Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, is the latest member of the House hit with a hefty fine for violating security protocols tied to metal detectors planted at each entrance of the chamber.
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Last Thursday, Foxx, first elected to the House in 2004, tossed her bag under a table adjacent to the magnetometer and “ran” through it and while setting it off. However, instead of stopping for Capitol Police for a secondary security check to be wanded with a hand device, she continued to the floor. That despite officers asking her to stop, according to witness statements from two officers posted by the House Ethics Committee.
Following the floor vote, the North Carolina Republican allegedly returned to go through the security check and picked up her bag. She went through the metal detector and told officers, “Good thing no one stopped me.”
Four other House lawmakers, three Republicans and one Democrat, were previously fined for violating the metal detector rule. It was passed by the Democrats in the chamber in early February at the insistence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, when supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump tried to stop the Electoral College vote count that made Joe Biden the next president.
Under the rule, House members are fined $5,000 for the first violation and $10,000 for the second.
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In addition to Foxx, lawmakers ensnared by the metal detector rule include GOP Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas, and Hal Rogers of Kentucky, and Rep. Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, the House majority whip. All appealed their fines to the House Ethics Committee. The panel so far has rejected Gohmert’s and Clyde’s appeal.
Rogers and Clyburn have yet to hear back from the committee on their appeals. Clyde, however, has prepared a lawsuit to fight the $15,000 metal detector fines he was slapped with.
