matter of principle. How could Congress expect essential workers like health care personnel and grocery clerks to stay on the job, he says, but lawmakers wouldn’t need to be present for a roll-call vote on the $2 trillion COVID relief package?
“What I was there to accomplish was not to delay the bill or to stop the bill,” says Massie. “I thought we should have a recorded vote, and the Constitution requires that you show up for work.”
Eventually House leadership found a workaround that avoided bringing all 435 members to the House floor for a vote during the early, uncertain days of the pandemic. Massie says he stands by his move and the longer-term effect he contends it had.
“I believe by making them come to work, they were reluctant to do the next $2 trillion bill as quickly,” says the Congressman. “They knew they would have to reconvene and many of them did not want to come to work.”
Yet between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration, lawmakers eventually approved $5.2 trillion in COVID aid, which Massie says works out to be about $40,000 for every household in America. He contends that deficit spending is leading to inflation, supply shortages, and employers desperate for workers.
“We’ve adopted this policy where we’re paying people not to work – not just the people who need it, but people who don’t need it,” he says. “I’ve had small business owners, regardless of political stripe… begging me to change the policies that keep people at home.”
COVID Vaccination and Mask Mandates
Massie’s libertarian proclivities have also led him to oppose mandates that would force Americans to get a COVID vaccine or wear a mask. He even sued Speaker Pelosi over a $500 fine he received for not wearing a face mask on the House floor. The Congressman contends the policy violates First Amendment freedom of speech and the 27th Amendment on the compensation of senators and representatives. Two other House Republicans, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, are also part of the lawsuit.
“We’ll take it to Supreme Court if we have to because what we believe she is doing, one of the strongest planks in our lawsuit, is that she is using our salaries to change our activity to modulate our speech,” he says.
A second offense could cost Massie a $2,500 dock in pay, but he says he has no plans to wear mask when he returns to Washington.
“I’ve found that If I walk in discreetly, vote quickly, and then leave the chamber, they don’t have time to serve me notice,” the Congressman says. “That’s the strategy I’ll be adopting.”
As for vaccinations, Massie says he is not opposed to the COVID vaccines. Instead, he opposes vaccine mandates for Americans. As a COVID survivor himself, Massie argues that the natural immunity he acquired should be considered as legitimate as the immunity generated by one of the three available COVID vaccines.
“I will not consider getting the vaccine until I see evidence that it improves on the natural immunity that I’ve already been conveyed,” he says. “But I’m not telling people to not take the vaccine. I’m telling people to talk to your doctor. Don’t listen to a politician. Don’t listen to a public health expert.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently announced that all military personnel will be required to get a COVID vaccine starting in mid-September. Austin says the move is critical to maintaining military readiness and national security.
Massie objects to the plan, saying he it will lead to vaccine-hesitant service members exiting the military.
“I think they’re employing political science and not science because they too refuse to acknowledge prior infection,” says the Congressman. “I think people should have a choice in taking those shots. That’s just, I think, a basic human right.”
Massie is sponsoring legislation along with 30 other members of Congress that would block the Pentagon from mandating a COVID vaccination. He admits, though, that the bill is unlikely to pass.
Infrastructure and Agriculture Legislation
Although he says he’s voted to fund infrastructure projects in the past, Massie says he’s unlikely to endorse the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package approved by the Senate earlier this month.
“Only about $110 billion of this trillion-dollar-plus bill is actually going to roads and bridges, and that’s the problem that I have with it,” he says.
The Lewis County Republican says the legislation includes too much money for mass transit. He contends that won’t benefit his district, which runs through northern Kentucky from Ashland to La Grange. He also opposes a provision to provide high-speed internet service to prison inmates, as well as an appropriation of $15 billion for electric car charging stations.
“I drive an electric car, I would love to see more infrastructure for electric cars,” says Massie. “The problem is when the government does it at the rest stops, it disincentivizes what’s already happening, which is private investment of charging stations at privately owned gas stations.”
Like most legislation he opposes, Massie says the infrastructure bill simply tries to do too much. He contends Congress should vote on simpler, single-issue bills instead of omnibus packages.
“The prevailing wisdom in D.C. is the bigger the bill is, the more reasons there are to vote for it,” he says. “There’s something for everybody in it and they’ll almost dare you to vote against it.”
An issue that Massie does support is diversifying the nation’s food supply chain. He says four meat packers process and market 85 percent of the meat sold in the U.S. What’s worse, he says, is that two of those companies are foreign owned. He’s proposed legislation to address the issue and help consumers and beef, pork, and poultry farmers.
“The PRIME Act would allow a farmer to use a local processor who’s inspected by the health department and occasionally inspected by the USDA… to use that local processor to sell to local consumers as long as they don’t leave the state with that commerce,” he says.
Massie says the bill is especially important now given the dramatic increases in the prices of meat in grocery stories. The legislation now has 23 cosponsors, including six Democrats. Massie says he thinks the best option for passage of the PRIME Act is as an amendment to an upcoming farm bill.
