Suit seeking to boot U.S. Rep. Scott Perry from ballot dropped

Update: Activist Gene Stilp has withdrawn his lawsuit that endeavored to remove U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a central Pennsylvania Republican who supported former President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, from the ballot. Stilp had cited the Fourteenth Amendment that bars those who participate in insurrection from serving in office. He withdrew the lawsuit after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of the former president in a case from Colorado that sought to ban him from the 2024 ballot in that state.

Reported earlier:

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is getting quite a workout this election cycle.

A lawsuit filed in Colorado was successful in its effort to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for violating its provisions. The Maine Secretary of State cited it in her ruling to remove Trump from the ballot. Efforts in other states are also underway to remove the now-under-indictment former president from the ballot for allegedly engaging “in insurrection or rebellion against the (United States), given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” as stated in the Civil-War era amendment’s third section.

Now, Harrisburg-based activist Gene Stilp has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court seeking to have Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry removed from the ballot for violating Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The suit, filed Tuesday, asks the court to “declare that Scott Perry engaged in insurrectionist activity and/or supported insurrectionist activities and that the restrictions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three, apply to Scott Perry thus eliminating Scott Perry from the ballot for representative to Congress.”

It also seeks to have Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Albert Schmidt rule whether Perry’s actions after the 2020 presidential election disqualify the congressman from holding office.

Stilp said that Perry’s “own actions and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election” in violation of the 14^th Amendment led to the suit.

“Where the United States Constitution is involved,” Stilp said, “Scott Perry cannot get off scot-free.”

The suit cites Perry’s involvement in attempting to replace duly elected electors with a slate of electors that would vote against certifying the election results and his attempts on Jan. 6, 2021, to block certification of the election results in Congress. 

Previously: Unsealed court ruling sheds light on Scott Perry's efforts to overturn the 2020 election

It also cited Perry’s legal entanglements, including the seizure of his cell phone last summer and the litigation that has resulted. It also cited the content of some of his texts that were inadvertently released in a court document. Those texts, according to the suit, illustrated Perry’s involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the election.

Perry does not face charges in the federal or state criminal cases involving the efforts of Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.

The suit, Stilp pointed out, asserts that “it is not necessary for a person to be convicted of a crime for the disqualification language in the Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three, to apply.”

Stilp said, “It is not necessary for an insurrection to be violent and have people taking over buildings. Attempts at insurrection can be non-violent and quietly orchestrated as in the attempt to overturn the certification process using false certification certificates from false sets of electors.”

Perry's role in Jan. 6: 12 things to know about U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, who is a focus of the Jan. 6 probe

In a statement reported by the Associated Press, Perry’s attorney, John P. Rowley, predicted the suit would not be successful and that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that efforts to remove Trump from state ballots on the same grounds are invalid.

“This lawsuit was filed by a partisan activist who clearly has no regard or understanding of how our Democratic Republic works,” Rowley wrote. “It is but the latest effort by an extremist to disqualify a duly elected official with whom he disagrees. We are confident the Supreme Court will put an end to this lunacy.”

Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: UPDATED: Activist files suit to remove U.S. Rep. Perry from the ballot