Congressional Challenger Marcus Flowers Outraises Embattled Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Democratic challenger Marcus Flowers is making headlines for his fundraising success in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. He has outraised Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene $2.4 million in the first three months of 2022 compared to her $1.1 million.
While she does have $3 million in cash on hand compared with Flowers’ $1.9 million, Greene has spent about $300,000 more than she raised during the quarter, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Total fundraising for the candidates are Taylor Green with a total of $8.4 million, and Flowers with about $7.1 million.
The Georgia district is one of the most heavily Republican in the entire country. Voters picked Donald Trump over President Biden there by more than 48 points in 2020. Greene, considered to be one of Congress’ more extreme right-wing members, is being challenged, not only by Flowers, but by Georgia voters themselves. Dele Lowman Smith, Chair of the DeKalb County Board of Registration and Elections says this race, told BET.com this race brings into focus some issues at play concerning democracy in the Peachtree State. "These fundraising numbers should send a couple of messages. First, that we aren't the same reliably red Georgia we used to be. And also that voters deserve substantive representation and not the antics and divisiveness that Marjorie Taylor Greene is now famous for."
A federal judge ruled on Monday that a group of Georgia voters suing to disqualify Greene from running for reelection to Congress, accusing her of playing a role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are free to continue that pursuit.
Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance reform group, filed the challenge March 24 with the Georgia secretary of state's office. The plaintiffs allege that Greene, a pro-Trump Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden's presidential election victory. The Associated Press reports that the lawsuit argues that her actions violate a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection.
The amendment holds that no one can serve 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."
Ratified shortly after the Civil War, it was meant in part to keep representatives who had fought for the Confederacy from returning to Congress.
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Greene filed her own lawsuit earlier this month requesting that a judge declare the law that the voters are using to challenge her eligibility is itself unconstitutional, and to prohibit its enforcement. She denies any wrongdoing surrounding her support of the Capitol insurrection.