House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) became the latest Republican to face a lawsuit looking to bar him from the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment on Tuesday.
Gene Stilp, who is a former Pennsylvania congressional candidate and local activist, filed the lawsuit calling for Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt to remove Perry ahead of the 10th Congressional District GOP primary for engaging in insurrection. It resembles several other legal challenges across the nation looking to prevent former President Donald Trump's candidacy in the presidential election.
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Stilp argued in the suit that Perry worked to overturn the 2020 election in the Keystone State and participated in the state's fake elector scheme, a tactic used by Republicans in several key battleground states where alternate electors would try to certify that Trump won the election in states that President Joe Biden carried.
The Constitution states under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that those who engaged in insurrection cannot hold public office.
Perry, who recently became Freedom Caucus chairman, spoke on the House floor on the day of the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to throw out Pennsylvania's electoral votes. The Pennsylvania Republican has never been charged with a crime, but Stilp noted in the lawsuit that the Constitution does not require a criminal conviction to be ineligible for the ballot.
The Freedom Caucus chairman refused to be interviewed by the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 and denied a claim from a former Trump White House staffer that he requested a presidential pardon.
In December, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., granted the Justice Department access to nearly 1,700 records recovered from Perry's cellphone as part of the DOJ's Jan. 6 federal election subversion case. The phone was seized in August 2022, and Boasberg's predecessor, Beryl Howell, had rejected Perry's claim of congressional immunity for more than 90% of the 2,219 records he sought to withhold, according to the Washington Post.
A campaign spokesperson for Perry told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the lawsuit was "frivolous, filed by a fringe activist whose claim to fame is an inflatable pink pig." Stilp, known for his public advocacy campaigns, used the inflatable pig to protest wage increases for state legislators in 2005.
"Congressman Perry is focused on critical problems facing south-central Pennsylvania and our nation, which is why he’s traveling with the speaker of the House today to examine the ongoing crisis at our southern border,” campaign spokesman Matt Beynon said to the outlet.
Other Republicans have faced 14th Amendment lawsuits, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). A Georgia judge threw out the attempt against Greene, and Lummis's battle is ongoing after the Wyoming secretary of state filed to dismiss a suit against her.
Schmidt had been asked by a state senator to disqualify Trump from the Pennsylvania ballot for the same reasons as Perry, but the secretary declined.
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"Pennsylvania’s Election Code does not give me, as secretary of the commonwealth, the authority to reject a nomination petition on the grounds that a potential candidate does not meet an office’s eligibility criteria. In Pennsylvania, that is a question that can be answered only by the courts," Schmidt said last month.
Perry is one of the few vulnerable Pennsylvania Republicans up for reelection in 2024 as Democrats look to capitalize on the congressman's ties to Trump as a way to defeat him in the key battleground state. Four Democrats are looking to challenge Perry in the April primary.