Rep. Tim Burchett says he plans to challenge Darializa Avila Chevalier’s right to take a seat in the U.S. House if she wins New York’s 13th Congressional District election on November 3. Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, has pointed to a 2019 tweet in which Chevalier said she used an American flag as a napkin. The House’s authority to decide whether a Member-elect may serve is limited by constitutional requirements and legal precedent.
Burchett’s plan was first reported by the New York Post. The House can consider challenges to a Member-elect’s credentials, but the circumstances in which it may exclude someone by a simple-majority vote are constrained. Burchett told the Post that Chevalier’s flag remark showed disregard for the Constitution.
The Tweet at the Center of the Fight
Chevalier posted the comment on Twitter in 2019, saying she wiped her hand on the American flag because she lacked napkins, according to the Post. She has since said she regretted the remark. The Post also cited past statements attributed to Chevalier, including comments calling the United States a disgrace and then-President Joe Biden a war criminal during the 2020 election, as well as her participation in the 2024 Columbia University campus takeover and attendance at an anti-Israel rally the day after the October 7 Hamas attack. Burchett has cited those episodes as reasons he believes she should not be seated.
More recently, Chevalier was among roughly 80 protesters arrested outside the United Nations on September 24 while demonstrating against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address, according to The Guardian, which reported that she defended her civil disobedience in an op-ed published shortly afterward.
A Constitutional Hurdle Burchett Would Have to Clear
The Constitution sets just three qualifications for serving in the House: being at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for seven years, and an inhabitant of the state when elected, per the Library of Congress. The Supreme Court has consistently held that neither Congress nor individual states can add to those three criteria. That precedent traces to the 1969 case Powell v. McCormack, in which the Court ruled 7-1 that the House could not exclude a duly elected member who met those standing requirements — a decision that came after Harlem Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was excluded in 1967 over alleged financial misconduct, per Oyez.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Powell v. McCormack holds that the House cannot exclude a duly elected member who meets the Constitution’s standing qualifications. A challenge based on a tweet or political speech would therefore face a significant legal hurdle. The House’s earlier exclusion of Socialist Rep.-elect Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, over his anti-World War I writings and an Espionage Act conviction, is a historical precedent, though Berger’s conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 1921 and he was eventually seated, according to the National Constitution Center. The 14th Amendment also allows disqualification for engaging in insurrection; that provision concerns rebellion, not simply offensive speech.
Risk of a Drawn-Out Fight on the House Floor
Burchett says he will pursue the motion whether Republicans retain House control or become the minority party. The effort could prompt a floor dispute over Chevalier’s right to serve and divert time from other House business, the Post reported. Political scientist Jeffery Jenkins told the outlet that contested elections can disrupt the legislative process and take time away from governing. He noted that U.S. history includes more than 600 contested elections, though none have been truly meaningful since the turn of the 20th century, and said the past decade may signal a return to partisan strategies that had largely fallen out of use.
Republican strategist John Feehery told the Post that refusing to seat lawmakers over strongly disputed statements could make it difficult for nearly anyone in the House to take a seat. The outlet has also reported that Burchett has at times spoken warmly of his relationship with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
A Deep-Blue District and a Crowded Primary Win
Chevalier defeated five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the June 23 Democratic primary, taking 36,292 votes, or 49.5 percent, to Espaillat's 33,555 votes, or 45.7 percent, according to FOX 5 New York. Espaillat, 71, was serving his fifth term and chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. New York's 13th District covers Upper Manhattan — including Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood — along with parts of the western Bronx, an overwhelmingly Democratic stretch where Espaillat won reelection in 2024 with 83.5 percent of the vote, per Wikipedia. That lean makes Chevalier the heavy favorite over Republican nominee Jomo M. Williams in November, though Burchett's motion would apply only if she wins.
How a seat challenge works — and the district’s voting record
The Congressional Research Service says the House may exclude a Member-elect by a simple-majority vote if it finds that the person does not meet the constitutional qualifications or was not duly elected. But House procedure offers other options: House Practice describes the House administering the oath while referring the final right to the seat to a committee. A challenge, then, does not automatically mean the oath is withheld. The district’s recent general-election returns show the scale of its Democratic advantage: CNN Politics’ 2024 results show Adriano Espaillat won 181,800 votes to Republican Ruben Dario Vargas’s 35,822, a margin of 145,978 votes.
Chevalier's victory was part of a broader citywide sweep backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose endorsed candidates also unseated incumbents in two other districts in June, according to The 19th News. Hoodline has previously reported on Espaillat's primary loss as part of its coverage of shifting Upper Manhattan politics.
Only Six Expulsions in House History
If Burchett's bid to block Chevalier before swearing-in fails, formally removing her afterward would require a two-thirds vote to expel — a far higher bar that the House has cleared only six times in its history. The most recent came in December 2023, when former Rep. George Santos of New York was expelled on a bipartisan 311-114 vote, according to WTTW. Three of the six expulsions date to 1861, over support for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
