Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims, an openly gay Democrat, ripped into House Republicans in an epic rant on Wednesday night, alleging that they covered up a lawmaker's COVID-19 diagnosis.
Law & Crime reports: From his office in the statehouse, Sims railed against Pennsylvania House Republicans for a scorching — at times screaming, and at times profanity-laden — 12 minutes. According to Sims, Rep. Andrew Lewis (R) tested positive for COVID-19, but the GOP never informed House Democrats – not even those who had been in contact with Lewis. Sims angrily called out Pennsylvania's “gerrymandered Republican leadership” for arguing that it was safe to reopen the state – all while secretly testing positive for COVID-19 themselves. Sims said that Pennsylvania's state government committee “has been the place where all of these fucked up bills to pretend that it is safe to go back to work have been going.” He continued to say that “every day, the committee has met so that its members could line up and explain that it was safe to go back to work,” but that “meanwhile, we are learning that during that time period, they were testing positive.”
More from NBC News: Rep. Andrew Lewis, R-Dauphin, said in a Facebook Live address Wednesday night, hours after he publicly announced he had tested positive, that he informed as few people as possible about contracting the coronavirus because he wanted to protect the privacy of those around him and because he was only in close quarters with a handful of house colleagues. … Sims said the state attorney general needs to investigate how the notification was handled. He also called on Speaker of the House Mike Turzai to resign. Any representative who knew about Lewis' case and didn't inform colleagues “needs to be investigated by the attorney general and I think that they need to be prosecuted.”
Watch it below.
