Challenges to Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mark Finchem Under 14.3 Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, known as the Disqualification Clause, provides: “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.” The purpose of the Disqualification Clause, passed in the wake of the Civil War, was to protect the country. Free Speech For People and Our Revolution are co-leading a national campaign to ensure that election officials across the country follow the mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The coordinated and violent attack on the United States Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying the presidential vote on January 6, 2021 was an insurrection against the United States. The publicly available evidence establishes that Gosar, Biggs, and Finchem either helped to plan the attack on January 6, or alternatively helped to plan the pre-attack demonstration and/or march on the Capitol, with knowledge that it was substantially likely to lead to the attack, and otherwise voluntarily aided the insurrection. Some of this evidence was brought to the attention of the public in a report by Rolling Stone, citing reports from organizers of the pre-attack demonstration.

Arizona voters filed legal challenges to U.S. Representative Paul Gosar, U.S. Representative Andy Biggs, and Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem’s 2022 candidacies. The challenges allege that they are constitutionally disqualified from public office under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution based on reasonable suspicion that they helped facilitate the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The voters are represented by Free Speech For People, which is serving as co-lead counsel, alongside the Tempe-based election law firm Barton Mendez Soto and the New York-based firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoof Abady Ward & Maazel.

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