A group of Georgia voters seeking to prevent Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection got a boost from a federal judge on Monday, who ruled that the legal challenge to the lawmaker’s candidacy can proceed.
Free Speech for People, an election reform group, has argued that Greene violated a clause in the 14th Amendment that prevents insurrectionists from running for office.
The Washington Post explains:
The rarely cited provision of the amendment states that no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”
The amendment was ratified shortly after the Civil War. The provision in question was meant to prevent lawmakers who fought for the Confederacy from being reelected to Congress.
Greene’s rhetoric, Free Speech for People claim, helped inspire the January 6th Capitol riot. She has asserted that fighting non-existent fraud in the 2020 presidential election is “our 1776 moment.” She also said the riot was consistent with the Declaration of Independence, because it sought to “overthrow tyrants.”
140 police officers were injured in the January 6th assault, which also caused extensive property damage to the Capitol and briefly delayed the certification of Joe Biden’s clear win in the 2020 election.
Greene sought to have the challenge to her reelection bid dismissed, but Judge Amy Totenberg, an Obama-nominee based in Georgia, said her legal team failed to meet the “burden of persuasion.”
The Washington Post reports:
Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, told The Washington Post that his organization looks forward to questioning Greene under oath about her involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.
“It’s rare for any conspirator, let alone a Member of Congress, to publicly admit that the goals of their actions are preventing a peaceful transfer of power and the death of the president-elect and Speaker of the House, but that’s exactly what Marjorie Taylor Greene did,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution disqualifies from public office any elected officials who aided the insurrection, and we look forward to asking Representative Greene about her involvement under oath.”
A similar lawsuit was filed against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the Republican from North Carolina, but it was dismissed by a judge last month.
CBS News provides additional context on the Greene case:
Georgia law allows voters to challenge the qualifications of a candidate by filing a written complaint with the secretary of state laying out the reasons why they believe the candidate is not qualified to seek and hold public office. Receipt of the challenge then triggers an administrative proceeding before an administrative law judge, set for Friday, during which the voters will establish why Greene should be disqualified to run for reelection in November’s midterm elections.
Following the hearing, the administrative law judge will then report his findings to the secretary of state, who determines whether the candidate is qualified to seek and hold public office. The decision can be appealed to the Superior Court of Fulton County and the Georgia Court of Appeals or Supreme Court.
In their candidacy challenge filed with Raffensberger, the voters argued the events of January 6 “amounted to an insurrection or a rebellion under Section Three [of the 14th Amendment]: a violent, coordinated effort to storm the Capitol to prevent the vice president of the United States and the United States Congress from fulfilling their constitutional roles by certifying President Biden’s victory, and to illegally extend then-President Trump’s tenure in office, including by illegally introducing illegitimate electors as ‘alternate slates’ for Congress to vote on.”
