Legal challenges seek to keep Biggs, Gosar, Finchem off Arizona ballots

PHOENIX – A nonprofit legal advocacy group is waging a legal battle to keep three Arizona Republicans off this year’s primary ballots over their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On behalf of several Arizona voters in each case, Free Speech for People filed separate complaints last week against the candidacies of U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, who are seeking reelection, and state Rep. Mark Finchem, who is running for secretary of state.

The group is using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, as the basis for its complaints. The clause originally was written to prevent Confederate officials from holding elected office in the U.S. after the Civil War.

Section 3 states that anybody who previously took the oath for a federal or state office can’t hold office again if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” without approval from at least two-thirds of each chamber of Congress.

The challenges accuse Biggs, Gosar and Finchem of participating in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and working with organizers of the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, which disrupted Congress while it was certifying Joe Biden’s victory. The complaints argue that the lawmakers’ actions “amounted to an insurrection or a rebellion.”

Free Speech for People submitted the complaints in Maricopa County Superior Court on Thursday. (Read them here: Biggs, Gosar, Finchem.)

🧵🧵The vast majority of election challenges typically allege "this candidate did not meet the minimum number of signatures for the following reasons."

Of the 4 filed so far, however, the first 3 allege that the candidates are not eligible on 14th Amendment Grounds (next twt) https://t.co/j0euRoqHn9

— Stephen Richer—Maricopa Cnty Recorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) April 10, 2022

Finchem responded by calling the effort “desperate” in a tweet.

The group previously filed similar challenges against two other members of Congress — Reps. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Ga. — and has designs on keeping former President Donald Trump from running again.

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