Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase filed a federal lawsuit against the legislature on Monday after her colleagues voted to condemn her for praising pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The case was filed against the Virginia Senate for alleged violations of civil rights following a vote to reprimand Chase for showing a “pattern of unacceptable behavior” on Jan. 27.
The lawsuit aims to prevent the senate clerk from publishing the motion of no confidence in the chamber’s official magazine, and seeks to remove the censorship altogether.
Chase’s lawyers claimed that the censorship against her caused her to have ‘public embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish and loss of seniority’ and that her campaign ‘had a negative impact’. The Virginia pilot report.
Chase is currently one of two elected officials seeking to run for the Virginia Republican Party’s 2021 nomination as governor.
The GOP senator alleges that the censorship violates the Equal Protection of the Fourteenth Amendment clause by punishing her “selectively” because she “takes unpopular political positions with which the majority of Virginia Senate members disagree.”
“In all cases of administering censorship of state-elected officials in the country, no one is based solely on the speech of an elected official,” the lawsuit reads, according to ABC13 News.
The motion of no confidence was introduced by Democratic Senator John Bell after Chase refused to apologize for calling pro-Trump insurgents “patriots” and for using a rhetoric against Ashli Babbitt, a woman who during the uprising was fatally shot by U.S. Capitol police.
The measure said Chase ” acted a ” senator during her tenure by showing contempt for civilization in conversations with colleagues, making false and misleading statements in committee and on the Senate floor and disregarding the importance’s. tone. of her duty to the citizens of the Commonwealth as an elected representative in the Senate of Virginia. ‘
The resolution was approved by a 24-9 vote, with three Republicans joining the House Democrats to disregard Chase.
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Chase, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, but said she was gone before things got violent.
In a Facebook message, Chase said she was there to ‘believe those of us who believe the We the People’s election was stolen. It was not a fair, free election. We do not believe the lies, deception and complete stealing of this. presidential election in 2020. ‘
At least five people were killed during the riots, including one Capitol Hill police officer. Days after the uprising, Virginia Senate Democrats issued a statement accusing Chase of “empowering a failed coup” and calling on her to resign.
“Senator Chase has not shown good judgment or leadership for Senate District 11 or the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is in the best interest that the Senate of Virginia and her constituents resign,” the Democratic Caucus of the Senate in Virginia said last month. said in a statement. .
In response to the resignation calls, Chase called her Democratic colleagues “traitors to both the U.S. Constitution and the Virginia Constitution.”
Chase had earlier called for martial law to block the results of the 2020 presidential election, and she has insisted on false allegations that the election was stolen because of voter fraud. On January 7, Chase was suspended from Facebook over false allegations that Antifa had infiltrated the Trump protest and initiated violence.
Bell tells The Virginia pilot that the Senate finally voted to condemn Chase after she did not denounce her statements from the past.
“There was definitely a proper process given to her, and I and everyone gave her the chance to speak her piece,” he said.
Newsweek reached Chase for further comment but did not hear in time for publication.