A former PA congressional candidate filed a lawsuit yesterday to remove MAGAt Rep. Scott Perry from the state primary ballot, arguing that Perry’s role challenging the results of the 2020 election should make him ineligible to run for office. As well it should!
It’s hard to describe Scott Perry without invoking fecal matter and it’s too early in the day, so I will instead restrain myself and say to see him knocked off the ballot would improve the state’s air pollution levels by 50%. Via the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Gene Stilp filed the suit as a voter in Perry’s 10th District, calling on Secretary of State Al Schmidt to remove Perry from the ballot for engaging in insurrection. The lawsuit mimics challenges to former President Donald Trump’s candidacy in several states, including in Colorado, where the state Supreme Court last month removed Trump from the ballot.
The Colorado case will likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court for an unprecedented decision in a presidential election that’s been defined by Trump’s legal troubles.
Stilp argued Perry’s efforts to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania’s election and participation in Trump’s fake elector scheme amounts to insurrection under the U.S. Constitution. Article 3 of the 14th Amendment says that people who engage in insurrection are unable to hold public office.
Perry, whose district includes Dauphin County and parts of Cumberland and York Counties, was part of Trump’s inner circle devising attempts to overturn the 2020 election. He spoke on the House floor hours after rioters ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to have Pennsylvania’s electoral votes thrown out.
Perry has not been charged with a crime in connection to the Jan. 6 attack or the efforts to overturn the election results. Stilp noted in the filing that the Constitution doesn’t require someone to have been convicted of insurrection to be ineligible for the ballot.
