A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court’s ruling regarding a challenge to Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s (R-North Carolina) candidacy, which could influence challenges against other candidates who have been accused of aiding an insurrection against the U.S. due to their attempts to keep former President Donald Trump in power.
A federal district judge previously ruled that Cawthorn’s eligibility to run for office couldn’t be challenged due to the Amnesty Act of 1872, which granted amnesty to former members of the Confederacy who had been barred from holding office due to conditions listed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But that rationale was rejected on Tuesday in a ruling from a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
“We hold only that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not categorically exempt all future rebels and insurrectionists from the political disabilities that otherwise would be created by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the opinion from the court, written by Judge Toby Heytens, said.
Although the court made it explicitly clear that it was not directly ruling on Cawthorn’s eligibility, leaving that to lower courts to decide upon, its decision does mean that the Amnesty Act cannot be used as a means of defense against such challenges. The appeals panel also ruled that the challenge to Cawthorn wasn’t moot, even though he lost in a primary election to another Republican candidate earlier this week.
The ruling is only legally binding in jurisdictions overseen by the Fourth Circuit Court, which include the states of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But the ruling could still influence decisions in other courts where Republicans are facing 14th Amendment challenges.
Five voters in Georgia, for example, are challenging the candidacy of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a Trump loyalist who pushed for his administration to consider using martial law in order to keep the former president in power following his loss to now-President Joe Biden.
Earlier this year, Georgia Administrative Law Judge Charles Beaudrot ruled against the challenge from the voters on Greene’s candidacy, improperly shifting the responsibility of proving whether Greene was eligible to run to the voters, despite Georgia precedent saying that the onus should lie on the candidate. Beaudrot also claimed that the challengers hadn’t presented enough evidence, and that therefore, he wasn’t obligated to make any decision regarding the 1872 law.
Those voters filed an appeal arguing that Beaudrot’s ruling rested on faulty logic, and that Greene’s advocacy for the use of martial law and her vote against the certification of the 2020 presidential election should render her ineligible.
“Greene’s defense rested almost entirely on her claimed lack of memory,” the appeal states, adding that Greene “answered ‘I don’t recall’ or some version thereof more than 80 times during the hearing.”
It’s possible that the Amnesty Act question could come about during the appeal in Greene’s case within the 11th Circuit Court system, which Georgia is a part of. The ruling in the Cawthorn case could be cited as a legal precedent in Greene’s case.
The Cawthorn decision could also impact other Trump-loyalist Republicans. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona are currently facing similar challenges based on 14th Amendment eligibility questions.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy