OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn faces up to 20 days in jail after being charged for driving with a revoked license earlier this month.
The North Carolina Republican, 26, who was reportedly very cooperative during his stop, was pulled over in mid-morning on March 3 in Cleveland County, N.C. after his 2019 Toyota pickup crossed the center line, the Ashville Citizen-Times reported.
The lawmaker was cited for driving with a revoked license by state Trooper Tyler Gantt, who noted in the ticket that the Republican congressman “was very police and cooperative.”
“The driver was identified as David Madison Cawthorn, 26 years old of Hendersonville, N.C.,” said Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Marcus Bethea. “During the course of the investigation, it was determined that the driver’s license was in a state of revocation and he was subsequently charged with driving while license revoked.”
“Cawthorn uses a wheelchair after being seriously injured in a 2014 car accident in Florida,” Citizen-Times reported. “A friend who was driving fell asleep while Cawthorn slept in the passenger seat, according to his 2019 federal court filing against the insurance company.”
Last month, Cawthorn appeared to survive an attempt by Democrat activists to prevent him from running for reelection this year, alleging that he participated in fomenting an “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, by taking part in an event featuring then-President Donald Trump.
Activists cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Congress, on a two-thirds vote, can remove that “disability.”
“What is going on here is that they are actually very close to being able to subvert the will of over 700,000 Americans,” Cawthorn told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in mid-February, a reference to the voters in his district.
“And make no mistake, Tucker: This is not just about a 26-year-old from western North Carolina in a wheelchair. This is about the future of our very nation,” he added. “If they’re able to set this precedent in North Carolina, they will be able to keep anybody who had valid and legitimate concerns about what happened in the 2020 election from being able to ever hold office.”
Last week, Richard E. Myers, the Chief District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019, blocked the effort to bar Cawthorn from running, citing an 1870s-era law.
WMBF notes:
Attorney for Cawthorn, Jim Bopp, disagreed and said the attempt to keep Cawthorn off the ballot is unconstitutional.
“The disability involved in under the 14th amendment which says that people who had engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States was disqualified from holding office, including Congress,” Bopp said.
Ultimately, Bopp’s arguments relied on the Amnesty Act of 1872, a federal law that reversed many of the penalties imposed by the 14th Amendment following the Civil War.
“The plain language, you just can’t get over the plain language. The political disabilities imposed by the 14th amendment which was to preclude people who had engaged in an insurrection or rebellion from holding a public office like congress, that that act in 1872 waived that disability from everyone except for a few exceptions,” he said.
