NC Republicans rush to protect Trump as effort to ban him from ballots gains momentum
The U.S. Constitution's ban on insurrectionists holding office shouldn't apply to Donald Trump — or any other politician, say some of North Carolina's top Republican leaders.
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, said he would file a bill in Congress to strip federal elections funding from any state that cites the 14th Amendment to ban Trump, or anyone else, from being on the ballot. And Republican North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters Wednesday he hopes the state legislature will pass a new law banning the State Board of Elections from being able to disqualify candidates for office.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bans those who have taken an oath to the Constitution but then participate in or supported an insurrection against the government from holding federal office again. It was originally written to prevent politicians and military officers who switched sides to support the Confederacy in the Civil War from returning to positions of power in the U.S. government after the war.
Trump's critics have said his actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress should likewise disqualify him.
On Tuesday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections denied a challenge against Trump on those grounds. Hours later, in Colorado, the state Supreme Court there upheld a similar challenge, banning Trump from appearing on ballots in Colorado for the 2024 primary election.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in and potentially resolve the issue nationwide, especially as similar challenges are moving forward in multiple other states.
In North Carolina, GOP leaders don't want to wait on the Supreme Court to act. Tillis and Moore are proposing laws at the state and federal level to make sure Trump gets another chance to be president.
The elections board voted Tuesday to dismiss a challenge seeking to ban Trump from being an option in the 2024 primary. The state Republican Party submitted seven candidates for the primary, including Trump. But a voter from Stokes County — a former lawyer in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations — filed a complaint seeking to bar Trump, WRAL reported Tuesday.
The vote to deny his complaint was 4-1, with both of the board's Republican members and two of the three Democratic members deciding that they lacked the authority to prevent Trump from running in the Republican primary election.
But the board members said while they lacked the power to make that decision head of the primary, they believed they might have more authority to hear a challenge against Trump appearing on the ballot for the general election, if he wins the primary.
Moore said he wants to make sure that's not allowed to happen.
"It was wise that the state board denied of elections denied it," Moore said of the attempt to force Trump off the ballot. "But it was sort of a temporary denial, if you will. ... We think the law should be pretty clear that President Trump will be on the ballot."
The retired Reagan administration official who filed the complaint to kick Trump off the ballot, Brian Martin, told WRAL on Tuesday that it's ridiculous to say the State Board of Elections should be unable to decide whether a candidate is eligible to be on the ballot. That's a core duty of the board, he said.
"I thought it was remarkable that they determined the Republican Party can list any candidate for president of the United States, and the board has no authority to determine if they’re qualified for office," Martin said. "So essentially a party could nominate a 21-year-old, or a foreign national, and there’s nothing they can do?"
Trump is facing multiple criminal charges for his alleged support of the Jan. 6 attack, which was meant to keep him in office despite losing the 2020 election. Like all other criminal defendants he's considered innocent until proven guilty.
However, courts have held since the 19th century — including the North Carolina Supreme Court — that someone doesn't need to be convicted of insurrection-related crimes to be deemed a supporter of an insurrection and therefore banned from holding office.
Moore backs Mills
Any effort to craft a new law protecting Trump, Moore said, would be led by Rep. Grey Mills, R-Iredell, who chairs the House elections law committee.
Like Moore, Mills is also running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024. Mills is one of several Republicans seeking to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Lincoln, who made the surprise decision to step down following his brief time as interim U.S. House Speaker earlier this year.
One of Mills' opponents includes Pat Harrigan, a firearms manufacturer who had briefly been in a primary election with Moore — in which he launched some highly negative attacks on Moore — before switching to the new district.
On Wednesday Moore said he was enthusiastically backing Mills against Harrigan and the three other Republicans in the 10th District primary, hoping to continue serving with him in Congress: "If you look for example at where we are on voter ID, if you look at where we are on election integrity, Grey Mills was a key part of that."
Harrigan said that even though he has no legislative experience, he did serve in Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
"Talking to the hardworking people of NC10, it's clear they want a battle-tested conservative who will stand strong against President Biden's failures," he said. "Serving as a Green Beret taught me to always put America first."
Causey snubbed?
Moore also pointedly declined to endorse one Republican incumbent who's seeking reelection: state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey.
Causey is best known for flipping on the North Carolina Republican Party's biggest political donor, Greg Lindberg, as well as the NCGOP's then-Chairman Robin Hayes. He wore a wire for the FBI in conversations with them, and others, as part of a bribery investigation.
Hayes and Lindberg were convicted as part of that investigation; Hayes was later pardoned by Trump while Lindberg is facing a new trial after his first conviction was thrown out on appeal.
Causey has continued to not always toe the party line, such as with his vocal opposition to a new law passed this year that allows Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to shuffle billions of dollars into a holding company with fewer regulations.
The insurance giant lobbied hard for the bill, saying it'll make them more competitive, and won bipartisan support from Republican legislative leaders as well as Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Causey and state Treasurer Dale Folwell, a fellow Republican who's now running for governor, both repeatedly opposed the change, saying it'll lead to higher health insurance premiums for North Carolinians.
On Wednesday after Moore made endorsements in multiple Republican primary contests coming up in the March elections, he was asked about the race for Insurance Commissioner. He said he wouldn't make an endorsement because he hadn't spoken with any of the candidates, including Causey.
"I haven't followed it," he said. "I know it's a spirited primary, but that's about it."
Causey said in an interview later that he hasn't asked Moore, or any other legislative leaders, for their endorsement.
But he said he thinks he and Moore can work with one another, noting that they were at a dinner together Saturday night with other Republican politicians.
"I've got a good working relationship with him, as far as I know," Causey said. "I’ve got no problems with him.”
Causey's GOP primary opponents are Chapel Hill attorney Andrew Marcus and former state lawmaker Bob Brawley, an Iredell County politician involved in the bail bonds industry, who in 2017 was sentenced to 15 days in jail for contempt of court during a civil lawsuit involving former business partners.
