Left-wing efforts to disqualify some Republican members of Congress from seeking re-election on the basis that they participated in an insurrection related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill suffered another blow Friday when a Georgia judge found that the Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is free to seek a second term.
Five voters in Greene’s district, working with academics and liberal activists, challenged his candidacy on the grounds that he participated in an insurrection with his rhetoric in the run-up to the Capitol riots. On the witness stand in April, Greene repeatedly said that he had no recollection of making such comments, that he called for a peaceful demonstration and that he was unaware of the plans for violence.
Friday’s decision that rejected the challenge from Georgia voters is the latest in a series of efforts to disqualify candidates for ties to the Jan. 6 riots that have failed.
In March, a judge blocked a challenge to Rep. Madison Cawthorn (RN.C.)’s candidacy on similar grounds, after opponents argued that her participation in former President Trump’s Ellipse “Stop the Steal” rally on January made him ineligible for office.
Free Speech for People, a nonprofit voting rights organization, which is behind the Greene and Cawthorn challenges, also tried to keep Representatives Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were removed from the ballot as of Jan. 6. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed those complaints last month, saying the plaintiffs did not have the legal authority to challenge their candidacies.
The disqualification clause in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted after the Civil War, says that those who previously took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in an insurrection or rebellion” cannot hold office.
Several House Democrats, including members of the House select committee formed to investigate the attack on Capitol Hill, have explored using the disqualification clause to bar Trump or other Republicans from holding office in the future.
Greene celebrated the decision by repeating the false claim that Trump stole the 2020 election from him.
“The Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election by abusing and violating our laws. Fortunately, this attempt to rig another election was stopped in its tracks,” he said in a statement on Friday.
But none of the representatives facing challenges to their candidacies is definitely safe.
Cawthorn’s challenge advanced to a federal appeals court, which heard arguments Tuesday. An attorney representing both Cawthorn and Greene, James Bopp, argued that only Congress can decide whether a candidate is qualified for Congress.
“The left cannot beat the MAGA warriors at the polls. If they could, they wouldn’t be trying to remove them from the ballot and disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters,” Cawthorn said in a statement Friday. “They lost in Georgia and they will lose in North Carolina. Our elections are not decided through war, the people decide.”
In Greene’s case, the decision on whether he can remain on the ballot rests with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has criticized those who downplay the Jan. 6 attack. He also drew Trump’s ire when he rejected a presidential request to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn now-President Biden’s victory in the state.
State Administrative Law Judge Charles Beaudrot will forward to Raffensperger his finding of insufficient evidence that Greene aided in the insurrection or rebellion, and then either side has 10 days to appeal in Fulton County Superior Court.
Free Speech for People has also said it plans to appeal the decision on its challenges to Biggs and Gosar.
A liberal super PAC has also filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 Wisconsinites seeking to disqualify members of the Republican Party in Wisconsin. Senator Ron Johnson and Representatives Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, spread “malicious falsehoods about a ‘rigged election,'” prior to Jan. 6 and “participated in a conspiracy whose unlawful goal was to hijack the Joint Session of the January 6, 2021 to allow the submission of knowingly false and fraudulent voter lists.”
Greene has a primary on May 24, the Cawthorn primary is May 17, the Arizona primary for Biggs and Gosar is August 2, and the Wisconsin primary is August 9.
Free Speech for People said in a statement to The Hill that Friday’s decision “grants a pass to political violence as a tool to disrupt and nullify free and fair elections.”
“We urge Secretary Raffensperger to revisit the evidence presented in the case and reject the judge’s recommendation,” the group said.
The Georgia congresswoman received broad support from top Republican House officials on the day of her hearing.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has criticized Greene’s rhetoric in the past, said in a tweet that the challenge to his candidacy was “undemocratic and un-American.” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (New York) said in a statement that the effort was “nothing more than a political circus designed to remove a law-abiding conservative leader from the ballot.” .
Associated Press contributed to this story. Updated at 5:05 pm
Reference-thehill.com