The bipartisan North Carolina elections board said on Monday it has the power to ban Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) from running for reelection over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“The State does not judge the qualifications of the elected members of the U.S. House of Representative. It polices candidate qualifications prior to the elections,” the board wrote according to CNN.
“States have long enforced age and residency requirements, without question and with very few if any legal challenges,” the board added. “The State has the same authority to police which candidates should or should not be disqualified per Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The board made the assertion in response to a lawsuit filed by Cawthorn after a group of North Carolina voters challenged his candidacy arguing that his comments in the speech at the Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol violates the 14th Amendment and he should be barred from seeking office again.
The 14th Amendment says no one can serve 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.”
