Petition demands House leadership refuse to seat extremist Republicans Gosar, Boebert, and MGT for roles in 1/6
For the roles in the insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, three Republican members of the House of Representatives are facing growing calls for their jobs.
Last week, 2 progressive advocacy groups launched a petition to pressure the House not to seat Reps. Paul Gosar (R. AZ), Lauren Boebert (R. CO), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R. GA) for their roles in trying to thwart the congressional work of certifying the 2020 Presidential elections with hopes of somehow keeping the loser of that election, then-President Donald Trump, in office.
via Twitter
The petition, led by Free Speech for People and MoveOn, cites the section of the 14th Amendment that bars from federal office anyone who has taken an oath to support the Constitution then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” and says that the three lawmakers are “ineligible to hold future public office” for “having voiced support for and helped facilitate the deadly insurrection on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021.”
The petition had nearly 70,000 signatures by Saturday morning, and continued:
“Publicly available evidence establishes that Rep. Paul Gosar helped facilitate the insurrection, before, during, and after January 6, 2021. Not only was he among a handful of Congress members who expressed vocal support for the insurrection as it was happening , but, according to news reports, Gosar went so far as to offer organizers of the pre-attack demonstration a “blanket pardon” in connection with unrelated criminal investigations, encouraging what would no doubt be an illegal act of violence.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene via Flickr / Gage Skidmore https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
In the weeks leading up to January 6, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly stated that violence might be necessary to keep Trump in power, exhorted her followers not to allow Congress to transfer power peacefully, and, the night before the attack, called the date “our 1776 moment” (a codeword used by violent extremists to refer to an attack on government buildings). Greene has since attempted to defend the violence on January 6 as justified by the Declaration of Independence, calling convicted participants in the insurrection “political prisoners of war.” In December 2022, she bragged that “if” she had organized the attack, “we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.
Rep. Lauren Boebert echoed Greene’s coded sentiments during the insurrection, tweeting, “Today is 1776.” She was billed as a speaker for the pre-attack Capitol protest, though she did not speak. Three days prior to the insurrection, Boebert released an ad featuring herself walking through federal buildings while brandishing a firearm, pledging to carry a handgun in the Capitol despite D.C. laws banning open carry. In addition, two January 6th organizers told Rolling Stone of “dozens” of planning meetings with Boebert and several other Congress members in the days leading up to the insurrection.”
Congresswoman Lauren Boebert via Flickr / Gage Skidmore https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
The writers of the petition continue by noting that a member-elect of the House, soon to be controlled by members of the party who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, “may challenge, under House procedures authorized by the Constitution, the qualifications of another member-elect” when the new Congress convenes next month, and said “We must urge them to do so.”
