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On Monday (April 18), a federal judge gave Georgia voters the power to disqualify Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for re-election. The judge handed down the ruling citing Greene's role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Last month, Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance organization, filed a challenge to Greene's re-election with the Georgia Secretary of State's Office using a rarely-used provision of the 14th Amendment. Court documents show that the group specifically accused Greene of disrupting Congress by helping facilitate the Capitol Riot in an attempt to block Joe Biden's 2020 Election win.
The Constitutional provision states that anyone "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," cannot be elected to Congress. The amendment was ratified right after the Civil War to prevent lawmakers who had fought for the Confederacy from returning to office.
Greene made a request in court to rule the law unconstitutional and stop state officials from enforcing it, but Judge Amy Totenberg denied Greene's request in a 73-page ruling.
In her brief time in Congress, Greene was stripped of her committee assignments following a string of racist, anti-Semitic remarks online and in person. Should Greene be blocked from re-election, Georgia would see yet another seat open up in the upcoming midterm election. There's a few steps to get there but, this ruling is critical to the process laid out by state law.
Greene, 47, represents Georgia's 14th Congressional District which includes northwest counties in the state.
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