Read the complaint seeking to keep Madison Cawthorn out of Congress, and his response
North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn should be disqualified from running for reelection to Congress in 2022 after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building, a complaint filed Monday claims.
The complaint against Cawthorn, first reported by The Associated Press, is being backed by James Exum Jr., a Democrat and the former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, as well as former Republican N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, a vocal critic of Donald Trump and his congressional allies like Cawthorn.
It claims that the third section of the 14th Amendment, written to prevent former Confederate leaders from serving in Congress after the Civil War, should also apply to current members of Congress who supported Trump’s failed effort to overturn the 2020 election that put Democratic President Joe Biden in office.
The process for state elections officials to decide on the complaint will begin Wednesday. The N.C. State Board of Elections will meet at 2 p.m. to select people to serve on a panel to hear the arguments from both Cawthorn and his accusers, and consider the merits of their arguments.
Read the full complaint here.
In part, it says there is reason to suspect that “Cawthorn was involved in planning efforts to intimidate Congress and the Vice President into rejecting valid electoral votes and subvert the essential constitutional function of an orderly and peaceful transition of power.”
The complaint adds that Cawthorn and other GOP officials, including Trump, took actions that “led directly, intentionally, and foreseeably to the insurrectionists’ violent assault on the Capitol.”
The panel that gets chosen to hear the complaint should have either three or five people, state law says, all living in the district Cawthorn intends to run in, and they should include “members affiliated with different political parties.”
They must meet and issue a decision soon, within the next 20 business days, to allow time for possible appeals of their decision.
Cawthorn wasted no time in publicizing the complaint himself — tweeting about it to criticize it and raise money from supporters.
“Left-wing activists are trying to stop me from fighting for YOU THE PEOPLE!” he tweeted, alongside a link to contribute to his campaign. “I won’t be stopped. Help me fight back!”
Cawthorn is a prolific fundraiser. He has become popular nationally for pushing disproven claims about election fraud that, although false, remain popular on the right.
His campaign brought in $2.4 million just in the first nine months of 2021, according to Federal Elections Commission data. That’s more than any other member of the U.S. House from North Carolina — even fellow Republican Rep. Ted Budd, who is running a statewide campaign for U.S. Senate.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 1:37 PM with the headline "Read the complaint seeking to keep Madison Cawthorn out of Congress, and his response."
