Outcast Republican senator is earning some GOP support for COVID-19 bills
Chesterfield Sen. Amanda Chase has been kicked out of her local Republican party, left the chamber’s Republican Caucus and faced formal censure for baseless claims of election fraud, a vote that saw Republican colleagues openly criticize her on the Senate floor.
That hasn’t stopped many of them from supporting her bills to roll back COVID-19 protective measures. On Wednesday, Republicans on the Senate’s General Laws Committee unanimously supported Chase-sponsored legislation that would have classified mask mandates and vaccine requirements as illegal discrimination. On Thursday, all six Republicans on the Senate Education and Health committee supported a bill that would have banned the Virginia Board of Health from disciplining doctors who prescribed hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to patients with COVID-19.
Democrats, who still hold a slim majority in the chamber, ultimately voted down both bills. But the wide support they’ve enjoyed from Republicans underscore the hyperpartisanship that’s largely come to define the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Steve Newman, R-Bedford, once suggested that Chase’s behavior indicated “a bit of a call for help.” But on Thursday, he seemed receptive to the idea that doctors could use more flexibility in prescribing drugs for “off-label” use, a term that generally refers to using a medication for a condition it’s not approved to treat.
“I think the issue is even broader than this,” said Newman, who once served as chair of the Education and Health committee, making an unsuccessful motion to incorporate the legislation into a wider bill aimed at off-label prescribing more generally. “We should not be restricting physicians at all — three to four years ago, when I was involved, it was never done.”
Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/01/21/outcast-republican-senator-is-earning-some-gop-support-for-covid-19-bills/
= new reply since forum marked as read
