Marjorie Taylor Greene is fighting for her right to run for re-election. Some of her “constituents” (fronts for the national Democratic Party?) filed suit in Georgia to deny her a place on the ballot because they say she violated the “disqualification clause” of the 14th Amendment. That amendment was passed during Reconstruction and sought to prohibit former Confederate “insurrectionists” from running for office.
Marjorie Taylor Greene — MTG to some — is definitely an acquired taste. Republicans could stomach her antics for less than a year before they threw her off the committees she was serving on. Her conspiracy-addled mind would be pathetic except that she was legitimately elected and sent to Washington to represent her constituents.
They should be the ones who decide if Marjorie Taylor Greene should be retired.
Greene’s attorney is making the common-sense argument that whatever Greene said about the 2020 election was protected speech under the First Amendment.
In his opening argument, Bopp argued that Greene’s efforts to deny Biden’s victory — including her calls for a response to Congress’s certification of the election results — are protected under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
While he said that the Jan. 6 riot was “despicable,” he argued that Greene should not be held responsible for the actions of those who perpetrated the attack.
Bopp also argued that if Greene is ultimately disqualified from the ballot, it would deny residents of her district the right to cast their ballots for the candidate of their choice.
Remember: It’s Republicans who are trying to “destroy democracy.”
Greene’s exhortations to Republicans to “Fight for Trump” are being used to “prove” that she helped incite the riot on Jan. 6, 2021. It’s an old story that Democrats use to criminalize metaphorical speech when it suits their purpose. But this challenge is ludicrous.
It’s a political attack to continuously refer to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as an “insurrection.” There has been no “plan” to overthrow the government uncovered in any of the numerous investigations. There were individuals and small groups who tried to coordinate action on Jan. 6, but in the end, it was just a bunch of thugs and yahoos running around making a mess of the Capitol building and disgracing themselves and anyone cheering them on.
A riot, yes. An “insurrection” or “rebellion”? Don’t be silly.
At the heart of the case against Ms. Greene is the plaintiffs’ claim that the congresswoman is disqualified from seeking re-election because her support of the rioters who attacked the Capitol made her an “insurrectionist” under the Constitution, and therefore barred her under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted during the Reconstruction years to punish members of the Confederacy.
That section declares that “no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath” to “support the Constitution,” had then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Greene made the point that she was in fear of her life as well because she was in the Capitol building when the rioters broke in. She was sworn in less than three weeks previously, and the notion that this newbie Congresswoman could “incite” anything is balmy.
The plaintiffs have no case to make — just political mischief for Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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