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      Republicans Who Voted to Impeach Trump Out-Raised Primary Rivals

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      Despite their pariah status in their party, House Republicans who broke with the former president have raised more than their G.O.P. foes.WASHINGTON — All seven House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump and are seeking re-election have out-raised their primary opponents, many of whom have received Mr. Trump’s backing, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission this week.In Wyoming, Representative Liz Cheney, who was all but exiled by her party for bluntly condemning Mr. Trump’s false election claims and has emerged as one of the lead lawmakers on the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, raked in $2 million during the last quarter, entering 2022 with nearly $5 million in cash on hand. Her opponent, Harriet Hageman, who has drawn the vociferous support of Mr. Trump and his family, raised $443,000 last quarter and has about $380,000 cash on hand.Representative Fred Upton, a centrist who has held his seat in southwest Michigan for more than three decades, brought in $726,000 and has about $1.5 million cash on hand, well ahead of the challenger Mr. Trump has endorsed, Steve Carra, a state representative who raised $134,000 last quarter and has $200,000 cash on hand.Joe Kent, a Trump-backed Army Special Forces veteran prolific on social media and conservative talk shows, appeared to come closer to matching the fund-raising totals of his opponent, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, but still trailed her in both quarterly hauls and cash on hand.The disclosures illustrate the foothold that establishment conservatives and well-funded political action committees still hold among the party’s donor class, despite Mr. Trump’s continuing grip on the Republican base. They also reflect how the former president’s endorsements, which he has dangled as threats over Republican lawmakers he deems insufficiently loyal to him, have yet to translate into significant donations for the candidates he backs.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Trump vs. DeSantis: Tensions between the ex-president and Florida governor show the challenge confronting the G.O.P. in 2022.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.By contrast, Mr. Trump’s political operation is doing far better than his party in raking in money, having raised more than $51 million in the second half of 2021 and entering 2022 with more than double the cash on hand of the Republican National Committee.“The massive fund-raising hauls of some of these incumbents reflects a lot of people’s support for the positions they took,” said Alex Conant, a veteran Republican political strategist. “There’s only a handful of them, but they have a huge donor pool to draw from. And Trump has always struggled to translate his political capital to others.”Even with their hulking war chests, the Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump last year for his role in inciting the Capitol riot are expected to face grueling primary battles after inflaming the wrath of conservative voters. Some may still opt to retire, joining three of their colleagues who also voted to impeach Mr. Trump and already said they would not run for re-election in 2022.Mr. Upton said in a statement on Wednesday that he saw his fund-raising numbers as evidence of a “hunger for restoring civility and solving pressing problems” that was “resonating with people across America,” but added that he was still deliberating over whether he would run for re-election.Some of the financial disparities reflect straggling primary fields that have yet to be narrowed or candidates who only decided recently to enter their races. In South Carolina, for example, Mr. Trump endorsed a primary challenger to Representative Tom Rice on Tuesday, elevating Russell Fry, a state representative, over Graham Allen, a conservative media personality who had raised the most money in a crowded primary. Mr. Rice’s latest disclosure showed him with five times as much cash on hand as Mr. Allen.“Congressman Tom Rice of South Carolina, the coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to Nancy Pelosi and the radical left, and who actually voted against me on impeachment hoax #2, must be thrown out of office ASAP,” Mr. Trump wrote in his endorsement.Mr. Rice shot back with a retort of his own: “I’m glad he’s chosen someone. All the pleading to Mar-a-Lago was getting a little embarrassing. I’m all about Trump’s policy. But absolute pledge of loyalty, to a man that is willing to sack the Capitol to keep his hold on power, is more than I can stomach.”For Trump-backed candidates, more help from the boldfaced names of the party’s right flank is likely on the way. On Tuesday evening, a day after campaigns were required to file their latest Federal Election Commission disclosures, Mr. Kent held a fund-raiser with Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., at which couples that donated or raised $25,000 were invited to attend a private reception and take a picture with the former president.Mr. Kent has previously complained on Twitter that Ms. Herrera Beutler was “running on America Last PACs not grass roots donations,” referring to big-money political action committees that once dominated campaign fund-raising, rather than the small-dollar contributions that are a growing source of financing for Republican campaigns.But as Ms. Hageman’s fund-raising totals illustrate, Mr. Trump’s backing alone does not guarantee an immediate financial windfall. Mr. Trump has targeted Ms. Cheney as one of his most high-profile detractors in Congress, hammering away at her for months and vowing to depose her. Last month, his son, Donald Trump Jr., joined an elite fund-raiser for Ms. Hageman hosted by tech billionaire Peter Thiel at his Miami compound. The donations raised there were not reflected on the report her campaign submitted this week.Ms. Hageman has chalked up Ms. Cheney’s fund-raising prowess to support from Democrats and out-of-state Republicans. A spokesman for Ms. Hageman’s campaign said she had raised more than half of her funds from within Wyoming.Establishment Republicans have rallied to Ms. Cheney’s side. Former President George W. Bush gave her the maximum donation of $5,800, while Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, and former Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, have each helped raise money for her.Mr. Bush also gave to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted to convict Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial and is also facing a Trump-backed primary challenger. Ms. Murkowski out-raised that challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, raising $1.2 million last quarter, while Ms. Tshibaka raised about $600,000.“If you’d seen 100 Republicans voting to impeach Trump, the donor pool would have been more diluted,” Mr. Conant said. “They’re in a unique position to raise a lot of money.”Rachel Shorey More

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      How N.Y. Democrats Are Leading a ‘Master Class’ in Gerrymandering

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      The maps approved by Democrats in the New York State Legislature could lead their party to seize as many as three House seats from Republicans.Democrats across the nation have spent years railing against partisan gerrymandering, particularly in Republican states — most recently trying to pass federal voting rights legislation in Washington to all but outlaw the practice.But given the same opportunity for the first time in decades, Democratic lawmakers in New York adopted on Wednesday an aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional districts that positions the party to flip three seats in the House this year, a greater shift than projected in any other state.The new lines would shape races in New York for a decade to come, making Democrats the favorites in redrawn districts currently held by Republicans on Long Island, Staten Island and in Central New York. They would also help tighten the party’s hold on swing seats ahead of what is expected to be a strong Republican election cycle, all while eliminating a fourth Republican seat upstate altogether.Legal and political experts immediately criticized the new district contours as a blatant and hypocritical partisan gerrymander. And Republicans, who were powerless to stop it legislatively in Albany, threated to challenge the map in court under new anti-gerrymandering provisions in New York’s Constitution, though it was unclear if they could prove partisan intent.Overall, the new map was expected to favor Democratic candidates in 22 of New York’s 26 congressional districts. Democrats currently control 19 seats in the state, compared with eight held by Republicans. New York is slated to lose one seat overall this year because of national population changes in the 2020 census.“It’s a master class in how to draw an effective gerrymander,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which has also sounded alarms about attempts by Republicans to gerrymander and pass other restrictive voting laws.“Sometimes you do need fancy metrics to tell, but a map that gives Democrats 85 percent of the seats in a state that is not 85 percent Democratic — this is not a particularly hard case,” he said. Democratic leaders in Albany rejected the charge, saying they were confident that the new districts were entirely legal and largely wrought by adjusting for population shifts that favor their candidates.State Senator Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader and leader of a task force that drew the lines, said that mapmakers had been “very conscious of potential legal pitfalls” and “more than complied” with the extensive list of standards outlined by the state. He said the maps were fair.“It’s a dangerous game to prognosticate on how elections are going to turn out before they are held,” he said. “Voters have the final say in all these districts, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone in a state as deep blue as New York, the results would reflect the reality on the ground.”Understand Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Texas: Republicans want to make Texas even redder. Here are four ways their proposed maps further gerrymandered the state’s House districts.Many of the party’s operatives and voters were less bashful in their support of gerrymandering, arguing that Democrats could not afford to take the high road when Republicans have shown no similar inclination.Both parties have weaponized redistricting for years in the larger battle for control of the House of Representatives, but Republicans recently have been more effective in doing so, based on their control of large states like Texas and Florida, and the decision by liberal bastions like California to adopt nonpartisan redistricting commissions to handle the process.On balance, their practices have also drawn greater legal scrutiny, often related to charges of racial gerrymandering. So far, state and federal courts have considered challenges to maps advanced by Republicans in several states, including Ohio, North Carolina and Alabama, and late last year the Justice Department sued Texas over new congressional maps that it said violated the Voting Rights Act’s protections for Black and Latino voters.At the same time, Republican-led states have attracted attention from the Justice Department after they advanced a series of new election laws making it more difficult to vote.In New York, the redistricting cycle began, perhaps naïvely, in the hopes that a bipartisan outside commission — approved by voters in 2014 — would deliver a balanced, common-sense map.Instead, the commission stuck to party lines and was unable to reach consensus last month, kicking control of the process back to the State Legislature, where Democrats have amassed rare supermajorities in recent years. Those majorities, plus control of the governorship, gave them the power for the first time in decades to draw maps as they saw fit.Democratic leaders swiftly released their own maps in a matter of days, forgoing any public hearings and largely keeping even their own members in the dark about the new lines until they became public.Wednesday’s vote fell mostly along party lines, as Democrats limited defections to narrowly pass the map in the Assembly, 103 to 45, and the Senate, 43 to 20.The Legislature planned to proceed as soon as Thursday to pass state legislative maps drawn by Democrats divvying up State Senate and Assembly districts. Most notably, they were expected to help solidify Democrats’ hold of the State Senate in an election year when Republicans are trying to reclaim a chamber they controlled for all but three years between the mid-1940s and 2019.Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is widely expected to sign all the maps into law in the coming days.But Republicans were already taking steps on Wednesday to prepare a lawsuit challenging at least the congressional lines as unconstitutional in state court. Several good-governance groups in the state said they agreed with the Republicans’ view, though it was unclear if they would sign onto a suit.“The congressional maps are clearly unconstitutional under the new anti-gerrymandering provisions,” said John Faso, a former Republican congressman who is helping coordinate the effort between Albany Republicans and the National Republican Redistricting Trust. “There is a decent likelihood that there will be litigation as a result of it, but when and where I could not say.”Senator Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader, defended the Democrats’ redrawn maps as being fair and constitutional.Hans Pennink/Associated PressAny court case would likely hinge on how judges interpret language included in the same 2014 constitutional amendment that created the defunct redistricting commission and how Democrats actually arrived at their lines. The language has not previously been tested in court and says that districts “shall not be drawn to discourage competition” or boost one party or incumbent candidate over another.New York State courts have historically been reluctant to overturn plans passed by the Legislature. But Richard H. Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University, said that could change this year based on the new anti-gerrymandering language and the example set by other states’ courts that have grown more comfortable blocking gerrymandered plans.“The provision is written in a strict prohibitory language,” Mr. Pildes said. “Proving that was what actually took place will inevitably trigger these debates about were these lines drawn to preserve particular communities of interest or a range of legitimate purposes.”How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      N.Y. Democrats Could Gain 3 House Seats Under Proposed District Lines

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      A new map drawn by legislative leaders would reconfigure state congressional districts to benefit Democrats in their fight to maintain a grip on the House of Representatives.ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Democrats on Sunday proposed a redesign of the state’s congressional map that would be one of the most consequential in the nation, offering the party’s candidates an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 House districts in this fall’s midterm election. Party leaders in Albany insisted that the redrawn districts were not politically motivated, and they appeared to be somewhat less aggressive than many Democrats had wanted and analysts had forecast.But the proposed lines promise to be a major boon for the party for a decade to come, beginning with a hard-fought national battle with Republicans this year for control of the House of Representatives. With President Biden’s agenda hanging in the balance, Democratic gains in New York could help offset those Republicans expect to rack up in red states like Texas, Florida and Georgia. “With the stroke of a pen they can gain three seats and eliminate four Republican seats,” said Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst with the Cook Political Report, who called the proposed lines “an effective gerrymander” by Democrats.“That’s a pretty big shift,” he added. “In fact, it’s probably the biggest shift in the country.”The new lines give Democrats opportunities to pick up seats on Long Island, in upstate New York and in New York City, where Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican, would be drawn into a Democratic-leaning district. Republicans are likely to lose a fourth seat because New York, which had less population growth than some other states, must shed one district overall.The new boundaries will be in place for the next 10 years. Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesOther proposed changes could help shore up Democrats’ hold on swing districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley ahead of what is expected to be a punishing election season for the party overall.In 2014, New York State voters had empowered a bipartisan commission to draw the new districts, but the panel broke down on party lines and could not reach consensus. Its stalemate left it to Democratic leaders in Albany to redesign the map.“We did the best we could with a flawed process,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, who chairs the legislative redistricting task force that took over the process from the commission. He added: “This is a very Democratic state, let’s start there. It’s not surprising that a fairly drawn map might lead to more Democrats getting elected.”Lawmakers plan to vote on the congressional map as soon as Wednesday. New maps for the State Senate and Assembly are also expected this week. Democrats dominate both houses, and the new maps offer the party a chance to maintain majorities, if not supermajorities, in the Legislature.Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has indicated that she supports using the redistricting process to help her party and is likely to approve the maps if they pass both chambers.Republicans are expected to oppose them en masse, but have little power to stop them legislatively. They accused Democrats of undertaking a blatant and unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to approve the new map if the Legislature passes it. In the last redistricting, she lost her seat when her Buffalo area district became one of the most conservative in the state.Libby March for The New York TimesNick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican Party, blasted the map as a “textbook filthy, partisan gerrymandering” and hinted that Republicans could challenge the proposed district as unconstitutional in court.“These maps are the most brazen and outrageous attempt at rigging the election to keep Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” he said, adding that Democrats “can’t win on the merits so they’re trying to win the election in a smoke-filled room rather than the ballot box.”Republicans were not the only interested parties alarmed by Democrats’ swift action. Lawmakers are poised to vote this week without convening a single public hearing, drawing the ire of good governance groups and community leaders. Even rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers only saw the proposed lines for the first time in the last few days, leading to last-minute changes.The redistricting stakes could scarcely be higher. Democrats control the House of Representatives by the thinnest of margins and are preparing for stiff challenges to their hold on Albany as well. Midterm elections are often difficult for the party in power, and with Mr. Biden’s approval rating at about 40 percent, Democrats are on the defensive.Around the country, battles over redistricting have become increasingly bare-knuckle, with high-stakes brawls between ruling Republicans and disempowered Democrats in North Carolina, Alabama and Ohio landing in state court. In some cases, the pitched battles reflect the tensions not just over party representation, but over race and voting rights at a time when states across the country are advancing laws concerning the right to vote: some expanding it, and others restricting it.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Republicans Relish Biden’s Troubles, Eyeing a Takeover of Congress

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      The president’s woes have delighted Republicans, who have been seeking to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of voters after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill are using President Biden’s failures to fuel their bid to retake control of Congress, focusing on his collapsing legislative agenda, his unfulfilled promise to “shut down” the coronavirus pandemic and rising voter anxieties over school closures and inflation as they seek a winning message for this year’s elections.Mr. Biden’s troubles have frustrated Democrats, prompting calls for a major course correction. At the same time, they have delighted Republicans, who have been intent on rehabilitating themselves in the eyes of voters after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol last year, which highlighted the party’s lurch toward extremism and its continuing rifts under the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Now, after months of grappling with their party’s role in stoking the riot, the ongoing influence of Mr. Trump’s election lies and the rise of right-wing activists who risk alienating more mainstream conservative voters, Republicans believe they are finally in a position to capitalize on what they view as a historically advantageous environment.Many Republicans say they see no need for any course correction — or to put forward a positive agenda in an election year they say will boil down to a referendum on Mr. Biden.“I’ll let you know when we take it back,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said at a news conference this month when asked what his party’s agenda would look like if it won control of Congress. He added, “The election this fall is a referendum on this all-Democratic government.”With inflation at a 40-year high, Republicans have spotlighted so-called kitchen-table issues like rising gas and home heating costs. They have sought to undermine Mr. Biden’s most ambitious policy proposals by casting them as “reckless spending,” and they have gloated as Democrats have been unable to hold together to push them through. And they have highlighted the administration’s foreign policy setbacks, like the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, in an effort to undercut Mr. Biden’s competence in the eyes of voters.Republicans have single-mindedly kept the focus on President Biden.Cheriss May for The New York Times“They’ve been like a bass drum in a band — it’s going on all the time,” Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Mr. McConnell, said of the Republicans and their stream of critiques. “Leadership has never gotten off on a tangent of talking about the 2020 election. They’ve been entirely forward-looking.”The message discipline could be foiled as the campaign season intensifies and Republican candidates seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement embrace his false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. Mr. Trump has already denounced Republican lawmakers by name for voting to impeach him and to pass Mr. Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan.“They can try to hide and distract from Tump as much as they want, but the reality is you have a former president who is hitting the campaign trail twice a month,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Democratic strategist and former communications director for the Democratic National Committee. “He’s still out there, and he says crazy things and gets coverage.”A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans are already poised to capture enough seats to take control, thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering alone.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s race will be at the center of the political universe this year, but there are several important contests across the country.Key Issues: Both parties are preparing for abortion rights and voting rights to be defining topics.Chris Meagher, a White House spokesman, said Republicans were “rooting for inflation and don’t have a plan to address price increases for working families.” He added, “They don’t have a plan to beat back the pandemic or to grow jobs.”For Republicans, the biggest political fear is that they may be peaking too soon. In private meetings, some have raised the question of whether voters will still blame Mr. Biden for the prolonged pandemic in the fall if the Omicron wave subsides and supply chain issues dissipate.But for now, with Mr. Trump out of office and Mr. Biden struggling to energize the voters who elected him, Republicans are feeling optimistic.They have expressed glee over the decision by Democrats to take up voting rights legislation in a midterm election year, an ultimately losing legislative fight that left senators in the majority party struggling to explain arcane filibuster rules, while Republicans focused on more tangible topics like the price of a gallon of milk.“If I had one wish, it would be that the election would be today, because the political environment is so good for us,” said Richard Walters, the chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, pointing to Mr. Biden’s declining approval rating, which this month hit 41 percent in a Pew Research Center survey.Republican strategists note with optimism that no president in the past 70 years has ever improved his approval rating substantially after late January of a midterm election year. And while nominating a Supreme Court justice to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer offers Mr. Biden an opportunity to energize crucial Democratic constituencies, Republicans were quick to shrug it off given that it would not change the court’s conservative tilt.Republicans have single-mindedly kept the focus on Mr. Biden.In the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, has worked to keep his more incendiary members out of the news — with mixed success — and hammered away at the president.He has also tried to lay out what Republicans would do if they won control, releasing a “Parents Bill of Rights” that would give parents more say in their children’s curriculum and drawing up a list of investigations the House would open to scrutinize the Biden administration. He recently sought advice from former Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract With America” in 1994 encapsulated the Republican message as the party campaigned successfully to win control of the House that year.Mr. Gingrich, whose meeting with Mr. McCarthy was reported by The Washington Post, recently said on Fox News that if Republicans won this year, members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack could be jailed.In the Senate, Republican leaders have used regular news conferences, often attended by a majority of their members, as what they call “plug-and-play forums” to speak directly to voters at home about Mr. Biden and his party.Representative Kevin McCarthy has hammered away at the president while working to keep his more incendiary members out of the news.Tom Brenner for The New York Times“The role I see of the minority is to point out the fact that his administration is ignoring the needs of the American people,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, said in an interview.Mr. Barrasso said the concerns he had heard from constituents over this week’s recess had been left unaddressed in Washington.“Heating costs are up, grocery costs are up, and you have a president talking about spending all of this additional money and focusing on voting,” he said. “People asked me 23 different things, and voting ended up dead last.”Some lawmakers and top Republican strategists argue that with Mr. Biden’s numbers sagging and his policies floundering, he is doing their job for them.“When your opponents are hanging themselves, don’t cut the rope, and that’s what we see the Democrats doing here,” said Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, a political consulting firm that has worked for Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, both Republicans. “All we need to do is stay out of the way.”Republicans on Capitol Hill point to the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer — a tumultuous period during which a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members — as the turning point for a once-popular administration. Internal Republican polls showed Mr. Biden losing six percentage points in his approval rating at that time, a decline that he has not managed to reverse.“Republicans have a lot of significant, deep problems, but Democrats have been so bad that it made it really easy to overlook them,” said Brendan Buck, a former adviser to the past two Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner. Republicans are still dealing with the culture wars and populism that may pose serious long-term demographic challenges, he said, but for now the Democrats have overshadowed those fissures.Mr. McCarthy, who is in line to be speaker if Republicans win the House, has been increasingly bullish about the prospect, predicting that 70 Democratic-held seats will be competitive.There are some bright spots for Mr. Biden. Democrats view his opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice as a chance for a change in focus and a moment for him to claim a high-profile victory. Mr. Biden has highlighted the 3.9 percent unemployment rate as part of the recovery he promised to Americans, and his top aides have underscored that he has overseen the strongest economic growth in decades.The Senate map for Democrats is also somewhat favorable; Mr. Biden won a majority of the battleground states with Senate races that are likely to decide control of the chamber.Ms. Hinojosa said Democrats must spend heavily in competitive states to tell voters the story of Mr. Biden’s accomplishments.“The White House realizes that and there’s a better-coordinated effort to do that than there has been in the past,” she said. “They’re just going to need to do it more aggressively.”But some Republicans believe it will be difficult for Mr. Biden to improve his standing.“The left is disappointed with him and the anti-Trump Republicans and independents thought they were going to get a moderate governing,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “I don’t know how resolving the pandemic is going to affect that fundamental reality that he is completely misplaying his hand.” More

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      Madison Cawthorn Challenge Raises the Question: Who Is an ‘Insurrectionist’?

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      The challenge to Representative Madison Cawthorn’s re-election bid could set a precedent to challenge other Republicans who encouraged the Jan. 6 attack.WASHINGTON — A group of lawyers is working to disqualify from the ballot a right-wing House Republican who cheered on the Jan. 6 rioters unless he can prove he is not an “insurrectionist,” disqualified by the Constitution from holding office, in a case with implications for other officeholders and potentially former President Donald J. Trump.The novel challenge to the re-election bid of Representative Madison Cawthorn, one of the House’s brashest supporters of Mr. Trump and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, could set a precedent to challenge other Republicans who swore to uphold the Constitution, then encouraged the attack.While the House committee investigating the assault on the Capitol has so far been unsuccessful in its effort to force key members of Congress to cooperate with the inquiry, the North Carolina case has already prompted a legal discussion — one that is likely to land in court — about what constitutes an insurrection, and who is an insurrectionist.And for the first time, a lawmaker who embraced the rioters may have to answer for his actions in a court of law.“I don’t think we can have those persons who have engaged in acts of insurrection elected to office and serving in office in violation of their constitutional duties and oath,” said John R. Wallace, one of the lawyers on the case and a campaign finance and election law expert in Raleigh, N.C. He added, “It should not be difficult to prove you are not an insurrectionist. It only seems to be difficult for Madison Cawthorn.”Cases challenging the legitimacy of a candidate before election boards usually hinge on a candidate’s age, legal residency, place of birth or citizenship status, or the legitimacy of signatures in a candidacy petition.This case revolves around the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, adopted during Reconstruction to punish members of the Confederacy who were streaming back to Washington to reclaim their elective offices — and infuriating unionist Republicans.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.”Mr. Cawthorn, 26, who is in his first term in Congress, has denounced the case as an egregious misreading of the 14th Amendment, but he has retained James Bopp Jr., one of the most prominent conservative campaign lawyers in the country, as counsel.Mr. Bopp, in an interview, declared the matter “the most frivolous case I’ve ever seen,” but allowed that what he called an “unethical” exploitation of North Carolina law by “competent” lawyers could pose a real threat to Mr. Cawthorn — and by extension, to others labeled “insurrectionists” by liberal lawyers.“This is the real threat to our democracy,” he said. “Just by bringing the complaint, they might jeopardize a member of Congress running for re-election.”“They have multiple targets,” he added. “It just so happens that Madison Cawthorn is the tip of the spear.”That is because North Carolina’s election statute offers challengers a remarkably low bar to question a candidate’s constitutional qualifications for office. Once someone establishes a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the officeseeker to prove otherwise.If Mr. Cawthorn is labeled an “insurrectionist,” that could have broader ramifications. Other Republican House members, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, face similar accusations, but their state’s election laws present higher hurdles for challenges to their candidate qualifications. If one of their colleagues is disqualified for his role in encouraging the rioters, those hurdles might become easier to clear.The lawyers challenging Mr. Cawthorn’s eligibility are using an amendment last invoked in 1920, when Representative Victor L. Berger, an Austrian-American socialist, was denied his seat representing Wisconsin after criticizing American involvement in World War I.If nothing else, the lawyers, including two former justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court, want to depose Mr. Cawthorn as part of discovery to question his actions before, during and after the attack on the Capitol.“There is, of course, much that we don’t know, and the statute allows discovery by deposition and the production of records,” Mr. Wallace said.There is much that is known. Whether it makes Mr. Cawthorn an “insurrectionist” would have to be determined by North Carolina’s Board of Elections, or more likely, by the state’s courts, where the board might punt the matter.Weeks after the 2020 election, Mr. Cawthorn told a conservative gathering to “call your congressman” to protest the results, adding, “you can lightly threaten them.” He promoted the “Save America” rally behind the White House on Jan. 6, writing on Twitter, “the future of this Republic hinges on the actions of a solitary few,” then adding “It’s time to fight.” At the rally, he riled the crowd from the stage with talk of election “fraud.”He later called those jailed for storming the Capitol “political hostages” and “political prisoners” that he would like to “bust” out of prison.A mob rushing the Capitol on Jan. 6 were met with tear gas.Kenny Holston for The New York Times“The Second Amendment was not written so that we can go hunting or shoot sporting clays. The Second Amendment was written so that we can fight against tyranny,” he would later say in Franklin, N.C. He added, “If our election systems continue to be rigged, and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place, and it’s bloodshed.”Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 17The House investigation. More

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      Does Jan. 6 Disqualify Some Republicans From Re-election?

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      Representative Madison Cawthorn has breezily dismissed a candidacy challenge filed by voters in his home state, North Carolina, seeking to bar him from re-election to the House of Representatives based on his role in the events of Jan. 6.The plaintiffs, a spokesman from the pro-Trump Republican’s office said, are “comically misinterpreting and twisting the 14th Amendment for political gain.”Mr. Cawthorn is being too quick to scoff. The 14th Amendment provision in question, while little known and not employed since 1919, is a close fit for his conduct around Jan. 6 — as well as that of at least a half-dozen Republican colleagues who the organization spearheading the challenge, Free Speech For People, suggests will be next.Passed in the wake of the Civil War to prevent former rebels from serving in Congress, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative 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, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”The critical point to understand is that Section 3 added a qualification to hold office, one of the very few in the Constitution. The others are that members of the House must be at least 25, a U.S. citizen for seven years and live in the state the individual represents. It is no different in this respect from the qualification that the president be at least 35 and a natural-born citizen.So, if the voter challenge succeeds in establishing that Mr. Cawthorn engaged in “insurrection or rebellion,” he would be as ineligible to serve in Congress as if it were revealed that he is 24 years old. Under North Carolina law, once challengers advance enough evidence to show reasonable suspicion that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the would-be candidate to demonstrate the contrary.The North Carolina State Board of Elections will create a five-member panel composed of people from counties in the new district in which Mr. Cawthorn intends to run (which is more Republican leaning than his current one). The panel’s decision could be appealed to the entire State Board of Elections, and after that to the state’s court system. The board’s decision will be delayed until after a state court rules on a separate redistricting challenge in North Carolina. But the issue will have to be resolved in time for the state’s primary election, currently set for May, so the normal Trump playbook of stalling until the issue becomes moot is not an option.The key question in the challenge will be whether Mr. Cawthorn’s acts of support for the Jan. 6 uprising rise to the level of engaging in an insurrection against the government.Here is what the first-term congressman did, based on public reports and allegations in the challenge: In advance of the riot at the Capitol, he met with planners of the demonstrations and tweeted that “the future of this Republic hinges on the actions of a solitary few … It’s time to fight.” He spoke at the pre-attack rally at the Ellipse, near the White House, where he helped work the crowd into frenzy, saying the crowd had “some fight in it” and that the Democrats were trying to silence them. And in the aftermath of the mob violence, he extolled the rioters as “political hostages” and “political prisoners,” and suggested that if he knew where they were incarcerated, he would like to “bust them out.”The constitutional term “insurrection” is less cut-and-dried than, say, whether a candidate is 25 years old. In other contexts, courts have defined it as a usually violent uprising by a group or movement acting for the purpose of overthrowing the legitimately constituted government and seizing its powers. That accurately describes the collective pro-Trump effort to undermine the certification of the November 2020 election.In the hours after the riot, Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, described the attack as a “failed insurrection”; one of President Trump’s own lawyers in the impeachment trial stated that “everyone agrees” there was a “violent insurrection”; and Mr. Cawthorn himself voted for a resolution that described the attackers as “insurrectionists.” He’ll be hard pressed to run from that label now.As for whether Mr. Cawthorn “engaged” in the insurrection, in an 1869 case, the North Carolina Supreme Court interpreted that term in Section 3 to signify “voluntarily aiding the rebellion, by personal service, or by contributions … of anything that was useful or necessary” to it. Even before more facts are developed in the case — including a possible deposition of Mr. Cawthorn — the tweet exhorting demonstrators to fight because the future of the Republic hinges on it seems plainly designed to aid the enterprise.The indictment of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, and 10 other Jan. 6 participants on seditious conspiracy charges reinforces the notion that the crimes of Jan. 6 were not simply offenses of property or disorder but were attacks against the government itself, the same core idea as with insurrection.If the North Carolina courts rule against him, expect Mr. Cawthorn to make a quick dash to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it has final authority to interpret the federal constitutional term “insurrection.” At that point, a conservative majority that includes three justices appointed by Donald Trump might well sympathize with Mr. Cawthorn.But while it may be rare, the North Carolina voter challenge is no joke. The challengers have a strong case, and Mr. Cawthorn would be foolish to take it lightly.Harry Litman (@harrylitman), a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, teaches constitutional law and national security law at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and the University of California at San Diego Department of Political Science. He is also host of the podcast Talking Feds.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Republicans Think There Is a ‘Takeover’ Happening. They Have Some Reading to Do.

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      Much of what’s in the Constitution is vague, imprecise or downright unclear. But some parts are very straightforward.For example, Article 1, Section 4 states that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”Or, as Justice Antonin Scalia — quoting a previous ruling — argued in 2013 in his opinion for the court in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, “The power of Congress over the ‘Times, Places and Manner’ of congressional elections ‘is paramount, and may be exercised at any time, and to any extent which it deems expedient; and so far as it is exercised, and no farther, the regulations effected supersede those of the State which are inconsistent therewith.’”The legal scholar Pamela S. Karlan put it this way in a 2006 report on the Voting Rights Act: “The Supreme Court’s recent decisions under the elections clause have confirmed the longstanding interpretation of the clause as a grant of essentially plenary authority.” In other words, Congress has absolute, unbending power to regulate federal elections as it sees fit.For this reason among many, it has been strange to see Republican politicians — including some self-described “constitutional conservatives” — denounce the Democrats’ proposed new voting rights legislation as an illegitimate “federal takeover” of federal elections.In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former Vice President Mike Pence denounced the bills and the effort to pass them as a “federal power grab over our state elections” that would “offend the Founders’ intention that states conduct elections just as much as what some of our most ardent supporters would have had me do one year ago.”On Twitter, the governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, called the bill — which would allow for same-day voter registration, establish Election Day as a national holiday and expand mail-in voting — “an unconstitutional federal takeover of our elections” that would “make it easier to cheat.”Not to be outdone, Mitch McConnell slammed the bill as a “sweeping, partisan, federal takeover of our nation’s elections.”“We will not be letting Washington Democrats abuse their razor-thin majorities in both chambers to overrule state and local governments and appoint themselves a national Board of Elections on steroids,” the Senate Republican leader declared.Although Reeves is the only lawmaker in this group to have called the Democratic election bill “unconstitutional,” the clear implication of the Republican argument is that any federal regulation of state elections is constitutionally suspect. We already know that this is wrong — again, the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate state elections for federal office — but it’s worth emphasizing just how wrong it is.In addition to the Supreme Court, which has affirmed — again and again — the power of Congress to set “the Times, Places and Manner” of federal elections, there are the framers of the Constitution themselves, who were clear on the broad scope of the clause in question.Alexander Hamilton defends it in Federalist 59 as a necessary bulwark against the interests of individual states, which may undermine the federal union. “Nothing can be more evident than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy,” Hamilton writes.“If the State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power of regulating these elections,” he continues, “every period of making them would be a delicate crisis in the national situation, which might issue in a dissolution of the Union.”“Every government,” he says with emphasis, “ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation.”Similarly, as the historian Pauline Maier recounted in “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788,” James Madison saw the Election Clause as a measure that would “allow Congress to use its power over elections against state electoral rules that were ‘subversive of the rights of the People to a free & equal representation in Congress agreeably to the Constitution.’”The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1870, expanded and reaffirmed the power of Congress to regulate federal elections, stating, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” and “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”Both the Enforcement Act of 1870, which established criminal penalties for interfering with the right to vote, and the Enforcement Act of 1871, which created a system of federal oversight for congressional elections, were passed under the authority granted by the Elections Clause and the 15th Amendment. The proposed Federal Elections Bill of 1890, which would have allowed voters to request direct federal supervision of congressional elections, was also written pursuant with the government’s expressly detailed power under the Constitution.It is one thing to say that a new election bill is unnecessary and that it attempts to solve a problem that does not exist. In large part because of the efforts of voting rights activists trying to overcome the obstacles in question, voter suppression laws do not appear to have a substantial impact on rates of voting, and overall voter turnout has increased significantly since the Supreme Court undermined the Voting Rights Act in 2013.But there is no question, historically or constitutionally, that Congress has the authority to regulate federal elections and impose its rules over those adopted by the states. Nor does this have to be bipartisan. Nothing in Congress does.The 1960s were one of the few times in American history when support for voting rights — or at least the voting rights of Black Americans — did not fall along strictly partisan lines. For a part of the 19th century, Republicans took the lead as the party of expanding the vote. Today, it is the Democratic Party that hopes to secure the right to vote against a political movement whose clear ability to win votes in fair elections has not tempered its suspicion of easy and unrestricted access to the ballot.There are times when the federal government needs to take election rules out of the hands of the states. Looking at the restrictions and power grabs passed by state Republican lawmakers in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat, I’d say now is one of those times. It may not happen anytime soon — the voting rights legislation in question went down in defeat this week — but it should remain a priority. The right to vote is fundamental, and any attempt to curtail it should be fought as fiercely and as aggressively as we know how.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How Jan. 6 Gave the 14th Amendment New Life

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      Legal scholars say a long-forgotten provision of the Constitution could bar from office anyone who encouraged the Capitol riot.An obscure 19th-century provision of the U.S. Constitution that barred members of the Confederacy from holding political office is back in the national conversation — and some are hoping it can keep Donald J. Trump and his allies off the ballot.After the Civil War, Congress sought to remake the politics of the states they had just defeated on the battlefield. Fearing that the grandees of the Old South would slink back to power, they crafted Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, known as the Disqualification Clause.The provision applied to anyone who had previously taken an oath to support the Constitution and then either “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”The clause, tucked into an amendment better known for extending citizenship to African Americans, was largely an object of academic curiosity until last week. That’s when lawyers representing a group of North Carolina voters filed a novel legal challenge seeking to keep Representative Madison Cawthorn off the ballot this year.Cawthorn is a close ally of Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, and has made comments suggesting he supported the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The complaint alleged that his actions trigger the Disqualification Clause, making him ineligible to serve in Congress.Cawthorn has shrugged off the challenge.“Over 245,000 patriots from Western North Carolina elected Congressman Cawthorn to serve them in Washington,” said Luke Ball, a spokesman for Cawthorn. “A dozen activists who are comically misinterpreting and twisting the 14th Amendment for political gain will not distract him from that service.”For now, the challenge is on hold while redistricting litigation in the state plays out. But it’s likely to be just one of many similar actions to come.“Madison Cawthorn was the first, but it’s safe to say he won’t be the last,” Ron Fein, a lawyer for Free Speech for People, the group behind the complaint, said in an interview.An outside-in strategyWin or lose, the Cawthorn case could help investigators in Washington by unlocking new evidence about the North Carolina lawmaker’s activities related to Jan. 6. He might have to sit for a deposition and have to turn over, say, his phone and email records.As the litigation makes its way through the court system, it could also help clear up a few broader questions:Was Jan. 6 an “insurrection,” legally speaking?What does it mean to be “engaged” in insurrection, and what level of involvement triggers the Disqualification Clause?Does Congress need to pass a law or resolution to activate it?“Most people, me included, think it was an insurrection, but neither Congress nor the courts have made that official determination,” said Mark Graber, a legal historian at the University of Maryland.Laurence Tribe, an influential law professor at Harvard University, has held private conversations with several members of Congress on the topic as they puzzle through how statutes written in the 1860s might apply in an entirely new context. And while Tribe’s view is that Jan. 6 was indeed an insurrection, it is by no means obvious how courts will interpret the 14th Amendment without clearer signals from Congress.“You’re dealing with a very murky and open area of constitutional law,” Tribe said in an interview.Even one of the foremost experts on the Disqualification Clause, Gerard Magliocca of Indiana University, called it “vestigial” in a well-timed paper on the subject published in 2020 three weeks before Jan. 6. He has since become an advocate for applying it to disqualify Trump from running for president in 2024.“We have to dust it off,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland who has consulted with Tribe on the topic. “It hasn’t been used in more than a century.”In fact, it’s been used precisely once since the Reconstruction era — in the 1919 case of Victor L. Berger, a socialist from Wisconsin who was removed from Congress after being accused of harboring pro-German sympathies. Berger was later reinstated when the Supreme Court tossed out his conviction for espionage, on the grounds that the judge harbored an anti-German bias.Fox News weighs inFor now, the Disqualification Clause is getting more attention on Fox News than it is within Congress — driven almost entirely by a single tweet from Marc Elias, the Democratic Party’s top election lawyer, who had predicted the provision might soon arise in litigation.Tucker Carlson, the Fox News opinion host, held a nearly four-minute segment on Elias’s 38-word post.“So, if you don’t want to lose the Congress, just ban the other side from running,” Carlson said sarcastically, going on to compare the idea that Jan. 6 was an insurrection to a belief in U.F.O.s.“This would require establishing that such individuals supported an actual insurrection,” Laura Ingraham, Carlson’s Fox News colleague, said of the Elias tweet a day later. “Good luck with that.”Inside the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, however, the Disqualification Clause has not come up in any detail.Some Democratic lawmakers — including Raskin, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and a few others — did float the idea a year ago. At the time, they were searching for a way to hold Trump accountable that would require only a simple majority vote in the Senate.But when Democratic legal experts investigated the concept, they determined that the Disqualification Clause was not “self-executing” — that is, Congress would need to pass a law or resolution to use it and clarify how it applies today. One can’t just declare someone an insurrectionist, they decided; Congress has to create the legal infrastructure to try someone and give them due process before taking away their right to hold public office. That made it less attractive as an alternative to impeachment.Depending on what the Jan. 6 panel uncovers, it’s possible to imagine the committee will recommend punishing lawmakers who were somehow involved in the riot. It’s also possible Democrats will decide to take their case to voters instead.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 16The House investigation. More