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Judge tosses lawsuit over Virginia state senator’s censure

In this Feb. 2, 2021, photo, Virginia Sen. Amanda Chase and Republican gubernatorial candidate, speaks from her desk at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, Va. The national Republican Party is at war with itself, struggling to reconcile a bitter divide between former President Donald Trump’s fierce loyalists and those who want Trumpism purged from their party. Chase is a polarizing state senator who seems to have won the hearts and minds of the Trump faithful with her fiercely anti-establishment, pro-gun positions and her embrace of the false notion that Trump is the legitimate winner of the November election. (AP Photo/Ryan M. Kelly)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal judge has sided with the state of Virginia and tossed out a lawsuit filed by Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase over her censure by the Virginia Senate.

U.S. District Judge Robert Payne ruled against Chase, a far-right-wing conservative often at odds with even fellow Republicans.

She filed the lawsuit in February, a few days after her colleagues passed the censure resolution on a bipartisan vote.

It denounced her for what it called a “pattern of unacceptable conduct.”

Chase was seeking a declaratory judgment that the censure violated her First Amendment rights and wanted the censure expunged and her seniority restored.