US Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene should be allowed to run for reelection, a judge has ruled, rejecting arguments by a group of Georgia voters that her comments about the US Capitol attack made her unfit for federal office.
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The ruling by Charles Beaudrot Jr., an administrative law judge in Atlanta, is only a recommendation. Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, will make the final determination whether Greene is qualified to run for reelection.
"Democrats know they can't beat me at the ballot box, so left-wing Communist activists tried to RIP my name off the ballot. And they failed," Greene said in a statement. "This assault on our Constitution confirmed what we already knew: Democrats hate our system of free and fair elections."
Greene, a prominent supporter of Republican former President Donald Trump, represents a Georgia district in the US House of Representatives, and is seeking reelection this year.
"We urge Secretary Raffensperger to take a fresh look at the evidence presented in the case and reject the judge's recommendation," said Free Speech for People, the group spearheading the legal challenge.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene helped facilitate the January 6 insurrection, and under the Constitution, she is disqualified from future office.
Greene, in comments to the media, played down and justified the US Capitol assault by Trump supporters in their failed bid to block congressional certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.
In a novel legal challenge, the Georgia group accused Greene of violating a US Constitution provision called the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause by supporting an incendiary rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
The constitutional clause, added after the US Civil War of the 1860s, prohibits politicians from running for Congress if they have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" or "given aid or comfort" to the nation's enemies.
In his ruling, Beaudrot wrote: "the Court concludes that the evidence in this matter is insufficient to establish that Rep. Greene, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress ... to support the Constitution of the United States ... engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or (gave) aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
"I was asking people to come for a peaceful march, which everyone is entitled to do," Greene told the judge at an April hearing on the effort to block her from the ballot. "I was not asking them to actively engage in violence."
Australian Associated Press
