Should Rep. Madison Cawthorn be disqualified from being a U.S. Congressman? That’s the question a group of North Carolina voters are raising, saying the Republican lawmaker can not represent the Tar Heel State because the U.S. Constitution bans anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from holding office.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,” reads a part of the Fourteenth Amendment, who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Lawyers representing a group of 11 voters have filed a candidacy challenge against Cawthorn with the State Board of Elections, ABC News reports, citing the Constitutional prohibition.
The written challenge says the events on Jan. 6, 2021 “amounted to an insurrection” and that Cawthorn’s speech at the rally supporting President Donald Trump, his other comments and information in published reports provide a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that he helped facilitate the insurrection and is thus disqualified.
Cawthorn, who spoke at Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, has been accused of helping to incite the insurrection, including one day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol and American democracy, by a North Carolina newspaper columnist, a North Carolina sheriff who endorsed Cawthorn, The Huffington Post, and a government watchdog group, among many others.