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A lawsuit filed on behalf of a group of Georgia voters on Thursday seeks to bar Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for re-election over her support for rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol last year.
The complaint resembles a lawsuit filed against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., in January, which also cited the the 14th Amendment’s language prohibiting people who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from serving in Congress.
Voters in both cases are being represented by Free Speech for People, a Texas-based advocacy group. A federal judge dismissed the Cawthorn lawsuit earlier this month, but the organization is seeking an appeal.
In the Greene case, the lawsuit alleges the conspiracy theory-pushing Republican “voluntarily aided and engaged in an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power” through her actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.
The lawsuit cited, among other things, Greene’s 2019 claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will “suffer death or she’ll be in prison” for treason.
It also pointed to a video in which Greene spoke about not allowing the peaceful transfer of power after then-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and in which she told people to "show up" on Jan. 6, the day rioters attacked the Capitol.
“You can’t allow it to just transfer power peacefully like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our president because he did not win this election,” Greene claimed in the video, adding the election is “being stolen, and the evidence is there.”
(Of course, that evidence doesn't exist because the election wasn't stolen.)
The lawsuit also noted that Greene, who has described Jan. 6 defendants as “political prisoners of war,” suggested in October that the attack was justified by the Declaration of Independence.
Greene has denied participating in the planning of the Capitol riot. A spokesman for Greene told CNN on Thursday that she has "never encouraged political violence and never will."
Though the Cawthorn ruling suggests the plaintiffs in the Georgia case face an uphill battle in keeping Greene off the ballot, fighting to strip antidemocratic lawmakers of their power is always worth a shot.
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