The court-ordered redraw of North Carolina's congressional map voids, for the moment, an effort to keep U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn off the ballot in North Carolina, though challengers are expected to regroup and file again.
Cawthorn initially filed to run in North Carolina's 13th Congressional District, which at the time ran west of Charlotte. But the redraw completed Wednesday shifted district lines and shuffled district numbers. Now the 13th District covers southern Wake County and areas to the south.
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Until Cawthorn formally withdraws from that district to run in another, which he is expected to do, Cawthorn is a candidate in the new 13th. And to challenge his candidacy, the voters involved have to be district residents. None of them are, and a letter went out to their lawyers Thursday from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, declaring their effort "no longer valid under North Carolina law."
John Wallace, one of several attorneys behind the challenge, said that won't be the case for long. Some of the voters involved in the case, who want Cawthorn labeled an insurrectionist and disqualified from the ballot for egging on a crowd that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will probably end up living in the district Cawthorn picks, Wallace said.
And, if not, Wallace said the effort had "overflowing inboxes of support from voters in that part of the state" willing to back a challenge.
A spokesman for Cawthorn didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Cawthorn, a first-term Republican, has not made an announcement, but could return to his reworked current district in the western part of the state, or to one of the districts near it.
The bigger issue in the challenge comes Monday, when a federal judge in Wilmington is scheduled to hear arguments in Cawthorn's counter suit. The congressman argues that the State Board of Elections doesn't have the power to convene the challenge inquiry against him. Among other things, he argues removing him from the ballot would violate his First Amendment rights.
Update: On Friday, the judge in this case delayed this hearing until March 21.
Wallace's team challenged Cawthorn's candidacy under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a post Civil War edict forbidding members of Congress and other officials who "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States "or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" from running for office.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers is scheduled to hear arguments from both sides Monday and could issue a ruling that allows a refiled challenge to proceed or shuts the process down entirely, freeing Cawthorn to run in whatever district he chooses. The case has garnered national attention.
By law congressional candidates don't have to live in their districts, but North Carolina law requires voters to do so in order to challenge someone's candidacy.
"I don't know when or whether Cawthorn will file," Wallace said Thursday. "And yet I feel certain that, unless we are enjoined by the federal court, that we will find challengers that will be eager to restart the process."
Cawthorn's lawyer in the federal lawsuit, Jim Bopp, agreed.
"This doesn't change anything," he said.