Challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene 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 Greene 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 an October report by Rolling Stone. In the weeks leading up to January 6, Greene publicly stated that violence might be necessary to keep Trump in power, calling the date “our 1776 moment” (a codeword used by violent extremists to refer to an attack on government buildings). Since the insurrection, Representative Greene has attempted to defend the violence on January 6 as justified by the Declaration of Independence, calling convicted participants in the insurrections “political prisoners of war” and falsely claiming that the violence at the Capitol was perpetrated by “antifa” infiltrators or the FBI.

On March 24, 2022, a group of Georgia voters filed a legal challenge to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy for re-election in 2022. Under Georgia’s candidacy challenge statute, once a challenge is filed, the Secretary of State must request a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge of the Office of State Administrative Hearings to determine whether the candidate is qualified for office. The burden of proof then shifts to the candidate, who must “affirmatively establish [their] eligibility for office.” The challengers intend to issue subpoenas to Greene and take her deposition under oath—something that the U.S. House January 6 Select Committee has not yet done.

The voters are represented by Free Speech For People, which is serving as co-lead counsel in the matter, along with New York-based Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP. Bryan Sells, an Atlanta-based civil rights lawyer specializing in voting rights and election law, is serving as local counsel.

In response, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, filed a federal lawsuit against the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, seeking to block that proceeding (Greene v. Raffensperger).