Marjorie Taylor Greene faces backlash for canceling Costa Rica Congress

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, faced backlash on Friday for going on vacation to Costa Rica, ultimately skipping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to Congress and not speaking personally about the nearly 1 $.7 trillion omnibus bill.

The GOP congresswoman has been on vacation with her family for the past week, Business Insider reported Friday. However, she still managed to maintain her presence online by posting a Twitter thread on her support for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his bid for House Speaker. In another Twitter thread, Greene also blasted Representative Lauren Boebert after the Colorado Republican criticized her for her past belief in “Jewish space lasers.”

However, her online presence wasn’t enough for those who took to Twitter to criticize her for leaving at a time when her state was facing power outages from an extreme winter storm.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene vacations in Costa Rica while hundreds of thousands of Georgians are without power. Cruz vacationed in Cancun while hundreds froze to death. Trump took a vacation to his golf courses while Covid ravaged our nation the fan, Republican vacation!” Political commentator Lindy Li tweeted.

Greene was also slammed for criticizing Zelenskyy and skipping his speech to Congress on Wednesday. He tweeted before his speech that international development aid is like Americans being “raped by their own elected leaders every day.”

“Despite all her angry tweets about the omnibus law and Zelenskyy, Marjorie Taylor Greene was caught earlier this week fleeing the country to Costa Rica on vacation by the political action committee MeidasTouch.

Greene voted by proxy against the spending bill, despite having heavily criticized it, saying in a posted Monday letter from PatriotTakes on Twitter: “Due to the ongoing public health emergency, I am unable to physically attend the proceedings [COVID]and I hereby grant authority to cast my vote by proxy to the Honorable Barry Moore (Alabama), who has agreed to act as my proxy.”

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is vacationing in Costa Rica instead of voting on important legislation. she is in [sic] embarrassment for the United States.” said Twitter user Harry Sison.

So did Erica Marsh, a former field organizer for President Joe Biden tweeted: “Earlier this year, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced legislation to ban voting by proxy for members of Congress. Today she has [voted] by proxy while vacationing in Costa Rica.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, challenged Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, to call Greene a “liar” after Roy told Fox News on Friday that many lawmakers won’t be there to advocate for the to vote for the Omnibus Act. Roy added that citing COVID concerns when they are actually on the Christmas holidays, they will be voting by proxy.

“Half of this body won’t even be here. And they lie, they lie on forms and say they’re voting vicariously for COVID, and it’s a lie,” Roy said.

“Why don’t you call @RepMTG a liar,” Swalwell said, addressing Roy in a tweet.

Proxy voting is a COVID-related procedure originally instituted to allow lawmakers to skip meetings in Washington, DC to stem the spread of the virus. However, it was used for reasons unrelated to the pandemic. Just over 200 representatives of the House of Representatives voted by proxy on Thursday.

Though Greene has exploited this practice, she has been fiercely critical of it in the past, and introduced legislation in March to abolish the practice, according to Business Insider. “Now that COVID is over and we’ve gotten back to normal life, Congresswoman Greene is ready to end proxy voting,” Greene’s spokesman Nick Dyer told the outlet in May.

news week reached out to Greene’s media spokesman for comment.