John,

Free Speech For People is hard at work confronting the unprecedented attempts to attack our democracy across the country. And our hard work is paying off.

Last week, we won a major victory before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District which ruled that insurrectionists can be barred from holding future public office. The ruling emerged from the legal challenge we initiated on behalf of a courageous group of North Carolina voters to the candidacy of Rep. Madison Cawthorn under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, otherwise known as the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause. The federal appeals court reversed a district court decision and ruled that Cawthorn could not claim immunity for his involvement in the January 6th insurrection under the 1872 Amnesty Act.

This ruling supports the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act (which provided amnesty to ex-Confederates) does not shield the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021–including Donald Trump–from the consequences of their actions under the Fourteenth Amendment, and provides no basis to block state proceedings seeking to exclude insurrectionists from the ballot. While Cawthorn lost his primary, this ruling now serves as critical and historic precedent for new 14.3 challenges we will initiate in the future.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, our federal lawsuit against the United States Election Integrity Project (USEIP) and its leaders for illegal voter intimidation is moving forward after a judge rejected USEIP’s motion to dismiss the case. We are now moving forward with discovery in that case.