According to a report from the Raleigh News & Observer, controversial Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has filed a legal challenge in response to an attempt to get him banned from the 2022 ballot over his alleged involvement in the January 6th insurrection that is currently being investigated by a House select committee.
At issue are moves by groups to use the language in the Constitution to bar him from holding office if he took part in seditious activities, which could lead to him being banned from being on the ballot.
Buried within the 14th Amendment is a clause that states, “No person shall be a senator or representative 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, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
As former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman argued recently in the New York Times, "... if the voter challenge succeeds in establishing that Mr. Cawthorn engaged in “insurrection or rebellion,” he would be as ineligible to serve in Congress as if it were revealed that he is 24 years old. Under North Carolina law, once challengers advance enough evidence to show reasonable suspicion that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the would-be candidate to demonstrate the contrary."
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With that in mind, the News & Observer is reporting attorneys for Cawthorn are trying to squash the bid to end his political career.
"... his lawsuit says the N.C. State Board of Elections has no authority to keep him off the ballot in the first place, and so the challenge against him should be dropped and the state law allowing for such challenges should be ruled unconstitutional,"the reports states, adding that his lawyers claim in their filing, "Running for political office is quintessential First Amendment activity and afforded great protection."
“Here, Rep. Cawthorn is required to produce countervailing evidence to prove a negative (i.e., he did not engage in an insurrection), based upon nothing more than the Challenger’s ‘reasonable suspicion,’” the lawsuit asserts. “Such a burden shifting requirement, as applied to Rep. Cawthorn here, violates his constitutional rights to due process clause under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The North Carolina Republicans lawyers also claimed the 14th Amendment "can’t be used against him or anyone else still living."
"He cites a law passed in 1872, the Amnesty Act, in which Congress decided to allow some former Confederate rebels to serve in Congress," the report states. "He says it did keep a ban on former members of Congress who had served between 1859 and 1863 and later fought in the Confederacy, but it allowed all others who had participated in insurrection against the U.S. government to serve in Congress despite their actions. So he concluded that the ban shouldn’t be able to apply to him or anyone else."
You can read more here.
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