An administrative judge ruled Friday that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene should be eligible for re-election. have her removed from the ballot.
The ruling by Georgia Administrative Court Judge Charles Beaudrot was another blow to a broader campaign by Democrats to hold the closest congressional allies of former President Donald J. Trump responsible for the deadly attack on the U.S. seat. democracy last January.
The final word on whether Ms. Greene, 47, who has become one of the most polarizing figures in American politics since being elected to the House two years ago, will be re-elected by Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
A group of voters from her district of Northwest Georgia, backed by a liberal advocacy group, had asked for Ms. Greene to be removed from the vote under the little-known third of the 14th Amendment, which had been passed during the Reconstruction years to allow members of the Federation.
That section states that “no one” shall “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state, having previously sworn an oath” to “support the Constitution” when “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or aid or comfort given to the enemies thereof.”
But in a 19-page ruling on Friday, Judge Beaudrot said the legal evidence he submitted two weeks ago during oral testimony in an Atlanta courtroom and in the filings filed by both sides had left him unconvinced.
“The evidence does not show that Rep. Greene spent months planning and conspiring to bring about the invasion and defeat the orderly transfer of power envisaged in our constitution,” Judge Beaudrot wrote.
The ruling suggested that Mrs. Greene was not impeccable for her rhetoric that led to the Capitol violence. But the judge wrote that there was a difference between a person’s speech and a person’s participation in the attack.
“Her public statements and heated rhetoric may have contributed to the environment that ultimately led to the invasion,” Judge Beaudrot wrote.
Greene’s critics argued that her reference to the Trump supporters gathering on the National Mall as “our 1776 moment” was a code word used to incite violence. Judge Beaudrot disagreed, writing that he was “unconvinced” that the comment was a “coded call” for a violent uprising.
“Heated political rhetoric? Yes,’ said the judge. “Encouragement for supporters of efforts to avoid certification of President Biden’s election? Yes. Encouragement to attend the Save America Rally or other rallies and demonstrate against the certification of the election results? Yes. A call to arms for the completion of a pre-planned violent revolution? New.”
Greene’s attorney James Bopp Jr. said Friday he hoped the ruling would end widespread efforts to discredit Republican officials as involved in an insurgency.
“The lawyers for Democrats and their allies who wanted to use Representative Greene’s First Amendment-protected speech — hyperbole — to prove she took part in an insurgency were sternly rejected by the judge,” Mr Bopp said. “That’s good news for the First Amendment and good news for our democracy.”
Free Speech for People, the legal advocacy group handling the case against Ms. Greene sued, twisting the decision and urging the Georgia Secretary of State to ignore Judge Beaudrot’s ruling.
“This decision betrays the fundamental purpose of the insurrectionist disqualification clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and relays political violence as a means to disrupt and nullify free and fair elections,” the group said in a statement.
A spokesman for Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who is Georgia’s top election official, said in an email Friday that Mr. Raffensperger had received Judge Beaudrot’s ruling and would make a decision soon.
Mr. Raffensperger faces a primary challenge from Representative Jody Hice, a Republican backed by Mr. Trump. The former president has criticized Mr Raffensperger for rejecting his efforts to reverse the election results in the state. Georgia will hold its primaries on May 24.
