Before leaving for Florida, Madison Cawthorn fails NC one more time | Opinion

Goodbye and good riddance to Madison Cawthorn, who officially no longer represents North Carolina in Congress.

Unfortunately, he didn’t leave office without failing his constituents one last time.

According to a statement issued by his successor, former state Sen. Chuck Edwards, Cawthorn’s office did not transfer official constituent casework before leaving office, and repeated attempts to reach Cawthorn or his staff have gone unanswered.

Constituent services are a key part of the job, and it’s the outgoing member’s responsibility to ensure constituents are taken care of when they leave. The deadline to transfer casework was Dec. 23, Edwards’ statement said. Edwards touted constituent services as a top priority throughout his campaign, and he is now asking anyone with outstanding casework to call his office.

It’s further evidence that Cawthorn didn’t run for Congress to serve others. Members of Congress help their constituents navigate government services and bureaucracy — ensuring they receive everything from veterans’ benefits to financial aid and visa assistance. Falling short, as Cawthorn did, hurt residents of the 11th Congressional District — there are nearly 750,000 of them — who deserved a representative that actually does the work.

But Cawthorn basically checked out after losing his primary in May, and even before that, he wasn’t around much. He missed a whole lot of votes and, by his own admission, he built his congressional staff around “comms not legislation.” Cawthorn confirmed last week that he has since moved to Florida — something that many had suspected for months. After Cawthorn shuttered his offices to new constituent casework in November, Edwards offered to use his office in the state legislature to help constituents with federal issues.

North Carolina will not miss Madison Cawthorn. He accomplished very little in his one and only term, unless you count the never-ending cycle of embarrassing national headlines. From warning of “bloodshed” if elections continue to be stolen to calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug,” his behavior brought shame to our state.

Indeed, his behavior often bordered on dangerous. He had a tendency to bring weapons to places they don’t belong, like school board meetings and airports. Days after losing his reelection bid, Cawthorn authored a sinister Instagram post about the rise of “Dark MAGA,” which he promised would “defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party.”

That’s what you get, however, when you elect unserious candidates who care more about lip service than leadership and legislating. Cawthorn may have gotten what he wanted — attention — but North Carolinians got little in return.

We’ve long said that we hope the Republican Party learns from Cawthorn’s disastrous tenure, but we’re not so sure it has. It took too long for Republicans to condemn Cawthorn, and they only did so once he became a liability. Their silence was what enabled Cawthorn’s ascension to power in the first place — as long as he voted with Republicans, the rest didn’t appear to matter. And it’s still happening: people like Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, who resemble Cawthorn both ideologically and rhetorically, are growing in power and influence.

We watched that play out on the House floor last week, as a group of 20 defectors engaged in a whole lot of stonewalling and performative politicking that ultimately gained them some troubling concessions from now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Cawthorn might have been among them, if he had still been in Congress. Thankfully, he wasn’t.

As shameful as Cawthorn’s attention-grabbing antics have been, what is perhaps most damning is his desertion of the people who elected him. Even on his way out the door, he let western North Carolina down. But as of last week, Cawthorn’s career in public service is mercifully over for his constituents and for North Carolina. We can only hope his public life fades as quickly.

This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 10:25 AM with the headline "Before leaving for Florida, Madison Cawthorn fails NC one more time | Opinion."