State Representative Joe Deshotel of Beaumont was tested Thursday evening night at the Capitol and is in quarantine with minor symptoms. This comes three days after the session opened.
He's not the only state lawmaker in quarantine. His desk is only three feet behind Democrat Michelle Beckley of Carrollton. "Everybody on Tuesday was not required to be tested. Only guests were required and it was left up to the members discretion and he choose not to test during the week."
She says that means he may have been spreading the virus for 48 hours. "This is not partisan. He's another Democrat. I had the false assumption that Democrats were being more careful and I've come to find out that was not the case." She says he was a little more lax than some of the others.
Beckley says for the most part everyone the House floor wears masks. She says the rules the house voted on are not adequate. "I was told by party leadership that staying three feet apart was a compromise. I don't know what it was a compromise from what. There's no partitioning of us. We're sitting exactly the same as if there was no pandemic, and there's 150 of us in the state house.
Beckley is so cautious of the virus that she and another state representative were sworn in outside the Capitol Tuesday.