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The North Carolina State Board of Elections said a constitutional challenge to Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy should be allowed to proceed despite the Republican lawmaker's efforts to stop it.
In a court filing Monday, the board argued that Cawthorn's lawsuit to end a voter challenge to his bid for re-election was premature and should be dismissed.
A group of North Carolina voters filed the challenge last month, urging the board to disqualify Cawthorn from future elections due to his involvement in last year's pro-Trump rally that immediately preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection. Cawthorn, a tree-punching extremist known for targeting opponents with violent rhetoric, repeated then-President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud during his speech at the Jan. 6 rally. And in August, he warned there could be “bloodshed” over future elections Republicans consider to be rigged.
North Carolinians are legally allowed to challenge a political candidate’s eligibility for office if there’s “reasonable suspicion” the candidate ought to be disqualified. In Cawthorn’s case, the voters cited the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress” who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after previously pledging to “support the Constitution.”
In his lawsuit, Cawthorn argued in part that the state board did not have the authority to block his candidacy. But the board disputed that claim in its response, calling his arguments "dubious."
“States have long enforced age and residency requirements, without question and with very few if any legal challenges,” the board wrote. “The State has the same authority to police which candidates should or should not be disqualified per Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The board was right to call out the dubiousness of Cawthorn’s legal arguments. In his court filing, his lawyers claimed an 1872 law that permitted Confederate traitors to run for public office should effectively overrule the 14th Amendment. But legal experts disagree, saying the law was written to apply to Confederates specifically.
It is quite revealing of how Cawthorn sees himself, though. In arguing that he shouldn’t be viewed as a traitor — and, thus, barred from serving in office — he and his team are citing law previously used to protect traitors.
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